TR Forums

I didn't say buy it; I said download the free beta, to get an idea of what it (and programs like it) can do for you; but more importantly, to get an idea of what's in your photos that you can't see .

I'll post this here for now- after reading about the differences of 'Pro' accounts on Flikr versus the new 'Free' accounts and investigating 500px, I've decided to switch to 500px.

Yahoo dirked this one up; they just turned a lot of paying customers that were at least moderately serious with photography into non-paying users overnight. It seems they've decided that Flikr isn't for photography anymore, and I'm happy to oblige. The iPhone users can keep it .

(I had the 'Pro' account because it was cheap, unlimited, and allowed me to upload much more; useful when you may shoot several hundred shots per week and don't want to worry about the web side of things; same for 500px.)

Airmantharp wrote:

I didn't say buy it; I said download the free beta, to get an idea of what it (and programs like it) can do for you; but more importantly, to get an idea of what's in your photos that you can't see .

I appreciate that. I should try it and I will. But I hope to gord I'm not impressed cuz the last thing I need is something else I want to buy.

In the mean time, something must have clicked while I slept, because I got in to work this morning and was able to do this in about 15 minutes in Photoshop CS 5.5 (and now that I've got the hang of it I could do it in half the time next time) - (I'm sure I don't need to suggest what everyone should look for, but... the sky and the underside of the bridge):

Original


Modified



That was done from a single RAW file. First step was to run it through Photoshop's RAW processor which is impressively robust and yet fairly simple to grasp. Second step involved 3 layers: mask an overexposed shot's highlights, an underexposed shot's dark tones, and then use some simple layer blending and transparency over a base layer at normal exposure.

Looks good

500px inbed test- let me know if you can't see it!

Visibility confirmed!

~30 seconds in Lightroom:



Not trying to show off, but it really is this fast and easy .

Yeah. That easily looks better than what I did. Much better colors. At 30 seconds you must have just hit the "autofix" button. Anyway, I just downloaded Corel Aftershot Pro trial. If it can handle what I need to do then I'll grab it for $25 rather than waste time learning Lightroom when its very unlikely I'll buy it.

flip-mode wrote:

Yeah. That easily looks better than what I did. Much better colors. At 30 seconds you must have just hit the "autofix" button. Anyway, I just downloaded Corel Aftershot Pro trial. If it can handle what I need to do then I'll grab it for $25 rather than waste time learning Lightroom when its very unlikely I'll buy it.

No autofix here... each adjustment was measured against the original shot (your unadjusted shot). Lightroom 4 had also been going for ~$60 on sale lately, though I'm waiting for 5 to release before I decide to buy an upgrade for 3.

I spent about five minutes in Corel PhotoPaint 12 with just the Eyedropper Tool and Tone Curve. (Sorry, I'm not signed up for any image hosting service to show you the result.) It came out roughly like flip-mode's touch-up, though with brighter clouds, yet a tiny bit more acutance.
Perhaps it's time for a new piece of software (especially since it tends to soft crash frequently since XP.) I just have a hard time justifying it since it does what I need it to, just not as quickly as I'd like.

Unless one is actually doing retouching, then something like lightroom is way better for most photographers since it's geared towards a workflow, including color-compensation, vignetting, lens compensation, red-eye, etc. Even clone brushes has worked it's way in there.

If you are actually doing a lot of retouching with masking, etc, then, it's something else. Think about the fact that a few of the tools used in photoshop, actually have a physical equal from a photolab, as does both masking, dodge/burn, unsharp mask, etc.

I don't have any late stuff up, but when I started out with photoshop quite a few years ago I started doing a few folders for cassette tape's for demos and stupid things like this lightsaber. Not much for the world, but great practice. Nowdays, most of the things that go into photoshop are actually B&W photographs that need a lot of dodge/burn work.

flip-mode wrote:

Yeah. That easily looks better than what I did. Much better colors. At 30 seconds you must have just hit the "autofix" button. Anyway, I just downloaded Corel Aftershot Pro trial. If it can handle what I need to do then I'll grab it for $25 rather than waste time learning Lightroom when its very unlikely I'll buy it.

After toying with Aftershot Pro for a little bit I've decided it's a complete waste of time. Photoshop feels much more efficient. One of the most frustrating weaknesses of Aftershot Pro is it's limited selection tools; it seems very difficult to select a color range to work on. With Photoshop that is exceedingly easy. I'll take a tour of Lightroom, I guess...

After fooling around in Photoshop over the last couple of days I've become pretty good with the selection and masking tools, not an ace by any means, but not to shabby either. Selecting first white and then black while setting the "fuzzyness" parameter (or whatever it is called to) to the max lets me create a 3-layer composite that allows some pretty powerful and useful adjustments, although still evidently falling short of Tharp's Lightroom powers.

Take the tour of Lightroom- whether you buy it or not (and I'm not saying you should, really) you'll know what a good photo app can do, and what to look for in cheap/free alternatives. That said, I have a few sets containing the rest of the (good) shots I took at a car show last weekend up on 500px:



(by the way, I still feel like my aptitude with Lightroom is comparable to a blind person using a sledgehammer to drive a tack into the wall )

Lightroom 4 made easy is a free Prime book for kindle. For such a cheap looking cover, I've found it the best resource yet. And yeah, I do judge books by their covers. I'm working my way through it and some of the concepts are over my head but I'm learning.

