blueangel_78

Well, here is what I do. To preface it, I shoot in RAW and use Photoshop CS3.

So I open the raw file in CS3 and it immediatly opens it up in the raw converter.

In there I do a majority of my editing. I usually just follow the order of the items.

White Balance
Exposure
Saturation
Blacks
Curves
level the picture out so it's straight
Crop if needed

Then I import the file into PS.

First I do a pass of the Smart Sharpen
If it has spots from sensor dust, I create a new contrast layer, adjust it so i can see the dust, go back to the background layer, use the clone tool to remove them, then delete the contrast layer.
Then Levels
Color adjustment

--Save the file as a psd

Resize as needed (for web, print, blog, anet, etc)
Run my copyright action if I need it
Last pass of Smart Sharpen.
Save for web if it's going to the web or save as jpg level 12 for print, level 10 for anet.

And that's it.

I would recommend that you take a look at this for some ideas. I got my smart sharpening technique from there.

Fence Check | quick find index thread for post processing


HTH! Let me know if you have any questions.
Sagar

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Spectre

You guys rock...thanks for taking the time to help out the new people into this "sport"

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L-1011-Heavy

Wow! That's A Lot Of HARD Work!
Absolutely Necessary 5 Years Ago Or If You Have Less Than A Prosumer Nikon/Canon.
Nowadays You Can Eliminate The Entire Process By Doing The Following:

Buy A Fuji S-3 Or S-5. (A Sony A-100 Or A-700 Will Suffice)
Shoot In JPG. You Will Only Use 2 Megs/Picture Instead Of 10 Megs. Tremendous Savings On Your Memory Card & Writing Time Compared To Shooting In Raw
Set Your Custom White Balance In The CAMERA To Eliminate ALL The Steps In CS3 Except Crop.
Don't Bother Saving In PSD Unless You Want To Do Serious Editing Later. It's Slow & JPg Is Easier For Image Viewers To Process, Or Upload To Boards/Web.

Oh And You Should See The Results Of A 30" X 40" PHOTOGRAPHIC Print From The Fuji.
Blows The Nikons & Canons Away As If They Were Dollar Store Disposables.

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blueangel_78

Hey, I'm on JetPhotos too! Not as many or as cool pics as you do, but I've got 4!

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blueangel_78

Thanks for the kind words. Yeah, I am just hoping to get more business, so I figured I'd give A.net a go. The only reason I did a few on JP was cuz I had a friend who was a screener on there. So To make him happy I uploaded a few. But just like A.net, my first photo did spectacular (to my standards) in the rankings, but then after that, it was all downhill.

And thanks for the tip on the tags. Here's one of my fav that you've taken!

Great composition and a beautiful job editing.

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blueangel_78

Well, that is true. But it may seem like that at first. But you get used to it. And when you see the difference, it's worth taking the extra few steps to get the best out of your images.

I disagree. Regardless of what format you shoot (RAW or JPG) and what camera you shoot it with, you will still need to do the basics (exposure, adjust for the shot being crooked, some sharpening, contrast, etc).

Well, let me just say it all depends on what you are after. And depending on your situation and needs, some of the things that I do, may not be necessary to what you do.

Agreed! The exact numbers may vary, but that is logical since the difference between JPG and RAW huge. A JPG file is compressed in the camera. A RAW file is not compressed, and retains all the information. With that extra information, the file size will be larger. Question is do you need that extra info? Do you want to be able to adjust the White Balance? Or have a +/- 2 levels of exposure control or forgiveness? Are you willing to bet that you nailed the exposure 100% the first time? Or are you going to take that one in a million shot where some day you will want to blow it up to a huge poster. Or have it show up on the cover of a magazine. If you are just going to take a picture and email it to your friends, just leave your camera in the JPEG lowest quality setting. You will have all the room you want on your memory card, no worries of filling your hard drive and you don't even have to resize you image to an email friendly size.

Well, My Canon 40D and 20D do take up a lot of memory space when I shoot in RAW. But memory and hard drive are cheap. 4 GB compact flash cards are $40. I just picked up a Western Digital 500GB hard drive for $130. Of course if i shot in Jpeg, it would take up less space on my hard drive/memory card. As far as writing time, I use Extreme III cards, and the difference between that and standard cards is not noticeable. I've got a huge buffer on my 40D so that will help offset any time issues.

