P&P C&C

superflyninja

Hi all,
I've been getting back in photography over the last few months. And I've pretty much started from scratch on post processing. Im doing most of the initial PP in LR and then moving to PS for finishing touches if needed. I've been trying to find different styles of PP that Im happy with. I've been looking at some photos I like and trying to come up with my own take on the PP and putting it to use on my shots. I quite like it but I guess when learning new PP techniques its very easy to overdo things. Long story short the photos are pretty much bombing online.
I know the usual speil of "dont worry about what others think,produce images that you love" etc etc but Im trying to improve all aspects of my photos (including pp) and Im submitting them to a lot of sites that other photographers look at. So if the photos bomb across the board then something is wrong with the shots IMO. There are a few shots form the last couple of weeks below. Id love to hear ALL feedback no matter how negative. Whether its the photo itself or the PP style.
Cheers

dirtyghettokid

i love the pp.. i think cos it's similar to what i do on some shots..
i don't have anything negative to say.

pedatron

These are really lovely. The picture of the leaf is my favourite. Great PP without overdoing it. I often feel I over do some of my pictures.

superflyninja

dirtyghettokid wrote: »

i love the pp.. i think cos it's similar to what i do on some shots..
i don't have anything negative to say.

aye I've noticed that alright. Must be the influence of the PEN.....

dirtyghettokid

superflyninja wrote: »

aye I've noticed that alright. Must be the influence of the PEN.....

how could a camera so small do so much? lol
that OM to 4/3 adapter totally changed my ways!

do you use colo(u)r efex in LR?

superflyninja

dirtyghettokid wrote: »

how could a camera so small do so much? lol
that OM to 4/3 adapter totally changed my ways!

do you use colo(u)r efex in LR?

I know its crazy!!! Super little cam. Ill have to grab one of those adaptors. I do want a long lense though and that oly 1.8 portrait lens looks proper bo.....
nope not using colour fx. any use?

dirtyghettokid

the 50mm f/1.8 zuiko oly old skool lens is AMAZING
it blows my mind. i don't want to use anything else on the mini pen! though sometimes i do use a 28mm f/3.5

i thought you were using colour efex when i saw your pp.. you must be doing it proper with curves & not the lazy way with the plugin. i'm lazy

superflyninja

dirtyghettokid wrote: »

the 50mm f/1.8 zuiko oly old skool lens is AMAZING
it blows my mind. i don't want to use anything else on the mini pen! though sometimes i do use a 28mm f/3.5

i thought you were using colour efex when i saw your pp.. you must be doing it proper with curves & not the lazy way with the plugin. i'm lazy

I have that 1.8 lens dawg! I use it on the e410. But its too hard to focus on the small viewfinder. So yeah I think Ill get the m43 adaptor!!!
Yup I use my own(and some downloaded) presets in LR and curves presets in PS/GIMP

peckerhead

Fantastic lens; I use it (and nothing else) on my E510 for live gigs. Best £20 I ever spent on eBay!

A few recent pix taken with it here. Just wish I could get a decent old zuiko fisheye for reasonable money (24mm becomes 48mm, 28mm = 56mm, etc.)

@OP: Very nice work. I'm in a similar situation, self-teaching LR and PS on a feel-your-way basis. Great fun!

superflyninja

peckerhead wrote: »

Fantastic lens; I use it (and nothing else) on my E510 for live gigs. Best £20 I ever spent on eBay!

A few recent pix taken with it here. Just wish I could get a decent old zuiko fisheye for reasonable money (24mm becomes 48mm, 28mm = 56mm, etc.)

@OP: Very nice work. I'm in a similar situation, self-teaching LR and PS on a feel-your-way basis. Great fun!

nice job! A fish eye would be nice alright



Oh and just to be clear Im not tying to say my photos deserve attention, but that Id like feedback that would improve them! If you get what I mean....

Mountainsandh

I like 1 and 4 best, also the last one, nice processing, wish I knew how to do that, don't even know how to download and use presets in LR, I have only the ones that are in it already, and don't really use them much.

