Beginner Photos in RAW what next?

padders

padders

Messages
36
Name
Tom
Edit My Images
Yes
Hi all, just been on holiday have lots of photos, having read on here that I should be shooting in RAW they are all in this format. Next thing I need to learn is what to do next and what software I should use to edit them? I have no post production experience and only have Iphoto 9 which came with my mac. Is this a good bit of software? It seems to have pretty limited options? What would you recommend me to get to me started? Also I took some bracketed images to do HDR and also some time-lapses so would need software that could do this. ANy advice would be great thanks. Here is my one of my favourites.


View attachment 18764
 
If you're using Canon, then the CD that came with your camera has some useful image processing software on it. If not, you may consider Lightroom for image processing.
 
thanks for the link Alastair, Im using a Nikon, looks like i'm going to free trial lightroom.
 
What Nikon camera are you using? iPhoto may read the RAWs. Also, Nikon have just released Capture NX-D which will be able to do basic edits on a RAW (not used it myself but I understand it's not nearly as good as the paid for Capture NX2 for editing RAWs).
 
Adventures in bird theatre? Blurry texture of underwing is good, and expressive of life! But black background smacks of artificial light, and beak would be better buried in a real flower ...

Forget the free Nikon app - so limited as to be pointless (released I think as an act of desperation).
 
Hi Padders, I had the same question recently. I went for Lightroom and followed these tutorials on Youtube by Anthony Morganti.


Excellent in my opinion

Rgds

Paul
 
I personally found learning to use Lightroom really helped drag me into my hobby in a big way. It's another skill to learn and - I'll not pretend otherwise - I made (and still occasionally make) some utterly ghastly post processing mistakes. But... and this was critical for me... it reinforced my interest in photography because in my naive eye, it allowed me to play with even sub-par pictures.

After a while I did realise that tinkering with ultimately poor photos is a fools game (you can't polish a poo) but I think in those early months when the majority of my photos weren't up to scratch in so many ways, it gave me an additional boost my hobby needed.

I'd definitely recommend it - especially if downloading the trial. But I'd also caution that it can become a bit all-consuming. And it becomes very easy to spend lots of time making photos worse! I also find it instils a sense of discipline into ordering and cataloguing your photos... no bad thing IMO.

By all means take a look at Anthony Morganti and Serge Ramelli... copy their styles and play around but then make sure you look at some "real" photos again and remember you don't need to whack the sliders to max ;)
 
Photoshop and Lightroom are both available on the Cloud now at a very reasonable monthly rate. and can highly recommend both.
 
So I've just tried to download LR, but apparently my operating system is outdated (10.6.8) so I can't install LR 5, and I can't seem to update to OX mavericks (hard drive error). Bloody computers!
 
Nikon Capture NX-D is not as good as the paid for Capture NX2 but it is quite good. It will read all the camera data and apply it to the picture, you can change it to whatever you want however as it is a raw file. It will let you do lots of basic editing to the whole picture, it will not let you do editing to parts of the photo, i.e. brighten just a face or adjust the contrast of just the sky. As it is free it is worth downloading and playing with, if you want something with a few more adjustments and the ability to change just part of a photo go for Photoshop Elements.
 
This is a real noob statement - so apologies....

(For background - recently purchased my camera and am still learning how to use it have been told to shoot in RAW so have started doing that)

However when you start going post shooting update what are you trying to achieve? I am expecting it to be a lot more then just cropping? Is it a case of polishing and brightening?
 
IOK786 said:
However when you start going post shooting update what are you trying to achieve? I am expecting it to be a lot more then just cropping? Is it a case of polishing and brightening?
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As much or as little as you want to do.
 
Paul9619 said:
Hi Padders, I had the same question recently. I went for Lightroom and followed these tutorials on Youtube by Anthony Morganti.


