Salvage Saturday

Ben Egbert

Forum Helper
Staff member
Time to pile on with your reprocessed images. Multiple images welcome

This image of the Great White Throne in Zion NP had such dark shadows that pulling anything out back in the day ended up with banding in shadows. DXO and ACR get the job done now without much ado. Makes me wonder if it's the cameras or software that have improved.


141104-0651-5dm3-CR2_DxO_DeepPRIME.jpg
 

AlanLichty

Moderator
Nice recovery Ben - I am falling in the camp of the software being a huge factor. The biggest camera improvements have been in how well the camera sensors work in low light but at the same time I have been more than a bit surprised at how well DxO and ACR/LR can yank back details in the shadows I didn't think my older cameras were capable of resolving.

It is hard to overlook what a modern sensor can do with higher ISOs in low light however.
 

AlanLichty

Moderator
My salvage job for today was a somewhat lackluster shot from an evening at the Harris Beach marine garden. At the time I shot this I hadn't figured out that this wasn't the best spot to shoot a sunset in that park so the light angle was all wrong. Lots of deep shadows needed some more light and in the end I took some liberties with the overall color to give it a more pleasing palette.

HBSP-MarineGardenSunset012816.jpg


Edit: As a point of comparison and reenforcement for current generation processing software here is a SOOC copy of the original RAW file:

HBSP-MarineGardenSunset012816-SOOC.jpg
 
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JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
Time to pile on with your reprocessed images. Multiple images welcome

This image of the Great White Throne in Zion NP had such dark shadows that pulling anything out back in the day ended up with banding in shadows. DXO and ACR get the job done now without much ado. Makes me wonder if it's the cameras or software that have improved.


View attachment 56679
An awesome start Ben!

And yeah, it does make you wonder what was holding us back? The cameras back then did not have as much dynamic range or IQ as the ones do today. That's a fact. So today's cameras are better in terms of quality. But the software being able to go and now pull this amount of detail?

Maybe the question is which has improved the most in the last 20 years? The cameras or the software. I am thinking it's the software that has made the largest improvement. It would sure seem by your example here.
 

John Holbrook

Well-Known Member
Time to pile on with your reprocessed images. Multiple images welcome

This image of the Great White Throne in Zion NP had such dark shadows that pulling anything out back in the day ended up with banding in shadows. DXO and ACR get the job done now without much ado. Makes me wonder if it's the cameras or software that have improved.


View attachment 56679
Beautiful image Ben—love the light!
 

John Holbrook

Well-Known Member
My salvage job for today was a somewhat lackluster shot from an evening at the Harris Beach marine garden. At the time I shot this I hadn't figured out that this wasn't the best spot to shoot a sunset in that park so the light angle was all wrong. Lots of deep shadows needed some more light and in the end I took some liberties with the overall color to give it a more pleasing palette.

View attachment 56681

Edit: As a point of comparison and reenforcement for current generation processing software here is a SOOC copy of the original RAW file:

View attachment 56682
Great editing Alan, love the resulting image!
 

sweetgrass

Well-Known Member
Love both images—great skies in both. I like the subtlety of the moonlit landscape colors.
Thank you John, there was noise in both due to the low light, and Topaz removed it perfectly for my eyes. Thanks to the forum for the recommendation of both Topaz and DxO. DxO has made my IR processing so much quicker. Also to note, is that monsoon cell in the distance, hit us hard, with lightening and a torrential down pour that lasted for over an hour.
 
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