Author: JH

This entry is somewhat specific and very boring for most. But I do get a lot of email regarding the technical side of my work, so here we go. If you don’t know what a “raw conversion” is–consider yourself blessed, and don’t read this. If you do know, but happen to be mentally extremely stable and want to try out the main raw converters all by yourself, go ahead (and don’t read on…). But if you do have to convert your digital raw files into something that looks nice enough for that solo show in the MoMA, and don’t want to waste an entire week in front of your computer comparing raw converters, this is my brief summary on this particular issue:

Basically, the better digital cameras all offer a Raw format option. A raw file is the best starting point for a high quality, large format print simply because, compared to JPG, the raw file gives you some latitude for improving the color and contrast of the image without quality loss (think “digital negative”). If you’re interested in working from raw files, it’s usually a good idea to start with the raw conversion software of your camera brand. In my case that is mostly Canon, so Canon “Digital Photo Professional” (DPP) it is. To find out what I’m missing, I did test Canon’s DPP against Apple’s Aperture, Adobe’s Lightroom, and LightCraft’s LightZone.

Since none of these four applications, at this point, provides all the necessary options to achieve the file quality that I want, my personal workflow requires a raw converter that leaves as little work as possible for Photoshop. I do expect this to change at some point, and Photoshop becoming mostly obsolete *for what I do*. Hence I am interested in picking the raw converter that gives me best file quality now, but also has the most promise to replace Photoshop in the future. I tested many files, the ones you see here are just two (Canon cameras at times have a problem with reds; some converters fail with very dark, high ISO images; and neutral greys can be a problem too. Hence the image of three traffic cones at night was amongst my test files).

I like refined interfaces, and in that regard Aperture is very attractive. But at this point the OS X raw engine (which Aperture relies on) has an odd rendering bug that slightly changes the pixel dimensions of all my Canon raw files. How this can go unnoticed in a 1.5.2 version is beyond me, especially with a CEO as demanding as Steve Jobs. And there are some digital artifacts in some conversions, especially in highlight areas–not good. So, Aperture at this point is not for me. On to LightZone (version 2.1): This is a very interesting application, from another company at Palo Alto (albeit a much smaller one than Apple). LightZone is very intuitive to work with for people who know the Ansel Adams zone system and find Photoshop daunting. Well, I am someone who likes, if necessary, to dig down to the last pixel, so LightZone was not for me either. But their approach is quite unique (at this point it is almost the only raw converter that allows you to edit “regions”) and I would suspect that either Adobe or Apple will buy them very soon.

That left Canon DPP and Lightroom. DPP is at version 2.2, Lightroom just made it to version 1.0. DPP is of course very well attuned to the Canon files. Colors are usually excellent with little fuss. Once you know DPP well, it will save you a lot of time. The look of the digital shadow noise in dark high ISO files is just beautiful, not unlike a very refined kind of film grain (like Kodachrome 200). And the black and white conversions are outstanding–when it comes to black and white, there is often very little work left in Photoshop for me. Probably the biggest downside of DPP: There is zero latitude in the highlights. Also, an image with tricky colors can leave you with a lot of work in Photoshop, especially regarding red hues.

Adobe Lightroom made quite a leap from the feeble public betas of last year. The community already seems to be huge, and lively. Somehow one gets the impression that no later than at version 2.0, this thing will be the 800 pound gorilla of raw conversion. I like the interface best of all four applications tested, very slick, economic, and quite unobtrusive (some seem to hate it though). Control over colors is excellent, control over contrast (especially mid tones and regional contrast) at this point is lacking though. As to black and white conversions and Lightroom: At times I could not get them anywhere near to what I get from DPP, even if I tried ten times harder. And Lightroom lumps digital noise of high ISO files into something that does not look good to me, especially in the shadows. But that is only in comparison to DPP, which again excels in this regard.

Bottom line: For black and white, it’s DPP only for me at this point. For color, Lightroom is my first choice. I admit that I *want* to like Lightroom because I think it’s going to have a lot of legs. I also really like both the interface and the open architecture of this application. Still, DPP is not only excellent for black and white conversions but for color too–in that regard, I think one has to make a case by case decision between Lightroom and DPP. There’ll be a new version of DPP in April, and Lightroom will probably make it’s next leap not too long after that. Oh, the traffic cone images: The lighter version comes from DPP and required quite a bit of retouching in Photoshop. The end result is a little “off”, but I think in a refined way. I like it. The other, more saturated one, comes from Lightroom and only needed a fairly reasonable amount of Photoshop. In this case it’s the one I’ll keep.