Excellent in my opinion

Rgds

Paul
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I cant help but feel that he could have got a lot right in the camera,it a rather bland shot that's been badly exposed,may a few lessons in metering & exposure would help this photographer :)
 
It seems a lot of Post processing seems make photos look better than real life, like the above turning a as you said Simon a bland shot into this amazing sunset, not sure how I feel about it. How can you know if a photos actually that good or just been edited the extreme. I can of course see the benefit of doing a little bit just taste i guess
 
padders said:
It seems a lot of Post processing seems make photos look better than real life, like the above turning a as you said Simon a bland shot into this amazing sunset, not sure how I feel about it. How can you know if a photos actually that good or just been edited the extreme. I can of course see the benefit of doing a little bit just taste i guess
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Part of photography for me as always been chasing the light,waiting for that moment and trying to capture it,not sitting in front of a computer :)
 
padders said:
It seems a lot of Post processing seems make photos look better than real life, like the above turning a as you said Simon a bland shot into this amazing sunset, not sure how I feel about it. How can you know if a photos actually that good or just been edited the extreme. I can of course see the benefit of doing a little bit just taste i guess
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Even with film - skilled developing and a master printer were required to bring out the best in an image.

Not even considering whether an image needs a bit of assistance from post-processing is a bit like accepting the Truprint option every time.. ..
 
Alastair said:
As much or as little as you want to do.
Click to expand...


This is the limitation of my imagination.......but at what point does it go beyond a photo and become a computer created image

Is there a line that you should not cross?

I.e the image in question, if we only took the humming bird put it on a sunset background and then altered everything else surely that's not what I stood hours in the rain waiting for the perfect moment? (I have not done that, but imagine some of the nature photographs some people snap have an age to catch)

I will upload a picture late on shot at Windsor safari park and it would be good to get views on what people would do post processing. (my ability to do that is another thing all together :D)
 
IOK786 said:
Is there a line that you should not cross?
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Don't look for rules, this is art.

Your line is unlikely to be in the same place as my line. And it does not matter.
 
A fairly comprehensive piece of software, which is free, is GIMP, not as extensive as Photoshop but does a good job with layers.
 
Lightroom is a great editing program. I started on Photoshop elements and once I tried Lightroom I wish I had started using LR earlier. Try picking up a second hand copy of Lightroom 4. I'm still using LR4 and don't plan to upgrade any time soon. There are some great tutorial videos here.

Can your camera record both JPEG and raw? It's a great way to try raw editing but with the backup of the JPEG. You can then ensure you can learn at your own pace.

I feel the same about how much some photos can be changed in the post processing. The best thing about raw is being about to make little changes like altering white balance, especially if you set the wrong white balance.
 
rob-nikon said:
Lightroom is a great editing program. I started on Photoshop elements and once I tried Lightroom I wish I had started using LR earlier. Try picking up a second hand copy of Lightroom 4. I'm still using LR4 and don't plan to upgrade any time soon. There are some great tutorial videos here.

Can your camera record both JPEG and raw? It's a great way to try raw editing but with the backup of the JPEG. You can then ensure you can learn at your own pace.

I feel the same about how much some photos can be changed in the post processing. The best thing about raw is being about to make little changes like altering white balance, especially if you set the wrong white balance.
Click to expand...

Without wishing to disagree for the sake of it, I'd... erm... disagree! I think Lightroom is a great package (including for beginners) precisely because it isn't an editing program. Sure, it has some (increasingly sophisticated) editing features, but its primary raison-d'etre is as a photo cataloguing and image "tweaking" tool.

Like you, Rob, I started trying PS first and couldn't get on with it, but when I moved to LR, I found it an absolute blessing. It made the whole concept of shooting and storing photos in RAW completely straightforward and, for me, very natural. I reckon I can do about 90-95% of what I want with my photos in LR. For the extra bits (occasional photos which I really want to play around with), yes, I use PS... basically when I want to start using layers, masks and have finer control over the edits. I now find PS reasonably "logical" in how it works, having learned Lightroom... previously I just didn't understand how/why it worked the way it did.

