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I'd love to use Photoshop but the price WOW!
- Thread starter 1970's Fan
- Start date
Really?
RAW format allows you to do much more image manipulation without degrading the image, like when you do the same things in jpeg images, and will allow you to make decent images out of what looks like sub-par ones...it's uncompressed and therefore the best that you can get from a sensor...jpeg outputs are always compressed and in compression things are discarded in favor of what the camera thinks is right, not what you might always want...
With the size and cheap prices of current SD cards there's not really any reason to shoot anything but RAW, if your camera supports it, that is.
Here's another analogy:
WAV is to MP3 as RAW is to JPEG
You can always make a better sounding song by starting with a WAV file than you can with a lossy and compressed MP3...you can't take an MP3 and make it sound as good as the original WAV as there has been stuff thrown away in the compression...same as with the RAW to JPEG conversion, once it's changed into JPEG format there's no going back...
Which is why most advanced hobbyists and pros shoot RAW, or at the least RAW + JPEG, you start with the most information and you decide what is necessary, not some algorithmically derived solution...then you can convert to JPEG...
I do all my vinyl "rips" at 24/192 WAV format....from there I decide what to do with the resultant tracks...usually save them at 24/96 WAV...if there ever should be a better lossless compression method than FLAC, then I have the best source of data to convert and don't worry about anything getting lost in the translation, or trans-coding...but, with terabytes of storage I don't worry about running out of space and prefer to keep them as close to the best as possible...but that's just my opinion...
WAV is to MP3 as RAW is to JPEG
You can always make a better sounding song by starting with a WAV file than you can with a lossy and compressed MP3...you can't take an MP3 and make it sound as good as the original WAV as there has been stuff thrown away in the compression...same as with the RAW to JPEG conversion, once it's changed into JPEG format there's no going back...
Which is why most advanced hobbyists and pros shoot RAW, or at the least RAW + JPEG, you start with the most information and you decide what is necessary, not some algorithmically derived solution...then you can convert to JPEG...
I do all my vinyl "rips" at 24/192 WAV format....from there I decide what to do with the resultant tracks...usually save them at 24/96 WAV...if there ever should be a better lossless compression method than FLAC, then I have the best source of data to convert and don't worry about anything getting lost in the translation, or trans-coding...but, with terabytes of storage I don't worry about running out of space and prefer to keep them as close to the best as possible...but that's just my opinion...
KFCrosby
Active Member
Well, kinda... RAW images would be more like the original unmastered multitrack recordings to be mastered and manipulated into a final format.
my apology to the OP for this skew
my apology to the OP for this skew
You're right...
I just bought PaintShop Pro x6 ultimate because I can afford it but what really gets me is the way every magazine that gives editing tips uses one of the Adobe products (mostly Photoshop). I got a mag today and the cd is of little use for that reason. Some things can be done using a different approach but one cool effect has me stumped.:headscrat
Well, 'splain what cool effect you want, and maybe someone here can come up with an alternate way?
And to amplify the problem with JPEGs/JPGs, they compress each time you edit and save. So the "artifacts" create more artifacts with each saved revision. TIFFs/tifs are another good format that do not compress data :thmbsp:
Roger
Roger
sxty8goats
Super Member
Others have answered but I want to toss in my $.04
As a younger hobbyist I used to shoot a lot of live / local bands in Chicago along with a few paying gigs a year. Some of the paying gigs were fairly high end, shooting for a caterer that did large events, PGA tours and equivalent. So I shot in very dark bars using the available light as flash kills the 'mood' of the shot and I've shot in full mid day sun in predominately white tents/table cloths and counters. So two ends of the spectrum.
Raw is the digital equivalent of a negative, JPG is the digital equivalent of a print. If you shoot an image at the wrong exposure in jpg format, you really can't do much to fix it with out degrading the image. With Raw you can push the exposure up and down a couple stops without degradation. Shooting in near darkness at high f/stops to get the fastest shutter speed possible often ended up with very dark photos. I could then push the exposure up a bit, deepen the shadow detail and end up with a photo that looked awesome.
Same with the high key shots on the golf course. Shooting a predominately white shoot and getting great color out of the food takes a very precise exposure. I was able to tweak it in post to get the subtle shadow detail of the table cloth but still bring out the brilliant chrome of the coffee urns and the deep reds of the apples. The original shots were good, 'developing' them in Photoshop made them better. I use Photoshop in the same way I use chemical labs. Taking a film course and working in a dark room changed the way I approached PS/ image processing.
Decatur Greg
Super Member
I totally agree with trhee on this. I used photoshop for the longest time. Both elements and the full blown version.
All I wanted to do was improve the quality of the photos. Make it more warm, make the blacks blacker, sharpen the detail a little, etc. I never wanted to do things like cut n paste, putting my head on someone else's body, etc. More the things that a graphic designer would do as opposed to a photographer. I felt that those things in photoshop were just in the way.
Lightroom is very much geared to a photographer as opposed to a graphic designer. It's menu even has the same workflow you would have used in a darkroom (hence the name... lightroom).
Just enough control without all the added widgets that I never used anyway. I think the photos look much better than using photoshop too. I took some raw files that I had processed through photoshop and processed them in lightroom. The lightroom photos looked much more natural with a film (analog???) quality. I feel it is way to easy to tweak a photo too much in photoshop, making it look unrealistic.