While I am inching closer towards an announcement that may be big news as to who the real father of Anna Nicole Smith’s baby is, during the past week I could not help but remember my splendid years at law school back in Germany. Although I have never seen a German judge break down and cry while announcing a verdict, I have always been fascinated by the apparent willingness of human beings to display, and consume, high pitched drama in court. Just one example: As a junior lawyer, I witnessed a judge become slightly impatient with a rather inconsistent and seemingly meek defendant. Quite surprisingly for my inexperienced self, as soon as the defendant felt cornered by the questioning, she switched her behavior within a second––screamed, burst into tears… the whole show. When the session finally came to an end, some observer in the back of the room, apparently a schoolteacher with his class on a rather odd field-trip, got up, gasping “wasn’t that fantastic?”. I guess I still find it difficult to see what, in all the misery, flakiness and irrationality commonly in display during such trials could possibly be considered fantastic.

And still my eyes have been glued to the television screen during the “Who-gets-the-Anna-Nicole-Smith-Corpse” hearings. Oh well, three days of my life down the drain, and no end in sight. At this point I cannot even justify the waste of time with my standard argument that watching t.v. is an essential part of my cultural studies. Perhaps, if one seeks a nice, cultural studies-like way of putting it, one might speak of ‘tragic irony’: that everyone would like to be the rich beauty, or grab any slice of the American Dream whatsoever, even if it means utter destitution. So, on with the pursuit of happiness by free men, as Thomas Jefferson put it: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” I think only after the invention of court t.v. one can fully appreciate the genius of this fine distinction: There’s no such thing as a *right* to happiness, only a right to *pursue* it…

The following article from the BBC news site––about pig farming, murder, and disposing of bodies––seems like a great (albeit somewhat sickening) read in its own right. But somehow the story also reminded me of the current art gallery lingo that distinguishes between pure “artists working in a lens based medium” (even if they drive to their shoots in Ferraris) and others who dirty their hands and stain their souls with “commercial” [sic] photography. It may not be immediately apparent what triggers recollection here, and admittedly, the various analogies which I have in mind are somewhat vague. When in the classic movie Harry describes his and Sally’s newly difficult relationship––friends becoming lovers, remember––with reference to the aging of dogs, she understandably asks ‘And who’s supposed to be the dog in this scenario?’ Along these lines, you might wonder, who in the world of photographers and gallery owners is supposed to be the pig farmer and the mass murderer? The chain of associations must remain vague. But one thing seems clear: The artist-photographer who turns out to have done commercial work is like the killer who buried his bodies, and let’s hope it was less than 50 commercial jobs he did! Or, alternatively, let’s hope that he doesn’t get sloppy at the end, so that the bodies never turn up.

Hence, again, a disclaimer: I do not quote the following piece here because of a newfound interest in agriculture––certainly not in the literal sense. From the BBC news section, Pig Farmer ‘Planned More Murders’:

“Canadian murder suspect Robert Pickton admitted he had killed 49 women and eventually wanted to murder 75, an undercover policeman has testified.

Mr Pickton is alleged to have made the comments in a prison cell conversation with the agent after his 2002 arrest. The 57-year-old pig farmer is accused of murdering 26 women – all prostitutes and drug addicts – who disappeared over a period of more than a decade. He is initially being tried for six murders. He has pleaded not guilty.

The undercover officer, who cannot be named in accordance with a court order, was testifying before the jury was played a videotape of the secretly filmed conversation. He says he won Mr Pickton’s confidence when he shared a cell with him in February 2002, posing as a man facing attempted murder charges.

The officer told the court that Mr Pickton indicated first with hand gestures that he had killed 49 women and wanted to kill one more – holding up five digits and making a zero with his other hand. At that point the officer allegedly asked “50?” and Mr Pickton replied: “I was going to do one more – make it an even 50.” The officer said Mr Pickton later told him that once he reached a total of 50 victims he planned to take a break then kill another 25.

The officer testified that when the pig farmer returned to his cell after 11 hours of police interrogation, Mr Pickton boasted that he had killed more people than US killer Gary Ridgeway, the so-called Green River killer – who in 2003 admitted killing 48 prostitutes. “They never seen anything like this before,” Mr Pickton said, adding that he was “bigger than the Green River”. The officer testified that Mr Pickton said “his only problem was that he got sloppy at the end”.

Mr Pickton was also accused of indicating that he had used a meat rendering plant to dispose of some of the bodies. The officer said he suggested that the sea was a good place to dispose of a body. “I did better than that,” Mr Pickton allegedly responded. “Rendering plant.”

Prosecutors say Mr Pickton butchered the women after he killed them and disposed of the remains on his pig farm outside Vancouver. Police investigators spent months sifting through the farm collecting evidence. During their opening statements prosecuting lawyers said the police believed he got rid of the women’s bodies by feeding them to his pigs.

A judge decided to split the case in two because the volume of forensic evidence collected from Mr Pickton’s pig farm could have overwhelmed the jury.”