The best thing about LR, for me, is that it forces a certain discipline with your photos - how you file them, catalogue them and, over time, refine your workflow. For me, that has been the biggest plus with using LR.
 
pjm1 said:
Without wishing to disagree for the sake of it, I'd... erm... disagree! I think Lightroom is a great package (including for beginners) precisely because it isn't an editing program. Sure, it has some (increasingly sophisticated) editing features, but its primary raison-d'etre is as a photo cataloguing and image "tweaking" tool.

Like you, Rob, I started trying PS first and couldn't get on with it, but when I moved to LR, I found it an absolute blessing. It made the whole concept of shooting and storing photos in RAW completely straightforward and, for me, very natural. I reckon I can do about 90-95% of what I want with my photos in LR. For the extra bits (occasional photos which I really want to play around with), yes, I use PS... basically when I want to start using layers, masks and have finer control over the edits. I now find PS reasonably "logical" in how it works, having learned Lightroom... previously I just didn't understand how/why it worked the way it did.

The best thing about LR, for me, is that it forces a certain discipline with your photos - how you file them, catalogue them and, over time, refine your workflow. For me, that has been the biggest plus with using LR.
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Paul, it looks to me that we do agree but I put the wrong wording, 'editing program' when 'cataloguing and basic RAW processing program' is probably a much better description.

Like you say the main benefit is the cataloguing of images, I never need to find them on the hard drive as everything is done in LR. I only ever need to do the basic 'tweaks' (WB, exposure, white, blacks, shadows, highlights, tone curve, sharpening, noise reduction, etc) when processing a RAW and never use PSE except for the very rare occasion when I want to stitch images together.

Some of the main benefits I see is not actually making an alterations to the original RAW file, all changes are stored in a separate LR file. The other great thing is being able to make several different compositions/crops and save them as snapshots in the develop module. My final images are saved as snapshots and I can export them to any type of file type, quality, size, etc as I want them and I can delete them from the hard drive after use. A backup is easily completed by exporting a hi res JPEG using the publishing Zenfolio plug in straight to an invisible storage location on my Zenfolio web site.

This saves me so much hard drive space as I only ever store the original RAW file and the Lightroom data/catalog files. My crazy PSE work flow meant I saved the original RAW, processed TIFF and the final image as a JPEG.

The link I posted to the free video tutorials (17+hrs!) explains the benefits of Lightroom and shows how easy it is to learn if a little time is put in.
 
Yup Rob - we're definitely in agreement then! I personally love LR and it's allowed me to get even more out of my photography. I went through a bit of a curve where I spent loads more time processing and mucking around, rather than looking through the viewfinder... but have come out the other side and reckon on average I probably spend about 10-15 seconds per photo, give or take. I can easily spend up to a minute composing a shot, so I finally think I've got my priorities the right way around!
 
pjm1 said:
Yup Rob - we're definitely in agreement then! I personally love LR and it's allowed me to get even more out of my photography. I went through a bit of a curve where I spent loads more time processing and mucking around, rather than looking through the viewfinder... but have come out the other side and reckon on average I probably spend about 10-15 seconds per photo, give or take. I can easily spend up to a minute composing a shot, so I finally think I've got my priorities the right way around!
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I think you are right that way round, more time taking than processing. I can't wait to get down to 10-15 seconds an image, probably around 30-60 seconds at present but I do like the copy settings function to make it easier and quicker to process several similar images.
 
rob-nikon said:
I think you are right that way round, more time taking than processing. I can't wait to get down to 10-15 seconds an image, probably around 30-60 seconds at present but I do like the copy settings function to make it easier and quicker to process several similar images.
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To be fair, that's probably when I have sets of images... and especially when I've shot on manual and I can take the first image of the set, find the settings (exposure tweak, contrast, shadows & highlights and NR/sharpening) and then just sync to the rest of that set. It might well be 30-60 seconds on the first image but then the benefits of having consistent camera settings really makes the rest automatic. It's even easier still when I'm shooting indoors with off camera flash as the tweaks for the first image can often be applied to the entire memory card :) But then I probably spend 20 minutes retouching skin and hair in Photoshop!
 
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