Taking Pictures of Food – What I Have Learned (Part 4)

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This is the last part of my series on what I have learned all these years taking pictures. As mentioned, in my previous three post, these are the planned topics:

• The Camera
• Camera Settings
• Taking the picture
• Post-processing – this post!

This final part is about post-processing. In a way, for most people, they would have stopped in the previous step, i.e., after taking the picture, they would use the JPEG file and that would be end of the story. However, there are times that, well, those pictures didn’t necessarily turn out the way you want it. For example, if a setting was wrong, white balance was incorrect or so on. True, while you can see it in the preview, the in camera preview is that big and can only show that much. Here is for the remaining cases – which, unfortunately for me, that would be >80% of the time. Yes, I am making a confession here: I am not a big shot photographer as people believe. I have still a lot to learn and need some help to produce those results you see here…

Now, one topic I would like to make clear before I continue. In my last post, I made mention of Photoshop. Yes, I do use Photoshop Elements; however, I only use it for three purposes: picture resizing, picture rotation (including horizontal/vertical flips) and adding my “signature”/watermark. Why I mention this? Because Photoshop has been so oftenly (ab)used that nowadays is almost a verb (on that note, I will generalize by saying “Photoshop” but that includes other apps like Picasa and, for old timers, Corel Draw and so on). So, let’s put this clear: post processing is about photo management with some minor editing capabilities, while Photoshop is about image editing. If we took a Venn diagram, there will be parts of post post processing that will not covered by Photoshop and viceversa. But what I consider key in the post processing side is that it is a non-destructive process. How so? Before I continue, a small discussion about file formats that cameras can take…

As mentioned initially in this post, most people would take their JPEG files and be happy about it. Well, it just happens that each camera can take pictures “as it sees” in its own unprocessed propietary format, called generally the RAW format (NEF file in Nikon, CR2 in Canon and so on). What this has to do with JPEG? Well, it just happens that JPEG files are “interpretations” of what is capture plus some “enhancements” internally. For example, one of the settings not discussed previously is that I have set my camera to image optimization to vivid (setting availability depends on the camera, there are even some cameras with a “food” setting!). Here is the kicker: that is based on the camera’s logic, there are times the end result is not necessarily what you might want. However, the fact most users are oblivious of settings like this mean, not to mention they don’t pay too much importance to this, mean not all the potential is used. In my case, by taking the picture in RAW, it allows me to make necessary adjustments as I see suitable (hence my >80% comment at the beginning).

So far so good… But what that has to do with post processing, JPEG, Photoshop and so on? Well, it just happens that RAW files are propietary and, while it can be read (to a certain extent, it is more of an “interpretation” of the RAW files), post processing of RAW files does not overwrite that RAW file. OK, let me try again: you have the RAW file, you have the changes file/database. Whenever you load it in your postprocessing application, it will read the RAW file and its applicable change file. If you make changes, you do not make changes to the RAW source file, instead it will be saved in that change file/database, hence you will always have the original data source. The same can’t be said of JPEG files, unless you save it as a different output file everytime. That is because JPEG is known to be a lossy format, i.e., everytime you save a JPEG file, some of the data is discarded, hence, after a couple of saves, what you get might not necessarily be what you had originally. So, translation of all this: In my opinion, if you are planning to make some level of editing/adjustments to your pictures, take them in RAW; if not, JPEG, for the most part will be fine.

Phew! That was a lot of thick technical detail! So, finally, let’s just go to the good stuff… OK, almost, hehehehe. If you plan to do post processing, the two major applications available nowadays are Adobe Lightroom (now called Adobe Photoshop Lightroom to confuse things a little bit) and Apple Aperture. In the case you use a Windows based computer, most likely you will use Lightroom; if you have a Mac, you have the option of either one. As for me, I use Apple Aperture. Now, FINALLY, the good stuff, by starting with a picture I took.

(Note, if you click on any of the pictures below, it will open in a new window. To avoid the degradation mentioned above, they were saved directly from the source. That is the reason you do NOT see my usual signature/watermark)

It has most of the “principles” discussed in the previous post, i.e., namely the rule of thirds. The central subject (the palm tree), is slightly off-centre and I tried to position it in the on the right side and create that “emptiness” on the left side. But, this is the JPEG version…

This is the RAW version, exported “as is” to JPEG. I won’t blame you if you say this looks “worst” than the JPEG version but, please remember, the camera itself has already made some conversion.

My first post processing adjustment: I changed the saturation to 1.15. Nothing too “noticeable” so far…

Now, I changed the highlights to 16.54. Notice that the blue tone is now lighter.

Next change is changing the Shadows to 15.0. The “darker” section, namely, the tree is now a bit lighter.

While it is a picture taken while the sun was out, because of the aperture/shutter speed settings used, it can get some help from the luminance settings. Here, they were changed to B:0.00, G:0.45, W:0.90.

Since I want to emphasize the blue of the sky, I edited the blue colour settings, i.e., saturation 50, luminance -45.8, range 2

Finally, to make it more “vibrant”, I edited the vibrancy setting to 0.35…

Two notes:

1. I know the numbers will not mean absolutely nothing to most of you. That is fine. That is not the intent. Post processing is one of those personal things where everybody might (and will!) do it differently. My point here is that changes were made and it shows what are the results of those changes
2. I could have kept on making changes to settings but, truth is, there ought to be a limit of how many changes you want to make. Eventually, you want to see that final picture/result!

Now, a second example of post processing.

Again, this is the “original” JPEG version of the picture.

This is the JPEG version of the RAW, “as is”.

There is no particular order which modifications should be made. So insists in the exposure, so here, I changed it to 0.91.

After changing the exposure, I “saturated” the picture by 1.30. That “concentrates” the colours but, still, there is something “missing”.

Followed by adjusting the luminance to B:0.00, G:0.45, W:0.80. This really brightens the picture!

And highlight to 22.69.

Since I wanted to emphasize the yellow green of the limes, I adjusted the green colour to saturation -60.0, luminance 25.0, range 0.

And a bit of the yellow colour to saturation 25.4, luminance 0, range 1.

So, there you go! Here is my little dirty secret. It is not that I take better pictures than anybody, instead, similar to photographers who make some adjustments in their darkrooms, I use post processing to adjust mine.

Having said that, I must reminder people these adjustments do not necessarily change the picture itself. It does not change what was served on the plate. Sure, it might make it more interesting/enticing but, remember, this is a blog and the pictures are mostly to suplement what is written (and not the other way around).

Hopefully you “enjoyed” this series and, if you take food pictures, this can help you even a little bit. And, if it does, please, let me a note!

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