workflow – Ming Thein

Understanding color, from a workflow perspective: part 2

November 27, 2018 by Ming Thein

It is possible to make a calibration profile for every camera that takes you back to neutral color and tonal response; I do precisely this in PS Workflow III because I need to use a variety of tools for the range of work I do. It allows me to have a consistent color palette/ tonal signature across all of my images, regardless of hardware: this is important because some projects last for years and I may change hardware several times across the duration; but I cannot change the way the images look too much, else you sacrifice visual consistency. I also do this to get control over the output palette: subtle biases can influence viewer emotional response; this is one of the many tools in a storytelling photographer’s arsenal. Note: whilst some cameras allow for a wide range of adjustability of the in-camera processing, none of them allow full HSL adjustments (which would be required to get a totally neutral profile). Currently, the Olympus Pen F comes closest – but you still can’t fully escape the slightly warm default tuning, nor can you compensate on the fly for scenes of wildly different contrast levels (which our eyes do automatically).

Understanding color, from a workflow perspective: part 1

November 24, 2018 by Ming Thein

We first need to understand a bit of history to appreciate the origins of ‘house color’ or ‘company color’ or a particular tonal palette: in the early days of color photography, it simply wasn’t possible to make a film emulsion that responded equally to every color, much less mirrored the response of the human eye to the visible spectrum. It’s also important to note that a recording medium’s color response and luminosity (tonal) response aren’t the same thing but they are linked; further complicating things. And we haven’t even started talking about how different individuals’ eyes respond differently to color*. The best manufacturers could do was offer a range of emulsions (corresponding to a range of different chemicals that had different responsiveness to light) that gave photographers choice. It’s one of the main reasons images from certain eras have a particular look to them: the world didn’t offer different colors or fade; what we’re seeing is a mixture of time-sensitive oxidation of pigment in the output image, and the limitations of the recording medium at the time. As emulsions improved, so did the spread of color that could be recorded. The world didn’t become more realistic: our means of recording and displaying the recording did.

*As you get older or if you have cataracts, certain frequencies become blocked/absorbed by the lens or liquid portion of your eyeball, limiting what reaches the retina. And the retina itself may well not be operating at peak tonal response, too.

Street Photography Workflow

July 25, 2017 by Robin Wong

Apparently infographics and flowcharts are all the rage these day, so I thought it might be cool to produce a workflow chart to show you my street photograph process. The chart is quite self-explanatory I think. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, On Photography, Robin Wong Tagged With: mingthein.com, robin, Robin Wong, street photography, street photography workflow, technique, wong, workflow

A small change in workflow…

April 23, 2017 by Ming Thein

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H51-B0021289 copy H51-B0021201 copy

…can yield surprisingly major results. Think of this post as something of a continuation of the previous On Assignment; the reasons why will become apparent shortly. Over the last year or so – I think coinciding with switching to Hasselblad – my shooting/curating workflow has become quite different, and I think the shift in my output has as much to do with the change in process as hardware. In some ways, the change is due to hardware limitations – but it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. What I’ve always done in the past is some level of during-shoot curation; both for technical qualities (exposure, sharpness etc.) and aesthetic/ creative ones. During personal or teaching outings, I’d be much more disciplined and ruthless in throwing away what I’d consider marginal images; for client work, somewhat more relaxed – keeping doubles and variations just in case (which has proven fortuitous in the past).

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, On Photography Tagged With: article, change, curation, essay, ming, mingthein.com, photography, thein, workflow

New: Workflow III for Photoshop or LIGHTROOM

August 3, 2016 by Ming Thein

Workflow III unifies workflow across Photoshop and Lightroom, works with a single curve in RGB mode only, eliminates the need for color correction and includes my custom profiles for most popular recent cameras (the full list below), compatible with both PS and LR. Almost every image you’ve seen on this site since the beginning of 2016 has been processed (or reprocessed) with Workflow III.

Click to continue after the jump for more info, testimonials and to buy.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Teaching Tagged With: lightroom, ming, mingthein.com, photoshop, teaching, thein, video, workflow, workflow iii, Workshop

New: MT’s Weekly PS Workflow Classroom

December 27, 2015 by Ming Thein

PS weekly review

It’s time to take postprocessing further in the new year.

Given the popularity of the photoshop and postprocessing videos, and the continual feedback for more of the same – I’ve decided to try an experiment for 2016. Every week, with the first instalment available on 3 Jan 2016, I’ll be putting out a new video. The concept is simple: it’s a classroom where submitted images are critiqued and postprocessed and subscriber questions answered. This is the closest I can get to a providing a consistent learning environment for a large audience.

