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Mar
07
2011

Along the Jackson Hole Highway: Antelope Flats

Call it US 26, US, 89, US 191, or the more colorful Jackson Hole Highway, the main line that leads north from Jackson through Grand Teton National Park to the Moran Junction is among the great scenic roads on the planet.  The Jackson Hole Highway (JHH) starts at the north edge of Jackson, WY (yeah, the area is known as Jackson Hole, the town is simply Jackson), and runs north along the western boarder of the National Elk Refuge and through the length of Grand Teton National Park.

Soon after entering the park, the road crosses the Gros Ventres River and intersects the Gros Ventre Road (providing access to the Gros Ventre Campground, Kelly, Atherton Creek, and the Lower Slide Lake).  Following the JHH a bit further north bring you toMoose Junction, which is a major intersection in the park.  Heading northwest out of  Moose Junction on the Teton Park Road, one can explore the center of the park, which passes closers to the Tetons, and also provides access to park highlights such as Jenny Lake, Leigh Lake, and Jackson Lake.  Staying on the main line of the JHH leads to a series of excellent overlooks, the first of which is the Blacktail Ponds Overlook (above).

The images above of the Grand Tetons from the Blacktail Lakes Overlook, in color and  BW, were recorded at 08:00 on August 8, 2010, using the Nikon D3s and the AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED lens at 38mm.  Exposure was f/16 and 1/50s (+0.33 EV, normalized in ACR), ISO 200.  Coordinates of the Blacktail Pond Overlook site are 40 40.004N, 110 41.8716W.  Image converted to BW using Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.

A bit further north along the JHH brings you to the Schwabacher Landing Road, which leads down to the Snake River.  The spot provides an excellent view of the Grand Tetons with a minor branch of the Snake running across the foreground.  A short walks brings you to a beaver pond, which likewise provides an excellent foreground element for the Tetons.

The image above was recorded at around 08:35 on August 8, 2010, using the Nikon D2s and the AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED lens at 34mm.  Exposure was f/16 and 1/80s (+0.33 EV, normalized in ACR), ISO at 200.

Of course no visit to Grand Teton NP can be complete without a stop at the Ansel Adams fan Mecca that is the Snake River Overlook  (see below).  This location can be extremely crowded (preposterously crowded even), yet at other times, as on this morning, you will have the place to yourself.

The image of the Grand tetons from the Snake River Overlook was recorded at 10:00 on August 8, 2010, using the Nikon D3s and the AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED lens at 70mm.  Exposure was f/11 and 1/160s, ISO 200.  The image was converted to BW using Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.  Coordinates for the site are unnecessary – if you are reading this blog, you will know how to find the place…

The final stop on the Jackson Hole Highway tour will be the Cunningham Cabin site.  The cabin itself is pretty photogenic (didn’t make this cut though), as are the horses that are grazed nearby.  The key shot here is the lovely meadow with Buck-and-rail fences running through it with the Tetons in the background (see below in color and BW).

The image of the Grand Tetons was recorded at 11:10 on August 8, 2010, using the Nikon D3s and the AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G Ed lens at 62mm.  Exposure was f/16 and 1/100s (+0.33 EV, normalized in ACR), ISO 200.  The BW version was generated using Nik Silver Efex Pro2.

The JHH through Antelope Flats in Grand Teton National Park is undoubtedly one of the most spectacular 25 mile sections of roadway found anywhere.  It is also at times one of the busiest roads in any National Park.  In addition to the myriad visitors to Grand Teton, the Rockefeller Memorial Parkway, and Yellowstone National Parks, commercial traffic to and from Yellowstone and Gardner (MT), also makes use of the road.  Add to this, the air traffic that flies overhead (Jackson Hole Airport is literally in the park!), and at times the place can seem pretty crazy.  Pick your time carefully though, and you’ll find the magic.

Copyright 2011 Peter F. Flynn. No usage permitted without prior written consent. All rights reserved.

 

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Posted in BW Conversion, National Parks and Monuments | 2 Comments »

Mar
01
2011

Nik Silver Efex Pro 2: Brightness Tone Controls

In the previous entry (February 28) I introduced the image above, which is a shot of a Camellia bush I converted to BW using Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 (SEP2).  In this entry, I’ll review the major functions of the global and parametric Brightness tone controls.  In all cases the operation range of the tone controls ranges from -100% to +100%.

 

Brightness Tone Controls

In addition to global control of brightness, the Brightness control now has four parametric control elements: Highlights, Midtones, and Shadows, all of which work in the way in which we should expect, and in addition, a new function, Dynamic Brightness, has been added.

We first consider the effect of the global Brightness adjustment.  I’ll show the reference image first, followed by global Brightness set at -25, followed by global Brightness set at +25.

Reference Image (global Brightness set at 0%)

 

For the image below, global Brightness was set at -25%.

 

For the image below, global Brightness was set at +25%.

The global Brightness tone controls thus function as one would image, adjusting the overall brightness of the image.

 

Parametric Brightness Tone Controls

The parametric Brightness tone controls provide a significant improvement in the control over image brightness, and should reduce or eliminate the need to make selective adjustments to image brightness.  To demonstrate the parametric controls,. I’ll first again show the reference image, followed by variations in the Highlights, Midtones, and Shadows parametric controls.

