Digital Flexibility, Difficult Image Files And The Fuji X-T2

Original RAW file directly out of the Fuji X-T2 (click to enlarge)
As described below, the sun's position was directly behind the train
Fuji X-T2, 16-55mm f/2.8 lens @ 55mm; 1/1000th @ f/10; ISO 400

Often times our digital image files are not ideal.  For whatever reason, be it poorly exposed images, difficult lighting conditions or just not thinking it through before pressing the shutter button, we find ourselves with image files that are less than optimum.  Still, we want to "save" the image as it/they might have some meaning to us.  Can we save them?  For the most part with today's digital cameras and editing tools, yes.  How do we save them?  That is a complicated question and the correct answer is probably "it depends."  

Correcting a less then optimum file depends upon your knowledge, skill level, your willingness to spend time to correct the image, whether or not you made the image in RAW or JPEG, your camera's ability to capture data that looks to be lost in the file as well as the capability of the editing tools you may use.  "It depends" seems to be the universal answer to most photographic questions.

By no means would I classify myself as "excellent" with editing tools.  I would, at best, classify myself as proficient.  I usually can do what I want to do and find the tools, either in Lightroom, Photoshop or one of the plug-ins I use, to accomplish my goal.  I wish I were an expert!

This is what the file would have looked like if I would have initially given it 3 stops more exposure in order
to expose for the front of the locomotive, trees and foreground.  However, with digital files today
it is much easier to raise and recover the shadows than try to successfully bring back highlights.  That is why I chose the
exposure above.  I felt I would have a better chance in bridging the extreme dynamic range of the image
by setting my exposure to capture the skies rather than having an ugly, white/gray, bald sky.

I found myself in exactly that position recently when photographing the last run of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus train as it made its last run out of Norfolk Virginia earlier this month.  In the case of the image file illustrated here, the lighting was very difficult and the dynamic range of the scene extreme.

The Norfolk Southern Railroad track between Suffolk, Virginia and Petersburg, Virginia is a straight line running southeast to northwest.  The train was leaving Norfolk in the morning so that meant the train would be either backlit or almost directly backlit when trying to photograph it on its northwesterly journey during the morning hours.  A little pre-planning using Google Maps® and the Photographer's Ephemeris® or other like tools allowed me to know the conditions before I arrived.

The dynamic range for this image, as you can see, was extreme as the sun was directly behind and above the locomotive.  Since the train was moving at 60 mph (96.5kph), there was no chance to take multiple exposures, then combine them to accommodate the difference in the brightest sky area with the darkness of the front of the black locomotive.  I could have used a 3 stop graduated ND filter to bring down the luminance of the sky but, a) I don't have one and b) in trying to get ahead of the train again to photograph it more than once during its journey (remember it was traveling at 60mph) only gave me about 30 seconds from the time I parked my vehicle to the time I walked over to where I wanted to photograph the train. I'm not sure that, if I had a split grad filter, that I would have had time to put it on, position it, then use it handheld. Everything is a compromise and we must do the best we can with what we have.

My strategy was to underexpose the overall image as it is much easier to recover shadow detail than recover highlight detail.  What I didn't want was a white bald sky.  There aren't many things uglier in a photo than a bald white or light gray sky with no texture of color. There may be some noise in the shadow areas, but I can deal with that successfully during the editing process.

The image at the top of the post is from the RAW file straight out of the camera.  It is about 3 stops underexposed.  But there is texture and some color in the sky.

The second image is what the file would have looked like if I would have "correctly" exposed for the foreground and front of the locomotive.  Almost certainly, I would not have been able to successfully recover any sky detail, texture or color as my tests show I can successfully underexpose an X-T2 file more than 4 stops but it can only handle about 2 or so stops of overexposure and still have decent image quality.

How did I edit the file?  Here are how my sliders are set in the Basic panel in the Lightroom Develop Module:

White Balance                   
     Temp                             5558
     Tint                                +7
Exposure                         +1.06
Highlights                          0.00
Shadows                             +79
Whites                               -35
Blacks                                  0
Clarity                                +31

Then I used the graduated filter tool to add density and a bit of color to the sky.  I did this by moving the temperature slide toward the blue side of the scale (-17), the Clarity slider to +38 to bring out texture in the clouds and the Exposure slider to about -1/3 of a stop.  I brought the bottom of the grad filter down over the the top 2/3 of the front of the locomotive, then used the brush tool within the grad filter to remove the effect on the locomotive, overhead signals and other miscellaneous items like the leaves of the tree on the left.

I also used the same tool to slightly lighten and whiten the "ballast" around the tracks. Ballast is the name railroads give to the rocks that hold tracks and ties in place.  In case of the Norfolk Southern RR, they are made of white and light gray granite. (In the film days we would take a light meter reading off the ballast and use it to calculate a correct exposure as, overall, it was middle gray toned).

Next, I used the brush tool to slightly lighten and warm the front of the locomotive as it was a little blueish being in full shadow.  Noise was also removed from these shadow areas.

I then cropped the image to achieve what you see directly below.  My goal was not to reproduce reality but my vision as to how I wanted the image to appear when I set out to press the shutter button.

Edited final mage (click to enlarge)

I hope this was helpful to some of you.  Don't give up if you have an image that looks like it can't be saved.  You would be amazed at what digital files will give you to work with, even though it may not appear as such when you first look at them.

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

All content on this blog is © 2013-2017 Dennis A. Mook. All Rights Reserved. Feel free to point to this blog from your website with full attribution. Permission may be granted for commercial use. Please contact Mr. Mook to discuss permission to reproduce the blog posts and/or images.