Subscribers can submit images of their own; I will try to critique all of them
We select the most interesting to post process in ACR/photoshop using workflow II, with a discussion of the rationale behind it
Any subscriber questions are answered
In addition, I postprocess images of my own so you can see the complete workflow from capture and conception to completion – to see how the complete ‘idea’ comes together (i.e. capture with previsualized output)

Each weekly video will run for ~1h15min.

Managing the postprocessing workload

June 16, 2015 by Ming Thein

The sigh of relief on completion

Today’s article is a practical one: how to efficiently deal with the postprocessing workload and overhead, especially when you’re shooting in enormous quantity. I originally wrote this on the back of several back to back assignments and trips, but for some reason it got buried in the deluge. Now that things are a little quieter, I’ve had a chance to revisit and amend. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s got the twin problems of shooting too much and then suffering from editing fatigue, in turn resulting in compromised selections and postprocessing…

Digital posterity: will your images survive you?

September 3, 2014 by Ming Thein

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An old family photograph: the young man in the center is my grandfather; he passed away 22 years ago in 1992.

Back story: my grandmother’s passing last year and sorting of her effects unearthed a number of photographs from a much earlier era; my guess is the mid 1950s; that’s the better part of 65 years ago. There weren’t that many – about 10 in all. Ostensibly being the authority on all things photographic in the family, they were passed to me for restoration. Combined with a recent SSD failure on my primary machine, it got me thinking on a subject beyond backups: how can we ensure our images survive us? Do we even want them to?

General photographic workflow tips

February 18, 2013 by Ming Thein

Whilst it would be impossible to cover absolutely everything you need to know to be proficient in photography in a single article, the aim of today’s piece is to provide the amateur to hobbyist an idea of the things to keep in mind in order to be able to focus on producing images. It’s something that’s been quite frequently requested in the past few weeks – perhaps a sign that my reader base may be shifting somewhat – so I’ve decided to take a crack at it in a way that makes it both accessible yet still somewhat relevant for the more advanced photographer. Where applicable, the section header links to a more detailed article. I’ll approach this from a in the same sequence as I’d normally deal with my own photographic workflow, in a sort of annotated checklist format.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, On Photography Tagged With: article, essay, how to, ming, ming thein, mingthein.com, photography, thein, workflow

Teaching update: Photoshop workflow DVD, August Email School intake

August 7, 2012 by Ming Thein

1. By popular demand…presenting Ming Thein’s Introduction to Photoshop Workflow DVD!

Thank you to everybody who participated in the earlier survey on whether a DVD covering my Photoshop workflow would be useful – it seems that nearly a thousand of you thought it would be, and that’s more than enough justification for me to produce one. I’m just sorry it’s taken this long – commercial work and everything else gets in the way…

However, I’m pleased to announce that the DVD is finally complete and available for sale; it covers:

A basic explanation of the working environment of Bridge and Photoshop, following CS5.5 (CS3,4, 5 and 6 are similar; I don’t use any tools here that aren’t available in the other versions, so it’s a very flexible workflow)
A runthrough of the functions of Camera Raw
My personal workflow – if you’ve ever wondered what my postprocessing process is, or how I get the style and look you see on the site and in my commercial work, this is for you.
Several end to end processing examples – I’ve picked a number of files that I’d consider difficult or processing-intensive to use as step by step walkthroughs.
The Camera Raw portion – where about half the work is done – also applies to Lightroom and Photoshop Elements, too. The buttons may be different, but the fundamental principles of tools don’t change between software – dodge is dodge, burn is burn, and curves are curves.

Total runtime is about 1h 15min.

This will be the first in a series of many DVDs in which I’ll spend more time detailing and explaining the various functions of Photoshop and their application to photographers, but it makes the ideal starting point for anybody who would like to get started in serious postprocessing, or perhaps are wondering why their images lack that punch and sparkle.

Please note – for KL residents, happy to do MEPS – please send me an email to make arrangements.

2. Email School of Photography August intake

I’ve now cleared the pipeline somewhat, which means I can take on a fresh batch of students for my Email School of Photography – more details here. It’s a unique, fully-customized correspondence course tailored to your skill level and photographic objectives – learn what you want to learn, at your convenience. So for all of you who were on the fence, now’s the time to sign up.

The course is just US$800 for ten sessions including a detailed portfolio review; once again payable via paypal to mingthein2(at)gmail.com.

Thanks in advance for your support – all these little things help me keep producing content and keep this site running. MT

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