My Smoke Photography

[786soul]

I recently did a small home setup shoot to try getting some good shots of an incense stick burning. I've seen it done before and really liked the results I got. See following picture:

Now I fiddled a bit in photoshop for the tint/color but that's not the reason I was posting. I saw a little issue in the shots I took but wondered why they still occur. First, here's how I had it setup:

1 White bulb light to provide lighting of smoke
1 430EXii strobe to fire per shot
1/200 shutter speed
f/16 aperture #
ISO 100
AWB

Here's the issue however; you'll see it in this image of the 100% crop of the same image.

How would I minimize the noise that is there at the 100% crop? I really want to get one or two of these printed large or even sent to stock agencies and I KNOW that noise is a major reason why photos are denied.

C&C greatly appreciated.

 

[agerone]

this is really strange, iso 100, are you sure?
I just passed the crop image in photoshop, then at "filter>noise>reduce noise" use these settings:
Strength: 10; Preserve Details: 0%; Reduce Color Noise: 0%; Sharpen Details: 0%; DON'T Remove JPEG Artifact
Noise is gone now, image stays sharp and clean, BUT looses a bit of detail.
I think it looks all better now!

EDIT: Maybe under "Preserve Details: 10%" would be better here

 

[786soul]

....
I just passed the crop image in photoshop, then at "filter>noise>reduce noise" use these settings:
Strength: 10; Preserve Details: 0%; Reduce Color Noise: 0%; Sharpen Details: 0%; DON'T Remove JPEG Artifact
.....
EDIT: Maybe under "Preserve Details: 10%" would be better here

Thanks for the tip on the Noise Reduction. I've always wondered how I could get the best results and it did a pretty good job. I still do have some noise though and that's what I'm concerned with.

I had a thought that I might not have had my lighting right which I'll have to fiddle with again nexttime I set this up. Even my background is a cheap $5 material from a local fabric store so I don't know whether that would contribute to the overall image.

Any suggestions for getting low noise results while shooting though, rather than PP?

 

[KmH]

How would I minimize the noise that is there at the 100% crop?

You would minimize the noise by reshooting, and making the image in the camera at the size you want the print, stock submission.

 

[786soul]

How would I minimize the noise that is there at the 100% crop? [/QUOTE

You would minimize the noise by reshooting, and making the image in the camera at the size you want the print, stock submission.

I understand if I reshoot I can try again however going in blind I don't know exactly what to change to make things work better. That's kind of why I asked for the insight/input from members...

Frankly speaking, I figured 100 ISO, a fast shutter speed paired with enough light from a strobe AND a fill should be ample but it didn't work, so... what next? I'm not asking for spoon feeding, merely a discussion but what am I fiddling with next? More light over exposes the smoke; slow shutter speeds may add to a ghosting effect; lower aperture means much shorter DOF and possibly not so sharp smoke from front to back.

And about the resizing in the camera, I'm shooting in Jpeg-FINE + RAW2 per shot and I PP with Camera Raw + photoshop for crops.

 

[mishele]

Less is more.........you might have to edit some out......

 

[oldmacman]

Any suggestions for getting low noise results while shooting though, rather than PP?

I do this exercise with my class with pretty good results:
- black backdrop
- flash with snoot to 90 degrees(ish) of camera
- use a flag between the flash and camera
- prefocus where the smoke will go

You almost can't avoid PP with this type of image. You want the black to be REALLY black. There's a great youtube video that shows you how the smoke can be manipulated once you have it captured. It's worth it just to see the end images.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv39UmuiYNA"]Video - Smoke[/ame]

 

[TobascoJackson]

I find it's very difficult to increase the contrast (or adjust the color, or really do any amount of editing at all) on smoke photos without introducing a lot of noise. So if you want colors, gel your flash and/or play with WB in-camera. Other than that, just try various angles on your flash, etc. to get good contrast in the smoke so you don't have to crank it in post.

 

[786soul]

I think I'll try the snoot/flag to see if that helps the lighting a bit.

While I'm at it I may as well ask this also. After taking an image in RAW format and using camera raw to manipulate the blacks/exposure/different settings, can that add noise to the overall image? I know with the pre-compressed jpegs you get out of the camera you do for sure. If this is the case, maybe lighting is the issue and I should work on that more.

