PSA: How to Edit Pictures

[P Arkus]

There's alot of very talented photographers on our forum, and there is alot of amateurs who are looking to learn a thing or 2. I thought this would be a great thread to share advice or which programs are being used, which methods or techniques are used, and just general tips on how to get those great looking photos. Here's a few examples of what I started doing. I downloaded a free online HDR Software demo called Photomatix Essentials. It appears to just be color enhancing, but i'm quite happy with the results. Thoughts, opinions, constructive criticism and improvement tips are all welcome!!!!

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After seeing these pics, what would you do different? Hopefully this can turn into an informative thread for everyone wishing to learn about photo editing. Also please feel free to use this thread as your trial/error thread!!!

[Danaldson]

Re: PSA: How to Edit Pictures

No fair pat! You're car makes every photo look good!

But yes! Great Idea for a thread! I think that sometimes just playing with levels, hue/saturation can make a bland photo look incredible, just like you did here pat. Sometimes messing around with too many slider bars with sharpness, de-noise, and other settings can make a photo be too "busy" if that makes sense. I like to keep the editing pretty simple, because I am not very experienced with editing. Let's see some awesome pics!

[popp]

Re: PSA: How to Edit Pictures

photoshop or aperture is what you want to download. You can download free trials to play with them to see which you like better. I have both downloaded from torrents. They both are different yet great programs. Its not something that can be thought on a forum. You'll have to go to one of our houses unless they have it on their laptop and be learned in person......or just download and practice practice practice. i'm still learning new things myself.

[Ur0Drivr]

Re: PSA: How to Edit Pictures

^^ what the Mexican said.

Personally I use Aperture for adjusting the images as it lets me upload to flickr and Facebook directly. It also very easy to turn off the different adjustments that you make to the photo. While Photoshop is great, I think it's overkill for doing this type of work.

[R_Ethug]

Re: PSA: How to Edit Pictures

iphoto i prefer to use for my management.. photoshop for major edits.. aperture for some stuff.

aperture is being updated to actually share iPhotos DB properly now so no need to screw with both.. so i may switch to that fully now

[CGY_GTI]

Re: PSA: How to Edit Pictures

I've always just played with Photoshop until I adjusted all of the colour to my liking and that's about it lol. I've been looking at this website lately, so I'll have to try using some of their tricks soon! Here's the link... http://www.carphototutorials.com/tutorials.html

[MechEngg]

Re: PSA: How to Edit Pictures

I have been monkeying around with google picasa, free download and no watermarks. Tons of features. Just starting to "learn" as well

[eric909]

Re: PSA: How to Edit Pictures

yeah for the beginning try to stay away from photoshop because that can get pretty intense. im with sean on picasa, it does alot of fine editing along with gross. it also covers everything from aperture changes to total color flips(color, b&w, sepia) another key tip to playing with color enhancing in to make sure your photos dont get over exposed (to much light in the picture) which can happen easily with a silver car outside. experimentation is key

[martin13]

Re: PSA: How to Edit Pictures

I have never used picasa, I'm sure it's great but I am all about photoshop. I took your photos and did a few simple things to them which I think make them look better than with the HDR software. True HDR images are made from multiple exposures using bracketing and is isn't easy to do. For all of these images, I used the same adjustments on all photos. I think continuity is key in making a set of pictures look great. If you use different effects or different exposure levels on every photo, it ruins the overall feel. I just adjusted the contrast to make the black areas in the photos look stronger and I added a blue photo filter to bring out the blue in the sky. Feel free to criticize my editing as well, it can only help me get better.

[snipa_mini85]

Re: PSA: How to Edit Pictures

I have mostly been using CS5 or Lightroom. Lightroom is great for organizing photos and making some adjustments. If I want to do more than I can open everything directly into photoshop.

A suggestion for those who want to do sepia, b&w in photoshop would be to search google for presets. There are a lot of presets out there that will give you a different look in one click instead of countless hours of tinkering.

[P Arkus]

Re: PSA: How to Edit Pictures

Thanks for the tips guys. Looks like Photoshop will be next on my list of downloads!!! Maybe i'll bring my laptop out to a coffee meet or something to get some training on how to do some of this stuff!!!

[darkmanCANADA]

Re: PSA: How to Edit Pictures

I don't know what camera you have but I have a Nikon d7000 and I use the in camera picture controls set to Vivid with a +3 saturation. Here is a blurb on it: http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d30...re-control.htm. I think it gives a brighter picture and more colour without having to post process. You might have to play around with Picture Control settings on your camera until you are happy.

[P Arkus]

Re: PSA: How to Edit Pictures

Yes we are still trying to learn the the DSLR Camera and all the features associated with it. We have a Panasonic Lumix G2. I'm gonna try playing around with the saturation, the apeture and the shutter speeds pretty soon. Also wanna see if my camera has an Auto Exposure Bracketing feature so I can play a bit more with HDR shots.

[darkmanCANADA]

Re: PSA: How to Edit Pictures

Try this for some free practice: http://camerasim.com/camera-simulator/

[Bucky]

Re: PSA: How to Edit Pictures

Pat. If you shoot RAW in your camera (file format) , I like to shoot one image and in photoshop etc save one under exposed, proper exposure add over exposed. After that, bring the 3 files into photomatix. By using one image, you have consistency. Especially if it's really windy, if you're taking multiple shots (over,proper,under exposed) the clouds etc are in different places and may appear blurry. On a side note. Lightroom 4 was just released. Free trial is available.