4 is special, the processing complements the idea of the photo perfectly imo. I really like it, except for the bottle of lucozade .

The last one is a great pic and I like the daring sky tones.


I love the processing on 2, the trees and tones are gorgeous, although the softness on the left top corner branches is nearly a tad too much imo. I wouldn't say it's my favourite since the house or whatever that is doesn't hold enough interest for me.

You should stick a bride in there. Or a swan. Sorry ! Wrong thread.

Hope that helps !

ScumLord

superflyninja wrote: »

Hi all,
I've been getting back in photography over the last few months. And I've pretty much started from scratch on post processing. Im doing most of the initial PP in LR and then moving to PS for finishing touches if needed.

I'm just wondering why you'd go from Lightroom to Photoshop? I've never considered using Lightroom because I have photoshop. I would have thought by going through another program before going into photoshop would mean you're stripping data from the image and giving photoshop less to work with?

I guess I'm just of the opinion that if you have photoshop you should be doing your retouching there because it's better at doing retouching and other apps are just running automated versions of photoshop techniques. But like I said I don't know much about lightroom maybe it is better at certain tasks.

4 -6 has some noticeable graining, that might be turning some people off (even if it's intentional), that can be taken out in RAW with the luminance slider just under the sharpening slider.

I think the first two are excellent, the third looks a bit washed out but I don't know if that's intentional other than that I like it, with 4 and 5 the graining makes it look a bit like a photo taken on a mobile phone.

superflyninja

Mountainsandh wrote: »

I like 1 and 4 best, also the last one, nice processing, wish I knew how to do that, don't even know how to download and use presets in LR, I have only the ones that are in it already, and don't really use them much.

4 is special, the processing complements the idea of the photo perfectly imo. I really like it, except for the bottle of lucozade .

The last one is a great pic and I like the daring sky tones.


I love the processing on 2, the trees and tones are gorgeous, although the softness on the left top corner branches is nearly a tad too much imo. I wouldn't say it's my favourite since the house or whatever that is doesn't hold enough interest for me.

You should stick a bride in there. Or a swan. Sorry ! Wrong thread.

Hope that helps !

thanks for the feedback! You are right about the lucozade bottle and the blur on the trees...oversights And yes EVERY photo needs moar swans.

TTWNF

Great photos, i particularly like the first two. Which downloaded presets do you use? There is so many out there with most being crap i am always on the lookout for the good ones!

paulocon2

I really like the processing on 5 & 6, it's a look I've tried to achieve in the past but never succeeded.

I know you asked for critique so apologies for straying off-top and asking a question but is this something that is self-taught from a in-depth knowledge of PS or are you following certain workflows to achieve these styles?

superflyninja

Hi all,
Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated!!!

Firstly the PS actions/ LR presets
1) Ive been making a big effort to look at a LOT of photographs lately and find out what I like to see and then apply similar effects to my shots. So most of the actions/presets I use are made from tutorials or my own tinkering. A good one to look for is the PS tutorial to create a film Velvia look. I then took the tutorial and threw it into an action, so googling PS/LR film tutorials is where I found most of the stuff I use.

2) Why LR then PS? LR is brilliant for handling most of the repetitive work like sharpening,noise reduction,clarity etc. So I (have started) shooting raw and setting up some presets in LR for different types of shot. I have some presets to style the photos too. Then if I really want to go to town on an image I move to PS and start using my actions/manual work there. Its sped up my PP time hugely using this approach. I now might spend only 10 minutes on an image vs an hour previously.
Also the LR workflow is great. Full screen image previews,image flagging,tagging etc. Speeds things up considerably.

3) Noise. Fair point about the noise, most of it is intentionally added, Ill keep it a bit lower key and see how things pan out.

Aside from the PP though any tips on how to improve the photos themselves?

Zillah

ScumLord wrote: »

I guess I'm just of the opinion that if you have photoshop you should be doing your retouching there because it's better at doing retouching and other apps are just running automated versions of photoshop techniques. But like I said I don't know much about lightroom maybe it is better at certain tasks.