That's my two cents...
DG
P.S. If you want to see good examples of how natural photos with lightroom can look check out any of trhee's food photos. Just don't do it on an empty stomach or you'll get VERY hungry ;-)
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1970's Fan
Super Member
Here goes. Hope this is accurate. The idea is to have highlights in pale yellow and shadows in dark blue.
The instructions in the magazine are;
Step 1 : hit D to set colours to black and white; click adjustment layers + levels and move sliders to close gaps at either end of histogram.
Step 2 ; Click adjustment layer + gradient map (which I don't have), click gradient strip to open gradient editor. Select first option of foreground to background.
Step 3 ; Click black colour stop on bottom left and move in 4%. Move small midpoint stop that appears to 46%.
Step 4 ; Click below strip between black colour stop and midway point to create another colour stop. Move it to 25%.
Click colour box and set rgb values to 16, 27, 90. Click ok to close.
Step 5 ; in the gradient editor, click three quarters along below the strip for the highlight colour. Move this new colour stop to 75% and click the colour box and set rgb to 242,228, 174 (Pale yellow).click ok.
Step 6 ; Click Save and name (suggested name was 'Split tone Blue Yellow'
Step 7 ; Check before and after by clicking in turn, on layers.
Attachments
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1970's Fan
Super Member
Thanks for the info on the RAW format. Once I go through it all I'll have learned something in a minute or two that's puzzled me for ages.:yes::thmbsp:
ken kantor
Fowl Humor
I'm experienced with PSP 6, and various free- and cheap-ware.
Would Zoner be a significant addition?
Thanks,
-k
1970's Fan
Super Member
That reminds me of the time I tried to use a polarising filter on a Yashica 635 TLR that I still have (Man, that was a hoot!
) although the bulb setting no longer works after I dropped it.
Brian
An Old Geezer
That's why I used a Polaroid 180 and 195 with p/n film. I am minute I had a preview and negative.
1970's Fan
Super Member
Zoner? That's another one I've not heard of before. I may get the Photoshop Elements some time.
I don't have it here in front of me, but I think Lightroom will do these things. And as it's an Adobe kissing cousin to Photoshop, the sliders (maybe even the percentages) should be fairly similar. It's relatively inexpensive compared to Photoshop.
That's fine for portraits, landscapes and such, but out in a swamp doing macro photography is not really the place for a Polaroid...I'm not saying it can't be done, it's just that using an SLR makes all the difference in the world...
FWIW I do have two Polaroids, a Spectra and a ProPack...I really liked the Spectra and the ProPack was fun, but today for that image quality and spontaneity I much prefer my little Pentax Q10...it's also red so it's not as "intimidating" to subjects as my big black Pentax K5 w/grip seems...the little Q10 is just so tiny and cute that many people don't really realize that it is capable of pretty stunning images...just NOT outside in the bright sunlight, though, the LCD display is just washed out in the south Texas sun making composition more difficult than it should be...
But, BACK ON SUBJECT
,most digital cameras sold today come with (a) program(s) to process your digital images...my Q10 has a version of Silkypix that came with it and works well, as my K-5 came with Pentax Digital Camera Utility (which I believe may have been built upon Silkypix), which also works well, and both do a very credible job with RAW images...but, due to differences in each program and the information about each DNG file from the respective cameras, the Silkypix will not work with the K-5's files and vice versa...but, PSP X-6 works fine for both...So, look at what came with your camera and see if you can't use it instead of "aftermarket" programs...
On another note, I used to really like the British magazines that came with CD's for all sorts of programs, and the BBC Music mag that came with audio CD's, what a neat idea...I have some of their classical CD's ripped and on my music server today, a decade or so after I bought the last one...
1970's Fan
Super Member
Brian
An Old Geezer
That's fine for portraits, landscapes and such, but out in a swamp doing macro photography is not really the place for a Polaroid...I'm not saying it can't be done, it's just that using an SLR makes all the difference in the world...
FWIW I do have two Polaroids, a Spectra and a ProPack...I really liked the Spectra and the ProPack was fun, but today for that image quality and spontaneity I much prefer my little Pentax Q10...it's also red so it's not as "intimidating" to subjects as my big black Pentax K5 w/grip seems...the little Q10 is just so tiny and cute that many people don't really realize that it is capable of pretty stunning images...just NOT outside in the bright sunlight, though, the LCD display is just washed out in the south Texas sun making composition more difficult than it should be...
But, BACK ON SUBJECT
So, look at what came with your camera and see if you can't use it instea
d of "aftermarket" programs...
On another note, I used to really like the British magazines that came with CD's for all sorts of programs, and the BBC Music mag that came with audio CD's, what a neat idea...I have some of their classical CD's ripped and on my music server today, a decade or so after I bought the last one...
I had the accessory lens kits and close up filters and a macro setup using a ground glass. If I were looking for something morethe the Bronica with its extension tubes and bellows as well as my Leica with the Visoflex. Of course, he negative of the Polaroid was that there plenty of celluloid to crop and blowup and the film was so fine grained it did not get in the way. The Spectra and Power Pack lenses were not even a shadow of the quality of the SX70 or either the plastic or Corning Glass pack cameras. I used to shoot the Polaroids in the Florida Everglades. If Clyde Butcher can do it with his 8x10 and larger, there is no reason not to use a small large format there.
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