Photo Editing Programs for Beginners

[rpcrowe]

A friend, recently purchased Elements 10 and finds it does everything he needs including the ACR Raw converter.

I am getting more comfortable with PSE-10. At first I hated it because it tried to do things for me that I didn't want to do (LIKE OPEN EVERY IMAGE FROM EVERY PROGRAM that I open in my computer). I would also far prefer to dump the PSE way of storing a library of photos. I enjoyed working in CS-5 which did not have that capability (or that anchor as far as my workflow goes).

When using CS-5 to asemble a panorama, Content Aware Fill will enable me to fill in the areas (usually sky and foreground) that are not covered by the assembled panorama. This is a great and simple tool which works very well.

PSE-10 doesn't have a global Content Aware Fill (although I think that PSE-9 did have one). PSE-10 uses a Content Aware Fill Brush which, IMO, is no where nearly as efficient as the global Content Aware Fill.

[Geoff F]

Thank you Geoff. I do have photoshop elements 9. What does one need/use masks for?

Using Layers http://www.ronbigelow.com/articles/l...1/layers-1.htm

Using masks & selections http://www.ronbigelow.com/articles/s...lections-1.htm

A vast amount of information there. Fully explained in great detail. Possibly too much detail to start with - but it will gradually start to make sense.

[Brownbear]

Thank you Frank. Very helpful and and amazing shot and processing. I have a lot to learn, and since I am currently living in a very wee town in Mexico I don't have many resources easily available (or in English) and this forum and the members are simply the best!

[Brownbear]

Thank you. Bookmarked for future learning.

[CSeye]

Hi Christina,

You get the honour of my first post on this forum; hello all!
I have read this with some interest. I have LR3, PS Elements 4 (starting to become a bit of an antique!) and CS3. I have only had LR3 for a few months now but am using it more and more. After reading this i am seriously thinking about ditching CS3, keeping LR and probably upgrading Elements when 11 comes out later this year. I think with those two it would suffice all my needs for editing. CS3 or any version for that matter is a minefield to learn, I am another one who does not use layer masks, because I dont find the need for them and I dont understand them. I have worked on some images recently with LR (using Scott Kelbys book to direct my workflow) and have been very impressed with what it can do. My computer is about as old as my version of Elements so it chugs along anyway so getting rid of one large program will alleviate its burden a bit.

One comment about your duck photo's if I may, I assume your shutter speed is 250th and your iso 100 NOT the other way around as you state? Just wondered if a slightly faster shutter speed would help them to become more sharper?

[Manfred M]

, I am another one who does not use layer masks, because I dont find the need for them and I dont understand them.

Once you have figured out layer masks they, along with adjustment layers and blending modes, become such a major part of your workflow and you wonder how you ever lived without them. The beauty of these tools is that they allow you to make non-destructive (i.e. easily reversable) changes to your work.

I find that Lightroom is a very good cataloguing tool and great for fairly minor cleanup in a production environment. Any heavy hitting, full-blown Photoshop is really the "Gold Standard" for this type of work.

You are right; the learning curve on full-blown Photoshop is long and painful but well worth the effort over the long run.

[Brownbear]

Hi CSeye
It is great to know that my obsession with trying to get a good shot of these particular ducks is helpful. I purchased light room, and it seems simple and quick to use, but I still have to learn the program. I also tried the DXO program to eliminate the purple fringe/chromatic aberration on my other attempted duck shots tool is not available for my Tamron 200-400 lens (out of date I believe).

That particular duck shot was shot at Aperture Priority F6 1/4000 sec shutter speed 1SO 1250

And usually when I use F6 I find purple fringing all around their wings... When I use shutter speed priority anything over 800 the ducks are too dark and I can't lighten them without destroying them.. And over ISO 1000 is too much noise... So I am about to give up on photographing these ducks and just learn to appreciate the fact that they are in my neighbourhood!

This shot is from yesterday Manual Setting Shutter Speed 1/800 Aperture F6 ISO 800



I was reading about layer masks the other day, and the example used a landscape shot in which the sky was over exposed. They created two versions of the photo and underexposed the sky to bring back the colour. They then combined the photos to create a perfectly exposed landscape shot.