Lightroom maintains a full library of your photos and is incredible for processing batches. Photoshop has nothing approaching the same ease of use for handling large numbers of photos. Even if Photoshop can do most of the things that Lightroom can do...so? I can do them in Lightroom too.

ScumLord

superflyninja wrote: »

2) Why LR then PS? LR is brilliant for handling most of the repetitive work like sharpening,noise reduction,clarity etc. So I (have started) shooting raw and setting up some presets in LR for different types of shot. I have some presets to style the photos too. Then if I really want to go to town on an image I move to PS and start using my actions/manual work there. Its sped up my PP time hugely using this approach. I now might spend only 10 minutes on an image vs an hour previously.
Also the LR workflow is great. Full screen image previews,image flagging,tagging etc. Speeds things up considerably.

I see, I don't have anything resembling a workflow, I don't take enough pictures to need one. I might go out and take 50 pictures and take 3 into photoshop to work on with no intended outcome. I started using photoshop (well paint shop pro back then) and everything revolves around what I'll do with the photo in there, even if it's not a lot. I'm only messing around for fun though.

superflyninja

ScumLord wrote: »

I see, I don't have anything resembling a workflow, I don't take enough pictures to need one. I might go out and take 50 pictures and take 3 into photoshop to work on with no intended outcome. I started using photoshop (well paint shop pro back then) and everything revolves around what I'll do with the photo in there, even if it's not a lot. I'm only messing around for fun though.

ah i only mess around for fun etc too. But I shot friends wedding and had a bout 1000 photos to process and then do a BW version etc so I checked out the most efficient ways to tackle that. And LR was the answer! So I read up on some photographer's workflows and decided on the LR then Ps route and to be honest even on a hobbyist level its well worth doing because it frees up a lot of time to let you epxeriment a lot more.

ScumLord

superflyninja wrote: »

ah i only mess around for fun etc too. But I shot friends wedding and had a bout 1000 photos to process and then do a BW version etc so I checked out the most efficient ways to tackle that. And LR was the answer! So I read up on some photographer's workflows and decided on the LR then Ps route and to be honest even on a hobbyist level its well worth doing because it frees up a lot of time to let you epxeriment a lot more.

Adobes gotten enough money off me for now, I got the production suite at the time, I still haven't gotten around to learning Illustrator, in the middle of catalyst have good experience with premiere and after effects though. At this stage I don't want to get into any new programs.

Loire

#2 is a cracker - really feels like you are there yourself. Really like #5 as well.

Sir Gallagher

ScumLord wrote: »

Adobes gotten enough money off me for now, I got the production suite at the time, I still haven't gotten around to learning Illustrator, in the middle of catalyst have good experience with premiere and after effects though. At this stage I don't want to get into any new programs.

Once you start using LR for your pictures you wont look back.

Superflyninja, do you use split toning on your pictures? ive recently gotten into experimenting with it myself.

superflyninja

Sir Gallagher wrote: »

Once you start using LR for your pictures you wont look back.

Superflyninja, do you use split toning on your pictures? ive recently gotten into experimenting with it myself.

Nope not used it. Ive seen some tutorials looks interesting.Might give it a whirl. You have any example pics you used it on?

Sir Gallagher

On the phone at the moment so i'll send you some links later on. Your pictures in the OP look like there's been split toning used on them, lightroom presets usually contain some sort of split toning adjustment so maybe that's it.

Next time you're using LR, scroll down to the split toning panel and switch between presets to see if the sliders shift. It can be a fun effect to play around with. I'll stick up a couple of examples later.

superflyninja

Sir Gallagher wrote: »

On the phone at the moment so i'll send you some links later on. Your pictures in the OP look like there's been split toning used on them, lightroom presets usually contain some sort of split toning adjustment so maybe that's it.

Next time you're using LR, scroll down to the split toning panel and switch between presets to see if the sliders shift. It can be a fun effect to play around with. I'll stick up a couple of examples later.

Ah cool!
Nah the presets i made in LR change the colour temp,values etc. Unless that is split toning!
I used some of my PS actions on them too though, and they work on just curves