Jump to content
UltravioletPhotography

UG5 test: how do I get that nice green?


msubees

Recommended Posts

I got the UG5 to simulate bee vision -- did not really want to combine visual and UV shots to achieve that (call me lazy). This is natural since for my day job I study honey bees.

 

I did not get the nicer green from what UVIRoptic did. He says I have to finetube my white balance.

 

I used in camera white balance, then used Photo Ninja again (using the same white Teflon as reference, for photo2).

shot with G5, S8612 (1.75mm) + UG5 (2mm).

 

photo 1.

black eyed susan (plenty in my garden).

post-41-0-52970100-1408890875.jpg

 

photo 2.

black eyed susan on the block of white balance reference. I used Photo Ninja to WB again so the white looks pretty white to me, but the green did not change.

post-41-0-76823600-1408890887.jpg

 

UG5's ebay image:

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NDQwWDE0MDA=/z/Me4AAOxy3HJTGlcX/$_57.JPG

Link to comment

Zach, can you put a raw into Dropbox and let me play with it?

I think you are close to the effect you want.

 

 

The desired look shown in your post was made from a D7000 shot.

I'm not sure you can completely attain it with a Lumix photo, but you can get close.

Something more like this?? (Working on a jpg is not as effective as it will be on a raw.)

post-41-0-52970100-1408890875pfResize.jpg

Link to comment

Andrea,

 

Yes, you did it! Definitely closer than mine. I looked at private message and there does not seem to be an attaching option?

 

I will upload one here but do not link, so only you or Bjorn can see it... Thanks!

 

Please let me know the steps (or save a "copy setting" file, not sure if that is doable in photo ninja).

 

(oops, it says "Error You aren't permitted to upload this kind of file"). max file size might also be smaller than my raw file.

Link to comment
Do you have Dropbox app? That's usually how we pass back and forth raw files.
Link to comment
enricosavazzi

Zach,

 

it seems you are already on your way to solve the problem. However, if it is any help, I found that the combination of UG5 and S8612 (or any of the BG) is very sensitive to the type of illumination source being used. With some sources, the green comes out fine without any post-processing. With others, it comes out more like brown or ocher and may be difficult to recover in post-processing. It might help to artificially increase the amount of VIS blue radiation illuminating the subject (not with a filter in front of the UV source, which may result in cutting UV, but with an additional radiation source like a blue LED torch or an additional exposure with a blue filter).

Link to comment

Zach, here is what I got from the RW2 raw files.

 

In Photo Ninja go to the Color Enhancement Page.

 

1) Set Base Style to Plain.

 

2) Turn off all colours except Yellow by moving the Saturation slider for each colour patch all the way to the left. Note that this shows you that your in-camera white balance has produced a recording of the rudbeckias in the expected yellow and "grey-yellow" tones.

 

3) Move the Hue Shift slider for the Yellow patch to about 35 to obtain a green center for the rudbeckias while keeping the petal tips more yellow. If you move it too far the flowers turn too green. (Actually the green you are trying to match does have a little bit of yellow in it.)

 

4) Because the Base Style is Plain, we now have to push the Saturation slider for the Yellow patch up to between 30-40 or so.

 

5) Finally, move the Lightness slider for the Yellow patch to about -10. This darkens the flowers a bit, but that is OK because their centers have been slightly washed out by the passed violet/blue light.

 

6) Now you can decide whether you want to restore the cyan (and maybe blue} colour by returning its Saturation slider to 0. In the attached jpgs, I did not do that because the background cyan looked a little strange.

 

P1110976pn01.jpg

 

Here is a screen shot of the Color Enhancement page showing the Yellow patch settings.

Screen Shot 2014-08-26 at 11.49.20 PM.jpg

 

The same settings also worked for the other rudbeckia photograph with the grasshopper.

The grasshopper appears to be UV-reflective mostly. "-)

P1110975pn01.jpg

 

The same settings did not quite work for the photo of the flower on the white teflon because in that scene there was too much dynamic range for the camera to handle causing the teflon area to be blown out and unusable for white balance fine-tuning while the flower was a little too dark to see the details well. So for this photo I used the same sliders as just described but with a setting of only -2 for the Lightness slider of the Yellow patch. But I also had to make some adjustments also on the Exposure and Detail page: -.40 exposure, -1.00 highlights, +1.00 shadows, -10 contrast. I'm not sure I helped this photo or hurt it!

P1110997pn01.jpg

 

Here is the Nasturtium. I tuned the white balance a bit. In Plain base style, the Yellow patch's Saturation slider was increased to between 35-40 and the Blue patch's Saturation slider to 20-25. Then I moved the Blue patch's Lightness slider to -5.

On the Exposure and Detail page: illumination +10, exposure -.50, highlights -.70 and shadows +1.00.

P1110994pn01.jpg

 

I hope this helped !!!!

Link to comment

Andrea,

 

Many many thanks! I will try to see if I can duplicate what you did. I found PhotoNinja very slow (in loading photos), even on my 6 core office machine! a bit strange. Photoshop loads faster.

Link to comment

I'm using Photo Ninja as a 64-bit App on Macs. Photos load quickly but sometimes the little wheel spins after some edits, but mostly I've found it pretty speedy. App performance seems to vary so much across the various machines.

 

In playing with the RW2 photo in Photo Ninja, I did not find a particular colour area which could be white-clicked for an "instant" fix on the dark-green-with-touch-of-yellow center that you wanted. It is possible that other Apps would perform differently on that.

 

In Photo Ninja, you can save the Color Enhancement settings for this green/yellow look under the Preset button on that page. Or you can save them in a global Preset. Presets make some of the editing work easier.

Link to comment
right now my photoninja will automatically apply a setting i did earlier...(+2 exposure for most UV shots). how do I prevent it from doing that?
Link to comment

My PC version is also 64 bit, but I found it taking sometimes minutes to open a file waiting for "recovering highlights"....maybe it is my laptop (i-7). in my office I have a core 6 AMD but I also have to wait.

 

Andrea I tried your method and it definitely works!

 

here is one without editing (straight jpeg). I whitebalanced the virgin TPFE in shade which seems to help bring more green (and -2 EV before setting WB).

post-41-0-63488800-1409887229.jpg

 

here is one I used your method, except in GREEN color I slided the saturation to rightside to get a bit more green.

 

post-41-0-58653300-1409887194.jpg

 

Enrico, I will need to have another torch to try your method..

Link to comment

Looking good, Zach!

 

The saturation slider will probably vary in amount needed from shoot to shoot. Just remember not to push it too far because saturation can begin to obscure fine detail at some point.

 

A good test for that is to temporarly desaturate your photo and then return the colour. You don't want to see details disappear when the colour is turned back on.

Link to comment

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...