How much do you edit your photos and what software do you use?

fro9etb8j5qsl2

I use the free cs2, mainly just to get rid of red eyes and blemishes. I wouldn't have the confidence or knowledge to go messing around with any other settings, although I would love to learn Any suggestions on decent software and where/how I can learn to use it?

DaireQuinlan

Crop/Levels/Colour correction/Dust spotting, and if I'm feeling parTICularly crazy, a spot of perspective correction. That's it.

Alanstrainor

Lightroom is fantastic for general touch ups. Transformed the way I would edit my photos.

Kenny Logins

Lightroom. No more of that open/save nonsense. Play around with the sliders, undo, change something else. Reset. Move on to next photo.

Can't recommend it enough.

ScumLord

I shoot in RAW and I'm looking for the most data when I take a photo. The photo is finished in photoshop. I like messing around in photoshop though, it's not a very productive way of doing anything more than one or two photos at a time.

Paulw

I do as much or as little to a photo as I deem necessary. And that really depends on the image.

In general, I do very very little, other then crop/straighten and slight brightness/colour adjustments.

Lightroom is just brilliant for all that. CreativeLive do great tutorials and many are free if you watch live.

Whammy!

Lightroom user here. I've been using it for many years.

As for my usual processing steps.
Well it does depend on the photos, but generally speaking I'll do (or not do) the following.

Crop, Straightening - Rarely ever do I do this. 1 in 1000 photos maybe. Normally I'm a firm believer that the composition of a photo should happen during the actual taking of the photo. If the composition is off, I don't press the shutter release.

Tone Curve - Most of my work is done here. Using this I can achieve the overall contrast and tones I want. If I can't get exactly what I want then subtle changes to any of the following normally finish the job. Highlights, shadows, whites & blacks.

Tone Curve R / G / B - I've been using this aspect more and more lately. Changing the tone curve of the three primary colours independently. Very subtly of course. Too easy to go over the top.

Saturation - Rarely change this. Again the tone curve normally gets me there. If I do use it I normally pull it back a tad.

Hues - Normally only use this to get rid of some red/orange tones in skin.

Sharpening - Yeap. Gotta sharpen.

Noise Reduction - Only for high ISO shots (1600 and over). I use fast lenses so I normally can get away with ISO 100 for most shots.

Vignetting - Normally I let the lens do this naturally, but sometime I'll push it a bit more or take it away.

Grain - I've actually been adding some of this into photos lately. The setting I find I currently like are Amount: 25 | Size: 15 | Roughness 50 to 100

I make my own presets which achieve a few different looks that work for my photos. I have a few B&W and a few colour. For nearly every photo I'll pull up one of these presets and change a few small things if needed. Very quick and easy despite the list above

amdgilmore

Straightening, if necessary. Occasionally crop when using medium format. Exposure and dodging and burning where needed.

I use Photoshop CS6 mostly, but sometimes use Lightroom if I'm in a hurry and if the photo doesn't need much work (it's pretty poor for dodging and burning and spot removal, but I would definitely recommend it to a beginner).

In general, I think photography should be an in-camera skill and I dislike digitally edited photos so I try to keep it to a minimum in my own photos.

There loads of online tutorials for Lightroom and Photoshop. You don't need to go much beyond the basics.

DubVelo

I find Lightroom excellent. I hardly ever touch an editor like Photoshop anymore.

Myksyk

Yep. Everything in RAW, then into lightroom for processing. Great programme. So easy to use. Would be lost without it.

Would highly recommend Phil Steele's tutorials on Lightroom.

CabanSail

Shoot in RAW.
Adjust Colour Temp & Exposure in Camera RAW.
For individual shots I use the Actions I have set up in Photoshop CC, then retouch as needed.
For batches I use Droplets from Photoshop CC, then adjust as necessary.
Run PSD's through Image Processor (PS CC) twice, once to get a straight JPG and another to get then with a watermark.

As for tutorials I am a subscriber to Guy Gowan's Website

Salmon Leap

Lightroom for me too, then maybe a few final touches in Photoshop. Have been playing with the Photomatix Essentials as well lately but find using it very "hit and miss" but that is probably down to my (lack of) ability with that programme :-D

Mjollnir

Lightroom, Photoshop and the entire NIK suite of plug-ins.

I happen to LOVE processing pics and squeezing every last little bit out of them that I can (although some don't need much, if any) and consider it the digital darkroom, i.e., half the battle.

fro9etb8j5qsl2

Brilliant thanks for all the suggestions it seems lightroom is the way to go I must download the trial version and give it a lash

thebaz

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

Crop/Levels/Colour correction/Dust spotting, and if I'm feeling parTICularly crazy, a spot of perspective correction. That's it.

Daire -
I may be wrong , but do you shoot only film ?

curious as to why you would colour correct , that been the case.

