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- Edit My Images
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Took this at the weekend whilst in Guernsey, any ideas on how to make it better most appreciated.
Boat Out of Water by M@ttyM, on Flickr
Boat Out of Water by M@ttyM, on Flickr
That image, given the conditions is as good as it will be.
Taking it in softer lighting would improve it no doubt, but as this sort of day time shot goes, its fine.
Colours look a bit "larger than life."
You could probably trim a bit of sky off the top, since it's not adding anything.
Maybe a black and white contrasty conversion too?
Is it my eyesight (or this dodgy screen) but does that sky look a bit processed? Theres a lot of artifacts and halo kicking around, maybe that the B&W phone edit?
I am at work and the displays are not the best (Understatement).
Actually i love the Blue sky! I think the same crop you have in B&W on the colour version would be good.
I see you mention Jpegs, if you shoot in JPEG, i think you should really consider thinking about shooting in RAW. I wont babble on about the benifits here as there are lots of threads on the subject, but in short it allows you A LOT more room for getting the best out of your images, as you dont loose the RAW information captured by your Camera.
If you tried it "a few years ago" I'd suggest you give it another go.I "Played" with LR a few years ago, and decided to do the job properly and had been using PS exclusively until then. I spent a lot of time setting up LR correctly and learning as much as i could about it (you never stop learning PP in my view). I think LR and PS go hand in hand and the more serious you get about photography the more you need tools like this.
I would recommend LR to anyone but I'd also recommend they read up on what it's about and how to set it up correctly from the start, that's the key
Apologies from me too, for not reading your post properly.Oh sorry Brian, I think what I wrote was slightly misleading.... What I meant to say was, that I played with Lightroom (early version) and didn't really get on well with it. So just used PS. Then after a bit of a rehash, i decided I would read up on LR. This opened a whole new scene, when I actually 'understood' what LR was all about and the penny dropped, I set the whole thing up correctly on my machine.
So the end result is my workflow is much better. I use LR 5.something now and store all my images using it and like the fact it's totally non-destructive. All of my developing is in LR just switching to PH when some more complex editing needs doing.
Do you use any interesting plug ins?
I would recommend LR to anyone but I'd also recommend they read up on what it's about and how to set it up correctly from the start, that's the key! ( can always remember in my first play with it, so how do I flipping well save my image).
"Your workflow pretty much parallels mine" I hope not the reality version!!
Oh I see what you mean, no I treat each one separately ( my theory is ) go through the photos and kick out the rubbish. Then go through the keepers to see which need no or little processing and mark them ( LR has various options for marking them flags, colour tags, ratings etc ). Then mark the keepers that need some work.
Then quickly process the first batch, then work through the ones that need serious editing in PS.
Now reality.....
Look through all the photos, don't ditch anything! Only pictures I've taken of my foot, the lens cap or the inside of the camera bag.
Come to the first shot that most sane people would ditch, process in LR for an hour, realise it need more work, flick to PS. Now process till which ever comes first, 3am or RSI. Resume the following evening until, while multi tasking (don't believe the myth men can't ) I read about the latest 'Wizzo go faster plugin for LR' spend 2hours downloading it and getting it to work with my version of LR. Find it's useless or would be great for removing the scaffolding from that 'cathedral shot' I took in Barcelona last year. But begger all use for what I'm editing currently. Then finally get bored or decide 'who wants a silhouette of a giant hogweed against a mediocre sunset with a wonky horizon and blown out sky anyway! Go down the Pub
Note to self, I must learn LR ( I have been meaning to do it for at least 2 years, just don't have the time, 1 step forward and 2 steps backwards )
Have a look on You Tube there are some Excellent tutorials on there. I found a little program called youtube downloader free program so i save all my favorite ones onto DVD so there easy to find if i need them.
I would be VERY careful about some of the so-called video "Tutorials" on YouTube, unless you know they are from a reliable source.That's not a bad shout! Those YouTube program's do work then?! See them listed but not had a use for them...... Until now!!
Yes, learning to use some of these programs to their best advantage can be a time consuming business.Hi Brian
"Your workflow pretty much parallels mine" I hope not the reality version!!
Sounds interesting, i'll take a look at the Topaz plug-ins. Its always a case of using this for one thing and that for another isnt it! I have the NIK collection. Its sometimes a matter of getting the time to learn them too isnt it!
Just as a matter of interest when you process in LR and flip into PS what do you save the image as after editing in PS? Just interested in other peoples Workflow...
I have been using YTD video downloader, its a freebe it works fine just paste in the YouTube URL and set up what file type you want it to save it to, ie MP4 etc.
The free verson lets you download one file at a time the pro version you can download files faster but to be honest its fairly quick
I would be VERY careful about some of the so-called video "Tutorials" on YouTube, unless you know they are from a reliable source.
I've seen some shockingly bad, and sometimes just plain WRONG, advice posted on YouTube under the guise of "tutorials."
Personally, for Lightroom and Photoshop, I think the Julieanne Kost tutorials on the Adobe TV network are really good.