If you camera lets you do that, it is definitely an option. But if you are in a situation where the lighting changes; moving from indoor to outdoors, dealing with various types of lights, then it's going to be a pain in the *** to change it each and every time. I don't carry a grey card and meter for each and every type of shot. If you have the time, then go for it. When I shoot an NHL game, I shoot in manual white balance, and with manual exposure. Why? Because I know the lighting is going to change and the exposure is constant across the ice rink. Now if I pointed the camera into the crowd...well, that'll require a different exposure setting (but same white balance setting since the lighting is the same). Aviation is different. As clouds move in, you pan from one end of the horizon to the other, the lighting changes.

Well, as I've been saying all along, this is just how I do it and how I use it. I do save my shots in PSD, why, because I frequently have to go back to the image and use it for something else. And with the PSD, I can just use that as my template. If I didn't have it, then I would have to take the original JPG or RAW, edit it all over again, and tweak it to my needs. The most common example for my use, is that someone will see the image and will want a print. Well, each image size 8x10, 11x14, 12x18, 20x30 has a different resolution. Well, I can just open the PSD and resize it in seconds and save it as a jpg and make the print. But I am saving the time of having to redo all the editing steps that I did before. But that is for prints. After I have the psd file, I can just as quickly make a low rez size for the web/boards such as ours.

I have never seen a print from Fuji in person, but for those that want to see a side by side comparison, check out Dpreview.

Fujifilm S5 Pro Review: 17. Photographic tests: Digital Photography Review

In MY opinion, based on their results, the Canon 30D seems a lot sharper and the Fuji loses a lot of the detail as the ISO goes up; even with in camera noise reduction applied. But check out the pics and judge for yourself.


Now if you've read all that, then I will say this. If you are happy with the shot that you get straight out of the camera, then that is ok. No one is telling you to do any of this stuff. This is all optional. If you have the time and patience for all this stuff, I think the rewards are worthy. But to the average person, the results are not noticeable. It just depends on how much time and effort you can spare. For most of my clients, ie like this series of shots from a forest fire I shot recently,

Horizontal Rain, Imagery by Sagar N. Pathak

Well, the entire series is unedited. It was shot in raw, but converted to a low res jpg for web use only....not touched other then a change in resolution and converted to jpg. It's good enough for the editors that view it and for clients who need proof shots. Now if i was to just upload it to A.net or make a print out of it, it wouldn't fly. I would edit each request.


Well, I've lectured enough for a bit. Let me do a quick before and after example and see if that may be a launch of another conversation.

Cheers!
~Sagar

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L-1011-Heavy

The Air To Air Of The Three Thunderbirds & The F-15 Hovering Over The Parked Ones Show You Have An Eye For Composition & A Strong Sense Of Of Subject Matter & Point Of Interest To Tell A Story.

Jet Phots Are Not Worthy Of These 2 Pics. They Should Be Exhibited Or In A Stock Agency, Not In A Common Website Where Just About Any Joe Bloe Can Upload.

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blueangel_78

So here is a before and after that I did.

This is the original jpg image (shot w/ my 20D). The only thing done was a resize and I added my copyright, then save for web option.



Now, after some Levels, Contrast, Saturation, Sharpening, Colors this is the result. Same size and levels in the Save for Web option.



It's a subtle difference....but again, if you like the results straight out of the camera, then ignore all of this. But if you want to know what you can mould your images into..then let's talk!

Sagar

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blueangel_78

And since we are in a military forum, here's the world famous USAF Thunderchickens!

Before - only resize, copyright and save for web.



After - Levels, Contrast, Saturation, Sharpening, Colors, cloning of the dust spots, save as psd, image size, copyright, and save for web.

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L-1011-Heavy

Sounds Like You Know A Thing Or Two.
My Job For The Last 8 Years Was A Photographer/ Commercial-Industrial Lab Tech.
Using Cameras Was Part Of What We Did. The Fujis If Used Right Blow The Doors Off The Likes Of Canon & Nikon's Best.
If You Are Familiar With Hasselblad Film Cameras, The Fuji Is Sharper With Better Color & Contrast Even @ 30 X 40 & 40 X 60 . He Have (When I Worked There) A ZBE Industries 50" Chromira LED Printer Using Photographic Paper (Quantum Leaps Better Than The Best Ink Jets)
I Also Did Weddings With The Fuji & Grad Photos For Centennial College & University Of Toronto.
Our Customers Also Professionals From All Over Also Agree. No Other Camera Can Touch It Regardless If Its A D-200, D-300 Or Whatever Make Out There Regardless If You Use Raw Or Not, The Fuji Is Still Better Than Those In JPG.
Unless You Work As I Have With These Cameras Or As Our Customers Did, You Won't Know Regardless Of What Any Web Site Reports.
Technical Specs Don't Mean Anything Either. It's What You See In Front Of You.
Of Course The Lab Makes A HUGE Difference Too.

