DSLR or not

[dheerajpant]

just read through this thread .... hell I even got quoted .... congratulations dheeraj, looking forward to seeing your snaps (you do know about the photography and photo projects threads?)

Thanks Izzikoi, yes I have seen that thread ans sure would be participating in that .

Congrats Dheeraj, welcome

Thanks Pranav.

I don't know whether I should start a seperate thread for this but for now I am clearing my doubts here alone ,

I have seen some of your flickr pics and I can say that they are awesome(the colours reproduced are amazing).
I have some questions regarding this :
1)Whether those pics are out of the cameras(jpeg's) or do you do post-processing on them?
2)How much post processing do you do like to make them feel more sharp or do you give some dramatic effects.
3)Which softwares do you use?
Because I am not able to get those vivid colours just out of the box.
Thanks

 

[pranav0091]

Thanks Izzikoi, yes I have seen that thread ans sure would be participating in that .



Thanks Pranav.

I don't know whether I should start a seperate thread for this but for now I am clearing my doubts here alone ,

I have seen some of your flickr pics and I can say that they are awesome(the colours reproduced are amazing).
I have some questions regarding this :
1)Whether those pics are out of the cameras(jpeg's) or do you do post-processing on them?
2)How much post processing do you do like to make them feel more sharp or do you give some dramatic effects.
3)Which softwares do you use?
Because I am not able to get those vivid colours just out of the box.
Thanks

Oh yes, there is Photoshop involved

Reprodcing what I just wrote in the other thread:

My take on PP is that I'd do it as long as the image doesnt look unreal or fake (much like my opinion on women wearing makeup). PP is supposed to be like pickles - great when used in moderation, rubbish when its all you can find in an image.

I do use Photoshop/Picasa/Paint.net (In increasing order of frequency) and almost NEVER uplaod a pic until I have touched it up a bit.
In general this is what I do:

1) Shoot in jpeg at full resolution (I will hopefully eventually switch to RAW, but right now, I neither have the knowledge nor the skill)

2) Use 'levels' to remove the brightest 4-5 and the darkest 5-10 levels (to lose dynamic range trading it for more contrast)

3) Get the image and edit its color-curves to get better lower color-tones (I use a S shaped curve under paint.net to achieve this.)

4) Increase saturation/warmth to make it a tiny bit more than normal (Humans perceive the golden yellows to be very warm/welcoming/emotional. So the trick is to use that color to you advantage wheneve you can). Here is a primie example:
*farm8.staticflickr.com/7378/9497510738_49c55d52b8_c.jpg
IMG_4149e by pranav0091, on Flickr

5) Read, read and more read. And ask people.

Step 2 is what brings out the colors. On the right pictures it makes a world of difference. It removes a layer of white haze and brings out strong colors.

Start trying out Paint.Net. Its free, easy and super lightweight. If you get stuck at anything, just post here

PS: Post processing is not about the amount of time you spend on an image, but how you choose to spend it. I for one, spend less than 5 minutes per image but do it compulsorily for every image i intend to showcase. And never ever let someone tell you that PPed images are less skilled than regular-untouched images. It takes skill/practise to get a good shot and good framing and no amount of ordinary editing can save a crappy shot. The whole point of getting a DSLR is to have access to highly-detailed images that you can use to process and not lose image data in the process. In my case I would have never been able to get those waterdrop images if it were not for the 600D. It needed a a lot of patience (only one in about 50 images of those were even worth having a second look) but then thats the trick - you show out only your best images (might mean you are able to showcase only one in a hundred, but thats fine - that one image makes it all worth the effort )

 

[dheerajpant]

Thanks Pranav,
Very well said.
Won't it be great if we could have a thread about PP(If you can start it and others who have more advance knowledge could contribute to it).
Reasons for asking you to start:
As you have started from scratch you know the difficulties starters face.
And most of the tuts online involve some degree of technical terms without stating their meanings.
So, if some sunny day you have some time you can start a thread it would be very helpful and in the meantime, do you have any places you visit that have some good easy to understand n00b proof tuts .

Thanks again.

 

[sujoyp]

@pranav yes very good idea please document your secrets of PP in a thread soo that next time I can copy it step by step

 

[pranav0091]

Thanks
I may start a thread , but these days I feel far too lazy to put up any effort

But yeah, I may start a thread.

 

[izzikio_rage]

request seconded .... would love to have a thread discussing the dark art of PP

 

[nac]

If I remember correct, there was one before...

 

[sujoyp]

yes there was one...but I didnt put anything valuble in it ...I find it really difficult to explain PP ....I dont do anything systematically , how will i explain ....my PP depends on what I am thinking at that time and my purpose of shot ....

 

[izzikio_rage]

5) Read, read and more read. And ask people.