 

[oldmacman]

I find it's very difficult to increase the contrast (or adjust the color, or really do any amount of editing at all) on smoke photos without introducing a lot of noise. So if you want colors, gel your flash and/or play with WB in-camera. Other than that, just try various angles on your flash, etc. to get good contrast in the smoke so you don't have to crank it in post.

I took the original image posted by the OP and did a black point and level adjustment, then applied a photo filter to change the smoke to green. Even with it being the low res web version, the image looks great. No noise at all in the blacks. The OP has a "not ok to edit my photos" flag, otherwise I would post it to show you.

 

[786soul]

I find it's very difficult to increase the contrast (or adjust the color, or really do any amount of editing at all) on smoke photos without introducing a lot of noise. So if you want colors, gel your flash and/or play with WB in-camera. Other than that, just try various angles on your flash, etc. to get good contrast in the smoke so you don't have to crank it in post.

I took the original image posted by the OP and did a black point and level adjustment, then applied a photo filter to change the smoke to green. Even with it being the low res web version, the image looks great. No noise at all in the blacks. The OP has a "not ok to edit my photos" flag, otherwise I would post it to show you.

I think I'm going to change that no edit thing. Feel free to post your version of the image. I don't mind so long as pictures don't get stolen haha :mrgreen:

As for the editing part, I've just noticed a few posts talking about setting a black point so I'm going to look more into that part of PP. Is it part of the curves adjustments in photoshop? I've worked with levels before but didn't think of it with these smoke images.

 

[oldmacman]

Above is your original 100% crop. Here is the same image with the black point and levels adjustment. Yes, I adjusted the black point with the BP eye dropper in the curves adjustment. To clean up the white I did a NR.

So, to show how quickly you can edit what you have, here is the same image with a deep red photo filter applied:

Here is an inversion of the Blue smoke:

Here is a mirror of the blue smoke with an emerald green photo filter:

 

[Garbz]

How would I minimize the noise that is there at the 100% crop?

Did you at any point make the image even remotely brighter? Even if you're bringing out one colour more than another, you're also working on the noise. Lowering image contrast will bring out noise as well.

The simple solution is apply noise reduction. I mean this is the perfect situation for it. There's no details to preserve, just smooth gradients. Fire up noise reduction, crank the dial to 11, and be done with it.

Either that or over expose and then darken the image in photoshop as this would also reduce noise.

 

[TobascoJackson]

If you're shooting RAW anyway (which obviously I recommend) I've found that Lightroom's adjustments tend to create fewer noise problems than Photoshop's. This probably has something to do with the fact that everything in Lightroom is non-destructive. But if you're careful, it's not too difficult to do non-destructive editing in Photoshop. For instance, I found that when trying to change the color of the smoke, applying a solid color layer with the blending mode set to "Color" generates FAR less noise than trying to change the base image with a Hue/Saturation adjustment or something.

 

[786soul]

How would I minimize the noise that is there at the 100% crop?

Did you at any point make the image even remotely brighter? Even if you're bringing out one colour more than another, you're also working on the noise. Lowering image contrast will bring out noise as well.

The simple solution is apply noise reduction. I mean this is the perfect situation for it. There's no details to preserve, just smooth gradients. Fire up noise reduction, crank the dial to 11, and be done with it.

Either that or over expose and then darken the image in photoshop as this would also reduce noise.

I'll give a second go at over exposing and then bringing up the blacks in CR2. For some reason I barely notice ANY of my noise reduction working in PS so I've got to take a second look at it also. Call it a days research for me to figure out noise reduction through PP before I set up and try shooting again

If you're shooting RAW anyway (which obviously I recommend) I've found that Lightroom's adjustments tend to create fewer noise problems than Photoshop's. This probably has something to do with the fact that everything in Lightroom is non-destructive. But if you're careful, it's not too difficult to do non-destructive editing in Photoshop. For instance, I found that when trying to change the color of the smoke, applying a solid color layer with the blending mode set to "Color" generates FAR less noise than trying to change the base image with a Hue/Saturation adjustment or something.

Yep I'm shooting RAW + Jpeg and do all my edits from a RAW file, save them to TIF images and do more PPing in Photoshop.

I used Hue/Saturation with the colorize box checked when I added color so I'll try using the blending modes to see what effect that produces.

Thanks for the tips!