Photoshop Tips

[Kirbs]

Well I've been playing with my new s90 and loving it! I have found taking good pics on auto a bit of a challenge so am using the manual mode much more now. I was wondering what do ppl usually do to their pics in photoshop?

I've been playing around with the high pass filter, gausian blur, and curves (this is taking a bit to get a good result). Any other good tips you find yourself using all the time?

Here is my first attempt before:

[Kirbs]

And first attempt after:

[helen]

Great photo.

Now take this with a grain of salt because it depends what look you want, in the edit the main guy and the guy in the shop stand out more which is good, but on the bad side the skin tones are more natural before the edit. Also Look at the door frames that are black, at lot of detail has been lost as they have become too dark

Edited January 6, 2010 by helen

[persephone]

I try to not do any editing on the computer..

but when I do- it is usually just a bit in lightroom, to maybe put back some detail missed out because of exposure, cropping, and maybe to remove some very obvious oopses, like redeye.

I like the camera and my controls to do most of the work

[Kirbs]

Thanks for the feedback! I've been wanting to adjust and post another version but my other computer died and I need an external case for my HDD before I can get it back. I think I just need to desaturate it a bit, or maybe instead of using gausian blur to enhance the colours I should play with curves more

persephone, I'll have to check out lightroom I've been hearing heaps of good stuff about it. Ideally I'd love not to edit on my computer but I need to get better at using my camera first Still working out all my controls but thats the dream

[kja]

lightroom is the bees knees and is currently free for the Beta 3 version which I'm only hearing good things about.

As for "only editing in camera", it's not evil. It's all about controlling your images. If you are happy for some random algorithm to make your choices for you, fantastic - use the controls in your camera. Some cameras have some really good options and can be tailored to your needs.

But if you actually want to thoroughly control your output, you're going to edit in an external editor (and you're going to most likely want to shoot RAW, too). It doesn't mean you aren't nailing exposure, composition and the like. And it doesn't mean you aren't "getting it right" in camera.

Think of it like your darkroom from film days (or the romantic vision of that you may have if you don't remember the film days) - you didn't nail the image in camera in film days and leave it on the film. You developed those negatives and printed the images. And that meant making choices on the actual film you used, the labs you chose to print with, chemicals, papers, developing times, dodging/burning, combining exposures and on and on. Or you went to a quickie lab, dropped it off and hoped for the best. In digital, your computer becomes your darkroom where the files (negatives) are prepped for the appropriate outcome and you can choose to choose everything, nothing, or some things.

Editing on your computer is not evil. It is not unnecessary. It isn't all about cloning, textures, OOT alternative processing. It doesn't mean you can't nail and exposure or composition. It does not mean that you are cheating or screwing up your images in the first place. It doesn't have to be time intensive.

I'm sorry, I just don't get the rabid and often not a little condescending "I prefer to get it right in camera" mentality.

peresphone made a really great point - learn how to get the best raw material (ie in camera) you can coz it makes the rest of getting images ready to share so much easier!

[persephone]

romantic vision of that

No romantic vision here- Had a job working in a darkroom hours each day when I left school

smelly ,hard work... but the results were often wonderful!

[persephone]

Oh- and to quickly get a 'feel' for your camera- spend a bit of time just taking shots of the one thing-using all different settings-comparing them.

That way you will soon know what your camera 'sees' when it is set at certain things- and what you need to note.

Remember to take lots of photos- and only keep the best!

lightroom is the bees knees

never a truer word spoken!

Edited January 10, 2010 by persephone

[kja]

Remember to take lots of photos- and only keep the best!

Another piece of sage advice from persephone.

I actually do keep some stuff that isn't the best or even good - I mark them in Lightroom (with yellow) so I can quickly go back to them. I use them to learn how to approach things differently and better next time and/or to teach what is "wrong" and "right" on my courses.

But culling is an essential part of the process and one that I am constantly getting better at. From all the people I know who shoot a lot, this is a never ending process - you can be a great culler now and in five years you'll be so much better you look back and think you were a hoarder. As we evolve, our style, interests and perceptions also evolve - as does our sense of "yup, that's something I want to keep" and "nope, that's not cluttering up my hard drive"

[Kirbs]

I think what I'm finding so frustrating right now is that the shots I'm taking have the right idea behind them, just aren't taken so well. As in having more noise than I could fix processing later. It's annoying when what you see isn't what you get. I'm looking forward to learning though. I think right now I'm trying to fix low light by upping the ISO too much and that's causing alot of noise and washing out colours.

I dled the lightroom beta and so far I'm quite taken with it. I've only had a quick play though.

I've just made a folder for bad night shots with comments about what I did wrong on each of them. Thanks for the suggestion kja! I would have just trashed them, but you're right they'll help stop me from making the same mistakes.

[kja]

Another thing that you have to learn to embrace - which is incredibly hard to do for most of us - is the inherent limitations of your camera.

Your particular camera is never going to do well at high ISO. Some say 400, some say maybe 800 at a push. A well exposed shot at 800 should be fine for a small print and for web viewing. I use 800 on my SD1200 and it's got a smaller sensor than your S90 (so less likely to do well at high ISO). I've printed to 6x9 and use them on the web all the time. Perfectly acceptable noise, imho, but only if I get the exposure right - which you CAN control on your S90 while I just snap and pray

Learn where your camera does a good job and where it doesn't do so hot, then learn to shoot within that range as best you can. No sense thumping your head against a wall over something your camera simply can't do.