Me, do as little as possible - sometimes a little crop, and levels adjustment or a slight sharpening , using adobe elements..

DaireQuinlan

thebaz wrote: »

Daire -
I may be wrong , but do you shoot only film ?

curious as to why you would colour correct , that been the case.

There are two types of colour correction you have to do shooting film. First is transforming an inverted negative scan (or raw slide scan) to a positive with good colour. This is essentially colour correcting for the medium you're shooting in. With well developed slide this isn't really necessary, just a levels after the scan normally does the job.

Second type is correcting for colour casts due to the shot itself. Film is daylight corrected (well mostly, there're tungsten balanced emulsions as well but they're typically either movie stock or slow slide), so you often have to do the equivalent of a white balance correction in digital.

A slightly tangential point is that I develop all my own colour, and sometimes cross-process or, being lazy some evening, use a batch of old chemicals instead of mixing up a new set. This can introduce ... complications

b318isp

I have two parts to my processing:

I use Canon DPP for RAW processing:

- Straightening & cropping
- Exposure correction
- Recovery of shadows/highlights
- Levels adjustment (usually the blacks)
- White balance correction
- Saturation boost/drop
- Sometimes I use the noise reduction
- Save to TIFF

Then into either Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro for:

- Dodge/burn or other detail work
- Resizing
- Use of filters, such as B&W, vignetting, contrast boosts (Colour Efex Pro)
- Saturation fine tune
- USM/selective sharpening
- JPG save

tommy100

where can u download these two programmes (Photo shop cs6 and light

tommy100

.....room)

twowheelsonly

I'd shoot mainly sports and mainly jpeg due to high volume and high speed.

My main editor would actually be Picassa as normally all I'd have to do would be Crop/Straighten and maybe a little contrast. I find Picassa very fast to view and sort photos and very easy to use for what I want most of the time. For stuff that's going for publication and sometimes for prints I run them through Photoshop for levels/curves and maybe some slight touch-ups as well as adding IPTC data and captions etc.

With RAW I'd use Lightroom or Nikons own programmes, the latest of which is Capture NX-D which I'm not mad about at all!! I'd nearly always (but not always!!) finish those in PS as well.

amdgilmore

tommy100 wrote: »

where can u download these two programmes (Photo shop cs6 and light

The two together cost about €12 per month on Adobe's Creative Cloud.

If you're asking where you can download without paying, you'll have to use your own initiative.

thebaz

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

A slightly tangential point is that I develop all my own colour, and sometimes cross-process or, being lazy some evening, use a batch of old chemicals instead of mixing up a new set. This can introduce ... complications

develop your own colour , I'm impressed

Gehad_JoyRider

Been using Capture One more and more recently, Its a fine RAw conversion tool.

mystic86

Lightroom for me, great software.

eoglyn

Lightroom and photoshop for me too.

I already had lightroom but I availed of the deal back in august that was €10/month for it and photoshop. To be honest i hardly used photoshop. I've sat through a few tutorials and know what the buttons do, removed a few spots and smoothed some skin - with better results than i would have got in lightroom - but i haven't done anything interesting with it yet. Not sure is it worth the extra cost, but i've paid for the year so i'll have to stick with it for a while.

les succulent ducks

A great tool to use to optimise PNG files is Tiny PNG. Google it....

candytog

1. Shoot raw unless I'm in a major hurry
2. Import to Lightroom, auto backup, leave it do its thing
3. Cull images in lightroom until I have my selection
4. generally crop, adjust exposure, colour, bump contrast, adjust tone sliders as required, bump vibrance and saturation
5. Copy setting across similar images
6. for any object removal or complex stuff I send to photoshop

Sometimes I use presets for black and white looks
I use noise reduction for shots where I pushed the ISO, as little as possible

I also apply global sharpening across all images

for most images I only spend a few seconds on each, but for key ones I will spend more time getting them to pop and applying some style to them.

For weddings, I like to go back over them after a break with fresh eyes. I may cull a few more images or tweak things here and there.

It varies depending on what I'm shooting naturally

JamJamJamJam

I use Nikon's default software (View NX2). Will get Lightroom some day, but right now, I do not have the money for that!

longshanks

JamJamJamJam wrote: »

I use Nikon's default software (View NX2). Will get Lightroom some day, but right now, I do not have the money for that!

Is that software any good?

JamJamJamJam

longshanks wrote: »

Is that software any good?

It's fine. It's basic, but it's free. I just use it for processing RAW files to alter the exposure if needs be, and for contrast, cropping, white balance correction, straightening, etc. Here's a screenshot to give you an idea of the interface

If you want to do any precise or advanced editing, I'd go for something more powerful.

ScumLord

candytog wrote: »

3. Cull images in lightroom until I have my selection

I like to spend time with the pictures that didn't come out right, I've found trying to recover them can lead to some interesting looking photos. Over exposed pictures especially have a lot that can be done to them.

