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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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..

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

.....room)

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.

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

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.

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 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?

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.