Halo?

[IkarusJohn]

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I must confess to being a complete beginner in digital processing - I have tended to make minor adjustments till I get what I want (roughly). It's all a bit hocus pocus to my mind.

 

Looking at Steve Huff's latest posting about the M9 compared to the M camera, down the page there is a picture of a brick building - a bit muddy to my eye, but what has happened to the sky? Around the building and the tress, the sky is lighter, a bit like everything is surrounded by a halo.

 

This is probably a dumb question, but what causes this? I assume it's some (ove)adjustment made in LightRoom of some other post processing program.

 

Cheers

John

[jaapv]

That is typical for a sharpening error with an Monochrome file.

 

Some users do not sharpen the MM files at all,and the results are very good. I prefer to apply a very mild sharpening before printing or the web, more for general midtone contrast, but one must be very careful to avoid artifacts like this.

 

I do not know what causes this wide halo effect, but it may have to do with the fact that sharpening does not sharpen anything at all, it just enhances edge contrast to the point of creating (narrow) halos which give the optical illusion of sharpness.

[adan]

The halo in that shot is what we in newspapers used to call "hand of god" dodging and burning. Making a picture more dramatic and "centered" by darkening the edges, and also, in this case, dodging (lightening) the front of the backlit building. with a soft edge extending into the sky.

 

Huff also did a version of this in the preceding shot of the overgrown abandoned house.

 

W. Eugene Smith was the granddaddy of the "hand of god" look in his expressionistic photo stories for LIFE and others - but then, Smith was God, so can be allowed some leeway :

 

http://artblart.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/mgb11_p_smith_11_maude_delivery-web.jpg

 

http://robc224.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/w_eugene_smith_1.jpg

 

The "muddy" is due to desaturating the color ("grayer" blues in the sky and reds in the bricks than natural). Common post-processing practice in Hollywood these days to make movies more moody, and quickly adapted by photographers to make totally content-free pix look like they have some deeper meaning.

[jaapv]

My bad. I thought it was a badly processed MM shot

[250swb]

Another example of a photographer using a lot of obvious dodging and burning is Ralph Gibson

 

Ralph+Gibson+1 - Rafael Roa Fotografía y más

 

There are two extremes to it, the confident photographer such as Gibson or Smith, who sometimes use it in an extreme way because they know that you know it is artifice, making a statement for them, or the novice who just goes over the top and the result is a darkroom or post processing accident. Somewhere in the middle are the traditionalists, people who use dodging and burning in the more usual sense of balancing the elements in the image so the viewers eye is drawn in the right direction. Done well (and subtly) it can raise an image to greatness, done badly it can ruin an image.

 

Steve

[IkarusJohn]

To be honest, I find it very unattractive