Preparing Your Image for PhotoLooks

There is a wealth of information—and just as much misinformation—on the web and in print about how to shoot ph for the best results. Here is the short version of how you can shoot in preparation for PhotoLooks.

Turn Down the Sharpening

Many point and shoot cameras and digital SLRs let you choose the type of image that you will save as you shoot--typically JPEG or RAW. If you are shooting JPEG images for procesing in PhotoLooks, we recommend that you reduce the internal sharpening control to 0 or near zero. Harsh, over-sharpened edges can get baked into a JPEG image and cause halos or other image artifacts in Looks. Using post-sharpening tools in Photoshop is the easiest way to properly sharpen for the web or print. It’s worth experimenting with your camera’s settings to find the best sharpening amount, but it will almost certainly be less than the default setting.

Shoot in RAW Mode

Many cameras now have the ability to shoot in RAW format. Shooting in RAW gives you the abillity to refine the color balance in Photoshop Camera Raw and correct issue like distortion easily. This format also will allow you to generate a 16-bit image from Camera RAW with better highlight and shadow detail. This is the best starting format for an image that you will process in Looks, mainly because Looks will allow you to do EXTREME color/contrast/exposure changes to your image and the extra data in the Raw format will minimize noise and banding in the final output.

When shooting Raw format, choose the sharpening setting in Photoshop that you prefer. Camera Raw can be configured to set a specific amount of sharpening based on output format.

Choose the appropriate sharpening for your destination when processing Raw files

Don’t Overexpose

PhotoLooks does not react well to blown-out areas of the frame. If a hot or overexposed look is your desire, it’s far better to shoot at a normal exposure and use Magic Bullet PhotoLooks to burn it out later. It is best to "expose to the right" of the histrogram but maintain minimal clipping of whites in the frame. For example, if you are shooting a landscape with white clouds, you want to make sure that the white clouds don't have areas of pure white—this will look bad in any output medium.

Many cameras have an option to display overexposed areas in live view mode. The image preview can be set to show blown out areas that register as pure white. This is a very helpful option when shooting for PhotoLooks. A ND Grad filter can help keep sunny skies from blowing out, and putting one on the camera will even do a better job than PhotoLook’s built-in Grad and Exposure tools!

Don’t Underexpose

When you underexpose your image, you are using the part of the digital sensor with the least tonal accuracy. A loss of tonal accuracy means that you will see noise—such as blue and red speckles—and banding in the image as you bring the image up to a "normal" exposure level. Brightening up a dark, underexposed image will bring out all the compression and noise that you never knew was there.

Shoot it Plain

As an owner of Magic Bullet PhotoLooks, you have a very powerful image adjustment tool at your fingertips. Shoot your footage as “normal” looking as possible, and wait until you get it into Photoshop and using Magic Bullet to create the looks you have in mind. This gives you the power and control to change your mind about how you want it to look. This means avoiding color filters or diffusion filters on the camera (with the exception of the ND Grad mentioned above), and setting the white balance to the correct camera preset or custom white balance for the type of light you’re using.

Many of the presets in PhotoLooks add film-like contrast to your image. If you are starting with a preset, it is best to make sure that you are starting with a "flat" image, i.e. an image with limited contrast, since Looks can supply all the contrast you need (and more).

Print-specific Tips

PhotoLooks is designed to be resolution agnostic but some of the settings are optimized for images that are 8-12 megapixels in size (approximately 4000 pixels wide). Larger images from 4x5 digital backs or high-end digital SLRs can generate much larger images. If you are using very large images AND starting with a preset, it is best to reduce the Diffusion Size control by half the indicated value since this control bases the results on the size of the input image. So for example, if you are working with a 21 megapixel image from a Canon professional camera, it is best to change the default Size value for the Diffusion tool from 30% to 15%. This will make the result less diffuse but closer to the originally intended result.

See the note above about setting Raw sharpening controls in the Camera Raw dialog.

Video Tip

If you are loading frames from video many of the same tenants as photo processing apply. Video tends to be compressed so it is even more important not to allow clipping, to turn down sharpening and to try to shoot your scenes flat. If you want more specific video information, see the Magic Bullet Looks documentation or check out Stu Maschwitz's DV Rebel's Guide from Peachpit Press.