Ben D Bus

RAW to Lightroom, then PSE11 if necessary for final touches on selected images.

Bellu

Recently got a PhotoSlideshow maker from Voilabits, it cool to make slideshows for keeping my baby's happy memories.

magicbastarder

i cull RAW files in faststone image viewer and convert to TIFF in camera raw.

Mister Vain

PS Elements 10, it has everything I need. Cropping, color correction, spot healing and cloning would be the main tools I use.

magicbastarder

so i recently signed up for the PS & LR deal for €12 a month. still haven't gotten my head around lightroom; it's much easier to open a file, tweak the exposure/colour balance in camera raw, and save out, than it is to use lightroom. i'm fully aware that's probably down to the LR learning curve.

Mister Vain

magicbastarder wrote: »

so i recently signed up for the PS & LR deal for €12 a month. still haven't gotten my head around lightroom; it's much easier to open a file, tweak the exposure/colour balance in camera raw, and save out, than it is to use lightroom. i'm fully aware that's probably down to the LR learning curve.

Yeah I just couldn't get used to the LR interface at all. ACR works just fine.

Kenny Logins

magicbastarder wrote: »

so i recently signed up for the PS & LR deal for €12 a month. still haven't gotten my head around lightroom; it's much easier to open a file, tweak the exposure/colour balance in camera raw, and save out, than it is to use lightroom. i'm fully aware that's probably down to the LR learning curve.

Yeah, at first I was trying to use LR like this - open, adjust and save. I didn't realise that it is designed to load full sets of photos for adjustment before output. Once I started using it on my entire library of photos, I never looked back. If you know exactly what you want from a single image, it may not suit, but when working with sets it is excellent. It's non-destructive too - you can step back through edits long after making them. Well worth the effort it takes to get used to it IMHO.

tom tit tot

I shoot in RAW and bring the pictures into Photoshop. My favorite thing about RAW is how much information in the picture you can recover if need be! Apart from all of the options on the RAW import tool, I'd use:
-Crop
-Curves
-Smart sharpen

LeoB

So what is the average time you would spend on editing an image?

I could not get my head around lightroom at all, mind you I am not very patient and I dont get much spare time even though I always promise myself to make more time!! Kids Kids Kids. I have been impressed with I have seen people do in lightroom. Really giving images a nice lift when used correctly.

I use picasa and find it does enough for me, crop, straighten, contrast, I dont shot in RAW at all

tom tit tot

For me it would be about 5 minutes per picture. I try to pick the shots carefully and I don't get that many keepers from an afternoons shooting!

fret_wimp2

How much:
As little as possible. I shoot raw so some processing is needed, but not sure if that really counts as editing. Processing usually entails:
-exposure, tone & contrast adjustment.
-Conversion to b&w if desired.
-Cropping.
-sharpening.

I dont clone or remove parts of photos anymore as Im one of those folks who thinks once you start manufacturing a new photo by cloning, merging, pasting etc, you no longer have a photo, you have an image loosely based on what you think you saw, but an idealized version, not the actual verison. I like my photos to remind me of what i actually saw, not what i think i wanted to see.

Software:
-Lightroom. If i really messed up exposure and dont have any good frames to work from, i may open elements to use its masking features to do selective exposure control, but usually il just throw the picture away if it requires too much manipulation. if it really requires that much work to make right, its wrong to begin with.

Mister Vain

LeoB wrote: »

So what is the average time you would spend on editing an image?

It depends on the type of image. Generally between 10 and 20 minutes. If its a beauty headshot it could take anything up to an hour.

fro9etb8j5qsl2

I downloaded the Lightroom trial and I find it good for adjusting exposure and colour/light settings but I think I'd still need to use Photoshop for some of the finer editing.

Out of interest, does anyone use a graphics tablet for their editing and how useful are they?

Mister Vain

Dennis Sour Melon wrote: »

Out of interest, does anyone use a graphics tablet for their editing and how useful are they?

I tried one before in a studio I rented. It's a good device and it gives you more precise control, but unless you're a hardcore PS user or graphics artist I don't think its really worth the extra expense.

Ben D Bus

Dennis Sour Melon wrote: »

Out of interest, does anyone use a graphics tablet for their editing and how useful are they?

I use an Intuos Pen and Touch. It took a couple of hours to get used to but I love it. They're less than €100. I think they're great value.

fro9etb8j5qsl2

I was eyeing up the Intuos alright Has anyone used it with Windows 8? I've heard it can be fairly glitchy with Windows 7.

Splinters

I'm using an Intuos 4 with Windows 8 and it works a treat.

As far as how much editing......as much or as little as needed to get the look I want to get. Some images might take 10 - 15 mins, some can take 4 or 5 hours. Depends on a whole heap of factors.