Suggest some stuff to read, for example that book that Sujoy told (photo projects) is pretty good. I also came across a bunch of videos by Bryan peterson - the perfect picture, which are pretty practical and very useful . So let's share more of this type of stuff in one of the threads

yes there was one...but I didnt put anything valuble in it ...I find it really difficult to explain PP ....I dont do anything systematically , how will i explain ....my PP depends on what I am thinking at that time and my purpose of shot ....

You don't have to give a step by step workflow, it's an art form not a factory manual . But it'll atleast get us discussing new stuff in PP that most of us did not know. Like I recently found out that you can insert keywords, copyright details etc in lightroom only, that way no copy pasting when uploading to photo sharing sites. Also among the new learning is how to use lens profiles to correct lens errors when shooting in RAW. Would love to learn more stuff like this, I'm sure others would too.

 

[sujoyp]

The digital photography book by scott kelby is the most simple and straightforward book I have ever seen..a must read

ok start a thread and explain how to add copyright in lightroom ...but tell me in our camera there is a comment thing which adds a comment to every pic...isnt that a copyright prevention thing ...donno if it can be removed or not.

 

[izzikio_rage]

Thread made, will drop in the copyright and keyword post soon. Pranav, Nac, sujoy and others, looking forward to some awesome post processing info.

 

[dheerajpant]

Yes izzikio, the lens correction and sharpening feature are great in lightroom. I have just started exploring it and can say it has some seriously cool features. You can get amazing effects(For some I was able to get some eye popping colours but they turned out to be too dramatic to be real ).

 

[raja manuel]

1) Shoot in jpeg at full resolution (I will hopefully eventually switch to RAW, but right now, I neither have the knowledge nor the skill)

What knowledge or skill do you think you lack to shoot in RAW, or process it? This is a serious question. I have come across many people who express similar views and I am baffled. Except for the first 3-4 photos everything else from my 600D has been in RAW.
I am also curious to know why you use so many programs to do the kind of post-processing that you do. DPP comes free with Canon and does everything you say you do, and a lot more besides. Have you tried shooting in RAW and processing in DPP?

 

[pranav0091]

For some reason I havent bothered to dig into, the high-ISO RAW shots from my 600D are significantly noisier than the Jpegs (in-camera long shutter noise reduction enabled for JPEGs). A cursory glance showed me no significant easily visible advantage that the RAW had over JPEGs in this particular case (High ISO, longer shutter open periods). On the contrary if I can get a JPEG that looks better than the corresponding RAW, I have no real reason ATM to switch to RAW and then use PP to get rid of the noise. The noise was of the chroma type and it was significant.

The reason why I use Paint.net is because I am used to it and its runs like a charm with negligible startup time on any system. Picasa if I ONLY feel like fiddling the color temperature or straightening (For these things, its the fastest application and I use it as my default viewer, so its always available). PS (very very rare) if I have some more work to do that needs brushes.

I tried DPP a couple of times, found it pretty powerful, but a bit clumsy to use. And I didnt really need anything more than Paint.NET/Picasa for the editing I do on my images. I prefer having just the right tool for the little editing I do.
And the added advantage is that Picasa automatically makes a backup when you edit.

 

[sujoyp]

I too dont shoot in RAW ...dont like the hassle to add noise reduction, colors, sharpness, exposure then get a pic that can be edited furthur ....too much hassel

 

[izzikio_rage]

The main advantage of shooting raw is that you have more control over the processing that is normally done by the cam. I have the same issue that Raws are much noisier than the jpeg, but that is only because the camera automatically runs a noise reduction, color correction and saturation process on them when making a jpeg. I would rather do this myself on an image by image basis rather than a one size fits all.

Also raw files generally have a lot more color depth, 12bits compared to the 8 of a jpeg (will confirm the numbers), all that info is lost by the cam if a jpeg is made. And it can make all the difference when shooting a scene with a high range.

So raw is not necessary, i wouldn't want to process all images from a home function for example, but for artistic shots, it may be worth the effort.

 

[sujoyp]

hmm yes u are right...for artistic shots its worth ...I will try next time....the issue i faced was when going to a shooting trip for birding and landscape i used to shoot around 500 shots...then out of that i try to edit around 50 ....now editing RAW 50 files is a very big work ...it will take lots of time...then maybe I will just create a RAW conversion profile and use it for every pic ...which will be similar to jpeg conversion by DSLR.

 

[pranav0091]

So raw is not necessary, i wouldn't want to process all images from a home function for example, but for artistic shots, it may be worth the effort.

This. This is pecisely what I'm saying

 

[nac]

Camera's jpeg is much better than comparing RAW images I process. And my camera is already amazingly slow, writing one image will take about 5 seconds (if I shoot RAW) and if I am using flash I can take a nap before readying for next shot.

I try out of interest once in a while, but not all the time.

 

[sujoyp]

artistic is fine...we take 10 shots and select 2 ...what about birding?? 200-300 shots and edit 50 ???