There was also an example of a portrait shot in which they wished to soften the skin of the model, and here they used a mask which enhanced the beauty of the model. Although I hope to not have to spend a lot of time editing photos, when you have a shot that you just can't get right, in my case the ducks, it sure seems handy... However, no more ducks for me!

Thank you for sharing.

[tclune]

And usually when I use F6 I find purple fringing all around their wings... When I use shutter speed priority anything over 800 the ducks are too dark and I can't lighten them without destroying them.. And over ISO 1000 is too much noise...

I see you are a Nikon shooter. Just so you know, the new ViewNX2 software will remove LoCA (the all-around purple fringing.) It isn't perfect -- LoCA is caused by different colors of light focusing on different focal planes, so when you remove it you are left with a bit of blurriness in its place. But View NX2 is free and easy to use. FWIW

[Brownbear]

Thank you. I will check out ViewNX2.

[jcuknz]

I have been using layers, adjustment layers on much more than 90%, as a favourite way to work so thankyou Geof F ... LR will not even get to the door

Christina ...I too am somewhat frustrated with birds in the sky and after seeing shots taken by somebody on a trip to Antarctica taken from the birdsnest or similar high place on the ship I think one approach is to stop silhouetting the birds against the sky and have them level with you somehow ... cherry-picker perhaps

I have been using Paint Shop Pro since I moved away from simple programmes and it does all I want to do, and what it cannot do I am happy to live without, it does so much like Photoshop and some things PS doesn't.

Fringing around objects ... first learnt when I over sharpened a shot ...I went around the subject with a one or two pixel clone brush and replaced the fringe with adjacent good materials ... tedious for sure and I have not repeated the exercise for ages [ learnt not to over sharpen and use High Pass Sharpening which does this less than USM ]

[FrankMi]

However, no more ducks for me!

You are making progress Christina. If you see other photographers images that provide what you would like to be able to do then it is just a matter of time and practice and you'll be able to do it as well. If it can be done, you can do it so please don't let a little temporary discouragement get in your way of the satisfaction of success!

[Brownbear]

Thank you Photo Nut & Frank for your helpful comments and encouragement.

I would need a 10-20 meter ladder to be on the same level as the ducks but I'm seriously thinking about buying one!

FYI I finally got a good shot yesterday, and indeed the duck was flying right at me



Off to buy a ladder!

[natt]

I was wondering if you have ever heard of nama5 RAW processor intended for beginners to RAW photography. I am one of the programmers of this soft and I would like some feedback.

[doomed forever]

My Tip: a freeware image processing editor, and if you do raw, look at RawTherapee. It's GUI is equal to Lightroom, but open source, so free for using it. I'm using RawTherapee from time 2 time myself, since 2.4.1 - current Version is 4.x.x.x you can also use the Free ViewNX2 for developing RAW
files from nikons NEF format, for example. there are from feeling tons of freeware RAW converters
out there onto the web since years - more or less good, depends on what you need.

[Geoff F]

Before getting software with ACR I also used Raw Therapee. The unstable early version 3.

But, apart from a few quirks, I liked the software. Not exactly easy if you want to get the maximum benefit from it though. I understand the latest version is much improved in reliability although I haven't personally used it.

Scarab Labs also produce a free Raw converter which is reasonably good and simple to operate. But, for me, it didn't do nearly as much as RT.

And, of course, for a basic converter which is sufficient for many people; there is the old standby of Canon DPP.

[doomed forever]

As i wrote RT works fine, had a few probs with 4.0.9.15 (crashed often) but 4.0.9.50 seems to be way stable for me. The algorithms used in RT are high quality, i prefer working in RT & after that sending the image to PS instead of using ACR in 1st place. Scarab Labs Darkroom is sth i know for ages, but it fails me for one reason: no 16bit TIF support, so in the end no 48bit color, you can export the so raw-processed image only as 8bit JPG, which is nothing for further post processing within PS, because it's a lossy 8bit JPG. I'm using the 64bit version. I convert the 12bit RAW NEF file in my case to 16bit TIF(F), then doing post-processing in PS, and finally save it as 8bit JPG when i am done.

HTH
marc

[Brownbear]

No I have not heard of any of these programs, but thank you everyone for you helpful recommendations... I will look into them but right now I am a little overwhelmed with all of these editing programs, and need to step back and take some time to learn the ones I have.