 

Highlights Control

Reference Image: Global Brightness control at 0%, Highlights control at 0%

 

Highlights control set at -100%

 

Highlights control set at +100%

The intrinsic luminosity range present in the source image make even relatively extreme Highlights changes seem quite subtle.  The effect will obviously be more useful in images that are composed of significant highlights.

 

Midtones Controls

Reference Image: Global Brightness control at 0%, Midtones control at 0%

 

Midtones control set at -50%

 

Midtones control set at +50%

The source image is dominated by midtones, and therefore the influence of the Midtones control makes relatively significant changes in that luminosity range.

 

Shadows Controls

Reference Image: Global Brightness control at 0%, Shadows control at 0%

 

Shadows control set at -50%

 

Shadows control set at +50%

The source image contains significant amounts of shadow regions, and the influence of the Shadows control also makes significant changes in that luminosity range.

 

Dynamic Brightness

This tone adjustment control is new to SEP2.  The description of Dynamic Brightness found on the Nik SEP2 website indicates that:

Moving the slider to the left will darken the image overall, while keeping highlight detail. Moving the slider to the right will brighten the image overall, while keeping shadow detail.

With the source image used here, I find that moving the Dynamic Brightness slider toward negative values seems to darken the shadows differentially more than the midtones and highlights.  Oppositely, moving the Dynamic Brightness slider toward positive values, seems to lighten highlights differentially more than the midtones and shadows.  It’s an interesting tool, but I’ll have to use it much before I can say how generally useful it ends up being.

Reference Image: Global Brightness control at 0%, Dynamic Brightness control at 0%

 

Dynamic Brightness control set at +50%

 

Dynamic Brightness control set at +50%

 

Level and Curves Adjustments

Under the Film Types control section there is an option for making Photoshop Curves-like adjustments.  This adjustment tool was very popular in the original version of Silver Efex.  The parametric controls overlap significantly with this tool, however it is still a powerful and intuitive tone adjustment tool.

 

In the next entry, we consider the new Contrast control set.

Copyright 2011 Peter F. Flynn. No usage permitted without prior written consent. All rights reserved.

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Feb
28
2011

Notes on Nik Silver Efex Pro 2: Introduction

I’ve decided to make up some notes for myself on the new version of Nik Silver Efex Pro.  I’m posting them here so that I can access them anywhere – and so, obviously, can you.  Feel free to send corrections, opinions, et al.

The reference image for these notes will be the shot of a Camellia bush shown above.  The image was recorded at Cathedral Park in Portland, OR, at about noon on February 20, 2011, using the Nikon D3s and the most excellent AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR lens at 165mm.  Exposure was f/11 and 1/40s, ISO at 200.

Processing on the color version of the Camellia included white balance adjustment based on the WhiBal reference card (see the February 25 entry for a shot of the HP holding same), highlight recover in the RAW conversion (+13), and curves adjustments of the red and green channels followed by conversion of that layer to Luminosity blending mode.  Capture sharpening, midtone contrast enhancement, and output sharpening (for web) were applied using PhotoKit Sharpener 2.0 (the new version of PhotoKit Sharpener is really very good).  The upper of the two large flowers near the center is pretty high key, and although I could have normalized the brightness, I deliberately left it bright since that the way I saw it.

The version of the image that we will use for a workup in Silver Efex Pro 2, see below, is a minimalist version of the image above, which leaves out the curves adjustment and the midtone contrast enhancement, but adds a Hue/Saturation adjustment to boost the color saturation (+25 on the Master control) prior to BW conversion.

I start Silver Efex Pro 2 using the Nik Selective Tool, and by default the image is rendered using the Neutral Preset as shown below – click on the image to see a larger size version (opens in new window/tab).

Click on the image to see a larger size version

The default conversion (Neutral) actually looks pretty promising right from the start as shown below.

Typically, the first adjustments made to a converted image should involve tonal adjustments, e.g., brightness and contrast.  The Tone Control set from the original Silver Efex Pro, hereafter SEP, included Brightness, Contrast, and Structure controls, and semi-hidden in the Film Type section, a Tone Curve adjustment tool.  The Brightness and Contrast controls function in ways that will be familiar to anyone who has conducted even basic photo processing.  The Structure control was never been well-documented by the official Nik SEP software manual, which only suggests that the control emphasizes or deemphasizes ‘fine details throughout the image’.  According to the Lesson Site for SEP2, Structure control applies some sort of microcontrast enhancement that is restricted to areas within tonal regions, and that specifically avoids contrast adjustments at tonal interfaces (edges.)  This  remains unnecessarily cryptic in my book.  The effect is similar in some respects to the sort of enhancement one gets by applying a Photoshop Unsharp Mask contrast enhancement with values like 20, 50, and 0, respectively, for Amount, Radius, and Threshold.  Regardless, the ability to control contrast in this way in real-time is very powerful.

In Silver Efex Pro 2, hereafter, SEP2, the Brightness, Contrast, and Structure controls have been expanded to included parametric controls, which significantly expands the ability to fine tune the influence of the tone controls.  In the new feature set then, one can isolate adjustments, for example, to only the Highlights, leaving the midtone and shadows regions unaffected.

The parametric controls will be familiar to anyone who has used the ACR Tone Curve tool shown below.

In the next entry, I’ll review the Brightness tone controls in detail.

Copyright 2011 Peter F. Flynn. No usage permitted without prior written consent. All rights reserved.

 

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Posted in BW Conversion, Methods | 1 Comment »

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