Apologies for the poor quality but this is an interesitng bug and I had only 1 shot

[JBW]

[ajohnw]

I don't know what post processing software you use but it's fairly easy to improve that shot by as much as you want. I did a medium strength unsharp mask, tiny amount of tone mapping and a slight change to the dark end - their intensity is boosted a little

Doh still can't upload images.

You might like to look at Rawtherapee for post processing. It's free and apart from local retouching offers all that you are likely to need really and is easy to use. It doesn't mind working on any of the usual image formats. The manual is not too long and worth a read as well.

John
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[JBW]

I don't know what post processing software you use but it's fairly easy to improve that shot by as much as you want. I did a medium strength unsharp mask, tiny amount of tone mapping and a slight change to the dark end - their intensity is boosted a little

Doh still can't upload images.

You might like to look at Rawtherapee for post processing. It's free and apart from local retouching offers all that you are likely to need really and is easy to use. It doesn't mind working on any of the usual image formats. The manual is not too long and worth a read as well.

John
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I actually find Rawtherapee very hard to understand. But maybe I just had a bad couple of days. I will take another look at it.

[ajohnw]

The manual helps Brian because it does show what the various controls do. Getting to grips with all of them really is a case of starting with a few and trying each one on it's own as well. As soon as there are several on the go things get a bit complicated - only time can cure that.

On the exposure tab I doubt if you need to change it looking at your shots. You may find the auto levels useful and if you don't like what it does hit neutral. Always hit the default curly arrows on all of these settings. Later play with the recovery parts when you are used to it.

Tone Mapping - use the curly arrows to reset to defaults and then adjust the strength.

I usually use an unsharp mask before any tone mapping. Stick with defaults and use the unsharp mask. Slowly increase the strength until the image just crisps up. It's easy to apply to much so look at the detail all over the shot.

The colour tab really needs to be mostly forgotten for a while other than white balance and vibrance. Most of the controls are curves though which helps understanding.

A curve will usually be a graph with dark on the left and light on the right and a corner to corner line. Move the top right of the line down and it will reduce the lights, move the left hand end and it will lift the dark end. Create a hump in the middle and it will lift mid tones and so on.

The tone curves under the exposure tab work as above as well. JPG's oiften have a lot compressed into the dark end and can be recovered by moving that end about. If you increase the slope of the line in that region by adding a point some where along the line that can be used to make them look more natural. The slope sets the rate of change / gradation. The bright end can be reduced in the same way. - Takes some time to get the hang of but well worth the effort and a good intro to any other type of curve. None of your shots apart from ants on a plant show any signs of needing it. On that one the ants in the dark can be made visible with that control and also the very bright highlights in the background reduced some what.

John
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[Geoff F]

I did use Raw Therapee a while ago. Version 3 I think; which was rather unstable then, but they did finally improve things and have moved on to a better product now.

Not sure about the latest version but the one I used was a bit tricky to understand, at least initially. It did produce good results though, so I would definitely say it is worth persevering with until it starts to make sense.

Just guessing about that bug but it does seem to resemble one of the Tortoise Beetle species.

[JBW]

Hi John, I dl it again last night and have started working through it again. If I ever upgrade my equipment it will come in handy for the raw.
B.

[ajohnw]

I have used it several times over the past couple of years and come across others who use it a lot more than me. Never really heard any complaints. If bugs are found report them on their forum but it's important that you can list the things you did to produce it.

The GIMP can be used for local retouching. Making full use of it as a package is an undertaking but it terms of the dockable brush tool window if you select one of the tools and press F1 it will tell you all about it. That adds dodging - local darkening, burning - local brightening and a useful cloning tools for removing things you don't want. There are video's on youtube that show how to make it look like Photoshop but I feel it pays to stick with how it comes. There is no way all of the things it can do can be easily arranged in one window so separate ones that are bought up as needed makes a lot more sense. It's a full blown layer handling package so going much deeper than the brush tools will take some times. Selection is easy though and several ways of using it. Plenty of tutorials on YouTube but probably best to wait until you are comfortable with basic post processing. One thing that may make it feel like a strange package to use with some rather odd facilities is that it's always largely been aimed at graphic artists.

One thing on Rawtherapee I should have mentioned is that there are sliders for setting black and white points. You may come across mention of that so best know that they are there. I would bet for instance that Colin uses levels for that but many find those confusing. Can also be done with the curve but why not use the sliders as they are there.

Another is to save new versions periodically just in case you mess up some how and never over right the original.

Personally I feel that once you are familiar with the adjustments in Rawtherapee you wont have much of a problem picking up any other package. Rather than just read I would suggest you take some shots and play around with the adjustments I mentioned. They cover rather a lot actually and then there are brightness contrast saturation etc. I've decided it's time to get into LAB adjustments and Rawtherapee offers a very simple interface for that. Best left alone until the shot is basically correct.

Lastly you will probably struggle for a while what ever package you use so introduce new steps slowly.

John
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