I Worked Here.

phoenixprolabs.com

I Can Gaurantee You, No Sharpness Or Corrections Are Necessary With The Fuji. Though Some Choose To Use An Automated Correction Program That We Customized To Their Individual Work.

Of Course Working Closely With A Good Lab Is Key For The Nitpickers.
For Most Pros & Prosumers, Just Stand At The Counter Leave Your Nedia & Come Back In 3 Days For Amazing Results. Advanced Amatuers Will Be Blown Away.

Looks Like (I'm A Bit Out Of Touch On The Media Prices. What A Shock!

You Might Have A Point On The Iso . We Only Used ISO 100 & Recommend That All Users Do Not Engage In Extra Curricular ISO Activities.


Good Points. I Will Answer Them.
White Balance Should Not Be A Problem. There Are Several Custom Settings On Your Camera. You Can Program Each Custom Setting For Different Lighting Conditions. Though In Your Situation, You May Not Have Time. Switching From The Rink To The Crowd & Back May Not Permit Enough Time To Change Your Custom White Settings. (I'm Gonna Argue That Point With A Manufacturer One Day) But We're Talking Shooting Airplanes On This Forum.
Hockey Pics Are Cool Though.
And Are You Using Grey Cards To Set Your White Balance?
I Use A White Board, But That Does Take Effort On Location. I Even Have Three Custom White Balances For ONE Lens If I Shoot With A 80-400 Because Of The Color Change & Loss Of Light As You Zoom. (I'd Like An Automated Feature For That Whereby The Camera Reads The Focal Length As You Zoom & Automatically Changes To The Preset Custom White Balance At Several Predetermined Focal Lengths, Another Feature I'm Gonna Talk To The Manufacturers About. Minolta Had A Wonderful Array Of Custom Features On Their Maxxum 9)

Exposure. Well Once You Reach A Certain Stage In Photography There's No Reason You Shoulld Be 2 Stops Over Or Under.
If You Are Not That Proficient, The White Balance Certainly Helps Very Well In Conjuction With Your Metering System. Also At 8 Or 12 Segment Metering You Should Not Have Problems Unless You Are Shooting Directly At The Sun.Then If You Still Have Under/Over Our Printers Can Set The DSA (At A Cost) To Correct Over/Under Exposre Will Little Or No Loss Of Information. However That IS One Advantage Of Raw. All The Information Is There In The First Place.

There Are A Lot Of Options To Consider. One Is Price. The Other Is If You Already Own A System.
We Pretty Much Went Through An Advanced University Lesson Here For Most & We Both Got Carried Away. My Point Really Was You Can Avoid All The Work In Photoshop (I Work Up To 5 Hours A Day In CS3. LOOOOVE The Liquify Tool & Sharpness Is Great Too, But Need Much Practice To Master)
If You Simply Buy A Fuji.
But Of Course If You Already Have A Canon Or Nikon, Then The Steps You Mentioned At The Start Of The Thread Is The Only Way To Get Good Results.
But I'll Bet If You Set Your White Balance The Results Of Your Raw Files Will Be Even Better. White Balance Is Key To Any Good Photos.

This Is An Exception.
Just Over A Year Ago I Tested A Prototype Of A Sony Alpha 100 Just About To Be Released On The Market.
It Got Surprising Results Just As Is Without Having To Set The White Balance.
We Printed As Is & Got Great Results. I'm Sure Once You Set The White Balance, The Pics Would Have Been Better. The Great Thing About The Sony Is The Price.
At Worst. Minimal Correcting Will Be Need & I'm Betting The Automated Correction Programs Will Suffice. Never Had Time To Test It Thoroughly But Looks Great IMO.



GREAT Conversation!

Edit. I Just Had A Look At The Website That Did Comparisons.
Fujifilm S5 Pro Review: 17. Photographic tests: Digital Photography Review
Absolutely Wrong! The Pictures Are Mere Thumbnails & They Look Blurred! No Way The Fuji Is That Bad!
Sorry, I Can't Show Samples, But We Have One Customer Shooting In JPG With The Fuji S-3. Their Wedding Photo Packages Start At 10,000 Dollars & They Give A 30 X 40 Or 40 X 60 Plus Other Sizes That Will Stun Anyone In The Industry.
You Can't Command Those Kinds Of Dollars If Your Camera Is As Blurry As That Website Suggests.

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