I did a post six months ago showcasing the amount of headroom I get working with the Sony A73’s RAW files, using selected photos I took in Bali as examples. I had to do pretty extreme post-processing work for the Bali photoshoots, with the sunrise @ Mt. Agung photoshoot particularly coming to mind. The post-processing tweaks for our Taiwan trip this time were relatively minor for the most part. Nonetheless, here are some examples to show some of the image recovery I did this trip.
Sample #1 @ Mt. Hehuan: 1/125s, -2.0EV, f11, ISO125, 19mm. Adjustments were +2.00EV, Highlights -100, Shadows +100, Vibrance +9, Saturation +10, Dehaze +38. This is Day 5 mid-morning when we were ascending Mt. Hehuan. I’d accidentally dialed in too much exposure compensation – I’d wanted just -1.0EV. It’s amazing that the A73 RAW files could still be turned into an OK image. The sky looks weird now though from the Dehaze slider, so I still need to improve my post-processing skills.
Sample #2 @ Taroko Gorge: 1/250s, -0.3EV, f4.5, ISO100, 35mm. Adjustments were +0.66EV, Highlights -33, Shadows +30, Vibrance +5, Saturation +6, Clarity +4, Dehaze +27. Day 7 late-morning when we were walking the Swallow Grotto at Taroko Gorge. This was a cloudy day, so lighting was a little flat without the kind of harsh shadows you’d get from direct sunlight. I tweaked the image largely to improve contrast and to recover some details from shadows.
Sample #3 @ Jiufen Old Street: 1/30s, 0.0EV, f4, ISO6400, 24mm. Adjustments were +0.0EV, Contrast +3, Highlights -39, Shadows +44, Saturation +4. Day 8 late night at 22:53PM at Jiufen Old Street. The image was also in fairly good shape out of camera, especially for at ISO6400. But highlights were reduced largely to reduce the lamp glare on the left hand side of the image.
Sample #4 @ Taipei 101: 1/30s, 0.0EV, f4, ISO6400, 28mm. Adjustments were +0.76EV, Highlights -36, Shadows +30, Vibrance +13, Saturation +9, Dehaze +29. On Day 10, 6:04PM up at the Taipei 101 Observation Deck. This facing was the most visually interesting side of Taipei, and the image was also already in good shape. Reduce highlights a little to reduce glare, and bumped up shadows too to get more detail out.
Sample #5 @ Xinyi: 1/100s, 0.0EV, f4, ISO1600, 53mm. Adjustments were +0.15EV, Contrast +22, Highlights -63, Shadows +21, Whites +47, Vibrance +4, Saturation +5. Day 11, 5:18PM, looking up to Taipei 101 from Xinyi district. I usually reduce highlights to get a bit more definition in the cloud layer, and since there the skscraper’s lights are switched on on numerous floors, bumped up Whites too to give it a bit more glow.
These are just five samples from the stack of 746 photos I post-processed in Lightroom. So I might do another follow-up to show more variations of image adjustments later again.
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