Still not happy with raw edits...

Jasonmc1989

Jasonmc1989

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Name
Jason
Edit My Images
Yes
image.jpg Hello everyone!

I posted a thread on here a while ago because I was just never happy with how my shots looked after processing.

I've been trying to better my editing skills since but guess what..? I'm still not happy..

If it's not too much trouble could some of you take a look at the few I've put on Flickr...

https://m.flickr.com/#/photos/74446497@N05/

...and tell me what you think. Too much saturation? Too flat looking? I dunno. If you have any advice on where I've gone wrong, what I need to do, whatever. That would be great.

I shoot in raw and edit in Lightroom.

Cheers again!
 
I don't see anything wrong. Saturation and contrast is a personal thing only you can answer those questions.
 
•



As a child, I loved Sunday mornings… because I could
see my grand-mother. One of these Sundays, she was
cooking a cake but I want to play some thing with her.
As so often, she repeated: "… be with you in a minute!"

To hurry up things, I suggested her to put everything in
a cake form straight in the oven. She gave me back the
sweetest smile explaining that things, when it comes to
cakes, are not so simple… laughing at my naivety.

I often refer to PP as "cooking"!
Things, like in all kitchen, must be done in a certain way
and in a given order.

There are complicated ways and much simpler ways. I
prefer to stick to the natural rendition.

May I suggest you try this way:
  1. DRL
  2. WB
  3. Tonal taming
Most of the time, these steps are enough to pull out the
best of you RAW recorded data to a natural rendition.
After that, one may express any artistic intent.
 
Last edited:
A couple of questions, on your Flikr are they the original shots or are they heavily cropped?
Looking on Flikr the Heron looks fine to me, the Parrot looks slightly OOF, the Nunbird and the fox look OK , the fox is sharper than the bird, hence my question about the crop.
To me they don't look too flat but some look a bit unsharp.
What kit are you using , you might be asking a bit too much!
 
Yes most of them are cropped quite a bit. The heron one not so much.

The parrot was rushed as hell so I fired a quick burst on that was the best one I got really.

The gear I use is a Canon 70D and either a Tamron 70-300 vc (which I know is pretty unsharp) and a Canon 100mm f2.8 (which I used for the heron)

Sharpening is another thing I don't really know what I'm doing with! I usually just slide it up a bit until it looks okay? Then that'll do.
 
Kodiak Qc said:
•



As a child, I loved Sunday mornings… because I could
see my grand-mother. One of these Sundays, she was
cooking a cake but I want to play some thing with her.
As so often, she repeated: "… be with you in a minute!"

To hurry up things, I suggested her to put everything in
a cake form straight in the oven. She gave me back the
sweetest smile explaining that things, when it comes to
cakes, are not so simple… laughing at my naivety.

I often refer to PP as "cooking"!
Things, like in all kitchen, must be done in a certain way
and in a given order.

There are complicated ways and much simpler ways. I
prefer to stick to the natural rendition.

May I suggest you try this way:
  1. DRL
  2. WB
  3. Tonal taming
Most of the time, these steps are enough to pull out the
best of you RAW recorder data to a natural rendition.
Ater that, one may express any artistic intent.
Click to expand...


What is DRL?

Thanks.
 
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Jasonmc1989 said:
Sharpening is another thing I don't really know what I'm doing with! I usually just slide it up a bit until it looks okay? Then that'll do.
Click to expand...
Probably the same for most of us, just push the slider until we get a result we like..
I think the default sharpening in LR for the 70D is quite conservative (25).
I always used the default setting, since I was wary of overdoing it, but I've recently been using a setting of 50 for my 80D.
For the 80D I don't usually go beyond 50, and the 70D should be similar.
The time you know you've overdone it is when you start to see halos around the outlines.
I've got the Martin Evening Lightroom book, and there's a whole chapter on image sharpening, so if you need more help, I would suggest you get a copy.
I also like the Julieanne Kost tutorials for Lightroom and Photoshop but there are so many I can't point to a specific "sharpening" one.
 
I can't see anything wrong with the photos other than what has been said on here. Great shot using the 100mm macro !
 
I think maybe you're feeling how I often do with my own photos - that they're OK, but lacking something special and it frustrates me that I can't work out what that missing something is.

Could you post some links to pictures you like and then maybe we can see how you could get more towards that style?
 
Apart from the above.... could it just be that you've looked at the image too long?

I'm guilty of this, i like an image, work with it in post, then fall out of love with it. I normally come back to it a few days later and i like it again and finish it off.
 
Shot in JPG .. half the works done for you.. just crop, straighten. auto contrast and auto sharpen and am guessing your pics will look even better...., "In this instance" I dont understand why you feel the need to do half the work yourself ? I understand the need for raw in some cases.. but not these sort of shots..
 
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KathG said:
To my eyes the look good.

If your interested here is a link to Anthony Morganti's Lightroom videos for PP. For me I have found him very good and don't find myself falling asleep while watching:).

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLllFqBuTM0WKjdQXb5XXKEMQmjseqic1J

Cheers
Kath
Click to expand...

I've seen Anthony's youtube channel, but I personally cannot stand the guy. He waffles on too much and doesn't get to the point. I prefer Serge Ramelli :)

OP
About time you uploaded new photos on to your Flickr!
 
One of the biggest hurdles (And one that I am still overcoming) is knowing where you want an image to end up.

If you don't know where you're going, every map in the world won't help you get there.

Take some time out, collect images from Flickr / 500px that you admire and wish to emulate (10-20 should do, make sure they're realistically attainable - EG if you're based in NA then don't go picking out photographs of Flamingos, keep it relevant!). Once you can establish what you want as the end result, it's far easier for someone to chip in and help you with the technical pointers.

Annoyingly the hardest part of photography is the art bit. The technical section is typically trivial.
 
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