copyright

[Manxman]

I never took it as a criticism at all Chesters, the time is spent adding layers to achieve certain things, exposure, levels to get rid of the muddy look, sharpness, the option are endless in Photoshop. I'll have a look at your photo soon, My Canon is 15mp and a typical Raw file is 16/17mb a straight conversion to Jpeg squeezes it down to 6/6.5mb.

 

This photo is a straight Raw to Jpeg in Photoshop, nothing added or taken away. It was taken a couple of miles from home at a very popular holiday hamlet. Now I've sold umpteen copies of this to visitors as they all like to sit outside the Pub watching the sunset.

 

Now who'd want this hanging on there wall? I'll put the Photshop version in another reply below this one.

 

 

[Manxman]

The same photo.

How I achieved it in Raw .

 

1. 3 Copies with altered the exposure for the sky foreground and middle ground.

2. Bring them into PS and layer them on top of each other

3 Use an eraser brush to away parts of each layer until the whole photo has a balance exposure, probably took an hour.

4 Increased individually the saturation on each colour, especially red and orange.

5 Levels, set the black and white points and altered the midtones to get rid of the muddy look and to give it a bit of oomph.

6 Sharpened it

7 There's probably a few more tweaks that I've forgotten.

 

It all sounds complicated but there are many excellent Photoshop tutorials on line and if you start with just the basics you'll improve most pictures. I doubt that any Professional photographer publishes photo's that haven't been through Photoshop. Who said the camera doesn't lie ? But in this photograph nothing has been added it's only what the camera captured in Raw. By the way it is a far better photo than it looks here via Photobucket.

 

Edited June 9, 2014 by Manxman

[chesters1]

the email wasn't to yourself i just spotted it "sent" unusually fast and wondered why ,nothing changed in my "lunch" photo except it was macro but the file is bigger (6mb) infact some i took last night are under 1mb but the camera settings are unchanged ,cameras are not clever (or stupid )enough to think the black of the night sky = nothing so not include it ,def RAW tonight to compare

Edited June 9, 2014 by chesters1

[kirisute]

Chesters; photoshopping an image well is a skill as well honed and crafted as taking the initial photograph!

The basics are dropping and adjusting levels etc...but then it branches out through histograms, sharpness, blurs and so many other things. Even software like Picasa and it's ilk cannot touch on Photoshop editing with RAW files.

But to do it well takes many years of practice....it's a skill in its own right.

Also relying in the "auto adjust" option in so many program's these days doesn't help understand what's going on, what's been adjusted...why is brightness linked to contrast? What is saturation actually doing? Etc etc

It can be a real shock to see a raw photo and compare it to the 'shopped one...in the same way my fantasy artwork is shocking when it leaves the 3d rendering software before I've used photoshop to edit it and add "post work"

[chesters1]

but its not real (shock) cameras are not supposed to lie you know! ,i like the moody original myself ,thinking about it using presets IS photoshopping it so bugger goes my theory LOL

i wonder what the MB would be of the human eye and one "frame" ,its not RAW as the brain photoshops it post production

 

you can truthfully improve photos ,i have an old picture of my mum as a baby and her mum holding her it was ofcourse faded so i "removed" the dull white of the picture and substituted a very very pale blue ,made it far better but thats "saving" not real meddling ,the original has got much duller and the white almost brown now

Edited June 9, 2014 by chesters1

[ayjay]

Pointless uploading anything the sites limit means i have to drastically cut any detail my pictures may have and who wants to see blocky pictures ,might have well bought some 2 mp camera for a fiver

 

How much detail do you need?

 

This pic below was taken with my Canon 40D - it's a 10 mp camera, the picture here is under 350 kb. There's enough detail for an internet picture,(imo).

 

.........and if a picture from a 2mp camera will do, why would you not just reduce the compression of the pics taken with your new camera?

 

[chesters1]

I want more ,i want to take a picture i can zoom into to see atoms if i wish ,i want it all and for under a tenner if possible ,ps you should have spent more pixels on its tail

 

Camera Pixels are far to big and far apart from each other as are monitors and printers pixels etc ,luckily i can see your pic NOT on a 1980,s crummy monitor if you see my point

And i want everything in focus however far away and how close it is ,get rid of the physics stuff thats so restrictive

Edited June 9, 2014 by chesters1

[Manxman]

If you want everything in focus (depth of field) you need to use a higher F stop. Now I don't believe it's that easy in macro photography.

 

What lens did you use on the dragon fly Ayjay?

Edited June 9, 2014 by Manxman

[ayjay]

 

What lens did you use on the dragon fly Ayjay?

That was taken with a Sigma EX 180mm F3,5 Macro, (the older model, without OS).

[kirisute]

Chesters:

if it helps I wrote this quick guide to photoshop tools awhile ago now.

your free to have it if you wish (as is anyone of course!)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fij5lsa7zm6lezu/photoshop%20tute.pdf