Thank you very much Mike. Just got back to the PC. Hope tomorrow I can experiment a bit more.

Just looking at your settings will get me out of my, "confined thinking" using QIU. I never imagined using a radius of 8.. for anything. I'm going back to the photos I have already played with and will start again. Conservative by nature I suppose...must expand the use of the tools you have provided.

Can see that QIU can probably be used to extended softening of portrait backgrounds when required. Some of my best portrait shots have been unintended....then the PP softening is required...bokeh effect.

I am always fearful of checking "shadow noise" after using TTS. Does it soften the photo after sharpening? You seemed to use it effectively combined with, -100 strength.

I am still amazed at how well this program works. You never (or at least I have not) experience the "photo shopped" look. The corrections all blend.. just as you remember when taking the photo.

Thank you again. Will gladly attempt to absorb QIU advice from the experts.

Ken

Jeff,
Mike's rendition is very close to yours. Only the White Balance is the glaring difference.
His noise reduction approach is unique. I didn't think of doing that -100 sharpening either.
Nevertheless, there is more than one way to set the controls to get a fine image result.
Mike will tell you himself, that his numbers are his way of getting the most out of the image, but other settings work as well too.
Was the sky blue when you took that shot?
I have shots with a morning pink, even with a purplish hue sky. You could have gone subjectively with your sky.
The rich blue is beautiful, but your job was also fine.

Fred

Would like to see some examples with people and backlighting.  Normally, outdoors - especially just shooting "snapshotty" kinds of things, I wouldn't be shooting raw - but I could change if this would work.  Always have problems if I get photo I really like because by the time I have gotten facial featues to the proper exposure and flesh tones, I have often blown out the backgrounds and in fact everrything that's not part of the face.  So, if anyone has fooled around with this enough to have some of those examples - please post.

Mel W

It just goes to show how seemingly small adjustments can effect the result.  I think you are all being kind to me

Thanks Mike for suggestions, Raw default noise setting now under test.

Jeff

   

I searched through my folders to find the most extreme example I could come up with.  This is my most extreme example of salvaging a backlit raw.  Not great but I could produce a photo that I could at least post in my basement to keep the rats out. 

Standard exposure:


Fill +20, no other mods:


The new fill (in v2010.122 and later) was redesigned to make sure you still get a near-linear tone curve no matter how hard you push the fill light.  Prior versions (and the fill lights in most other software I tried too) tended to give garish skin tones once you reach +15 or so.  In the latest QU, you can push the fill to ridiculous levels and you'll still get accurate color.  Took me two weeks to solve the math for that one!  But it works.

Mike

You guys all have a lot more raw talent than I do.  But seriously, I like both examples.  And I'll get there but it will take a while. 

When I first started using qimage in 2003, shooting raw was the last thing I would have thought of - in fact probably did even know what it was at the time as I was still trying to get used to this whole digital thing.  At the time my trusty Mamiya TLR and Pentax 6x7 were still sitting close by awaiting their next use. It never came, and this past winter, I finally packed up my enlarger, analyzer, and most of my darkroom, in the silly thought that someone might want the stuff. 

So I gradually developed my own workflow and techniques with qimage and jpegs, and by the time I bought my D200 I had consistency in my results.  Sometime last year - when Qstudio first introduced raw, I started slowly to experiment with it, and now use it for a lot of the pictures I take in my "studio" (Rube Goldberg version).  Now with Qimage, I can do in about ten minutes, what might have been a half day darkroom session - or more - since you really had to wait for prints to dry to evaluate them. The only darkroom technique I have really missed is the ability to dodge and burn in - and maybe - just maybe - this latest improvement to the fill light gets me closer than I have yet been to having that at last. (By the way - I hate the PSE dodge/burn - you have to select highlights, shadows or midtones - and the darn thing never really looks right).

Just from my little bit of experimenting tonight, even the improvements to the fill light in the image editor are significant.  But in any case, I will now be shooting even more raw and seeing what I can do woth it.

and the image processed as a JPG

Click the Images to enlarge.