Also, if you have photoshop, I'd stick with it. Its the most powerful photo tweaking software out there. Sure, its usually the domain of pros, but you'll have amazing results with it. And tutorials on it are everywhere. I've got lightroom 4 and I'm thinking of buying Photoshop while I'm still in grad school.

Thanks for the heads-up; I'll have to dig out my Kindle so that I can grab a copy!

I've been practicing my processing skills. I've discovered that Photoshop's Camera RAW packs the same fundamental tool set as Lightroom Below is a straight conversion of RAW to jpg, and then a conversion of a processed RAW to jpg. You guys were absolutely correct: there's an amazing amount of hidden detail that requires processing for proper exposure.

WKRP in Cincinnati (oooohhh).

Booger!!!!

Captain Ned wrote:

WKRP in Cincinnati (oooohhh).

Booger!!!!

LOL

flip-mode wrote:

I've been practicing my processing skills. I've discovered that Photoshop's Camera RAW packs the same fundamental tool set as Lightroom Below is a straight conversion of RAW to jpg, and then a conversion of a processed RAW to jpg. You guys were absolutely correct: there's an amazing amount of hidden detail that requires processing for proper exposure.

You will find, if you look on the tech support flickr page, some links to Tony Kuyper's Luminosity Masks. The ability to change the tones in the photo to your liking is a very powerful tool. This goes quite some way beyond your normal adjustments you can do in the various photo tool programs. For instance dark masking with perhaps the Dark Darks or the Super Dark set will bring out the bottom of that fountain without doing much at all to the rest of the image. The best part of this method is all selection is automatic and seamless at the pixel level. Everything is done with tone values.

flip-mode wrote:

LOL

Jennifer or Bailey?

PenGun wrote:

flip-mode wrote:

I've been practicing my processing skills. I've discovered that Photoshop's Camera RAW packs the same fundamental tool set as Lightroom Below is a straight conversion of RAW to jpg, and then a conversion of a processed RAW to jpg. You guys were absolutely correct: there's an amazing amount of hidden detail that requires processing for proper exposure.

You will find, if you look on the tech support flickr page, some links to Tony Kuyper's Luminosity Masks. The ability to change the tones in the photo to your liking is a very powerful tool. This goes quite some way beyond your normal adjustments you can do in the various photo tool programs. For instance dark masking with perhaps the Dark Darks or the Super Dark set will bring out the bottom of that fountain without doing much at all to the rest of the image. The best part of this method is all selection is automatic and seamless at the pixel level. Everything is done with tone values.

Thanks, boss. I've grabbed a beer and am reading now.

Captain Ned wrote:

Jennifer or Bailey?

Jennifer for a night, Bailey for an actual relationship.

flip-mode wrote:

You guys were absolutely correct: there's an amazing amount of hidden detail that requires processing for proper exposure.

RAW is amazing. I use jpeg's for family snapshots with lots of things set on auto like White Balance (Sony's is pretty nice), and then set it in A(perture) mode. But if I am intentionally going out to take pictures, its going to be RAW. RAW makes it so you are able to, as you said, pull out the hidden detail. RAW is gets best shots. Storage space is cheap and really isn't the issue. The issue is time. If you know you won't spend the time to PP, shoot jpeg. If you want stuff that will be stunning, shoot RAW.

I never shoot RAW+JPEG. Anyone here do this? I have never seen the need as RAW->jpeg conversion is so easy.

TheEmrys wrote:

I never shoot RAW+JPEG. Anyone here do this? I have never seen the need as RAW->jpeg conversion is so easy.

I always shoot RAW+JPEG, because space isn't at a premium, so I don't have to choose. But I shoot the high-quality 'small' JPEGs as resolution doesn't matter near as much for anything I'll be doing quickly, and if it doesn't need to be quick I have time to spend on a full-quality RAW.

And not shooting in RAW means that you've permanently thrown away color and detail limiting the future use of your shots. I've made this mistake already .

TheEmrys wrote:

I never shoot RAW+JPEG. Anyone here do this? I have never seen the need as RAW->jpeg conversion is so easy.

One reason I can think of is experimental: to see how much detail can be pulled out of RAW that cannot be pulled out of jpg. I still don't have a sense of that.

flip-mode wrote:

TheEmrys wrote:

I never shoot RAW+JPEG. Anyone here do this? I have never seen the need as RAW->jpeg conversion is so easy.

One reason I can think of is experimental: to see how much detail can be pulled out of RAW that cannot be pulled out of jpg. I still don't have a sense of that.

The JPEGs the camera produces are just the camera version of the RAW file. I shoot both as it's not a problem for space or speed. If I did a lot of high speed shooting I would switch to just one, the JPEG, so I could have more buffer space.

The JPEGs my Fuji produces are very fine. I can pull more out of the RAW file of course but with any normal exposure with not too challenging a scene the JPEGs are just fine. It's only when I have to dig and when I am trying to get an image ready to print that I spend a lot of time with RAW files.

My mind is blown after playing around with the luminosity masks for a bit.

flip-mode wrote:

My mind is blown after playing around with the luminosity masks for a bit.

Yeah, it kind of did that to me too when I first started fooling with that stuff.

Captain Ned wrote:

Jennifer or Bailey?

Bailey!
64 in a month.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0810453/
http://graphic-server.com/cgi-bin/backi ... 660321.JPG

So I took another run at the bridge picture from earlier and used some of the masking techniques... new version posted after the quote

flip-mode wrote:

Original


Modified