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Grading Photos (1 Viewer)

Mevcrna

Member
I am seeking ideas about grading photos to evaluate technique and improve my results. Ideally I would have a short checklist to score photo on objective measures and could then use field notes and EXIF data to create standard procedures to obtain the best photos

Example:
_ Subject in focus
_ DOF shows entire area of interest
_ HISTOGRAM shows correct exposure

and so on...

I envision getting up something like a lab book to keep track of results and eventually a field manual of my personal procedures Any one have ideas or one some system

Thanks for any comments
 
Correct exposure is somewhat subjective. I tend to prefer the shots where my histogram is a bit off to the left. I probably wouldn't want to grade my images that "scientifically". If I did, I'd have thrown away many keepers.

My workflow, in Aperture, is to quickly move through a group of shots deleting everything that looks bad at preview / thumbnail size. With bird photos (esp. BIF's) this is easy to do as there are usually ALOT of bad shots. Once culled dow, I move through and delete what cannot be salvaged through cropping. Then I begin looking at slightly out of focus images and get rid of them. I'm left with the shots worth spending a little time on. Good composition, tack sharp focus, properly lit. Only then do I look at the EXIF data, if at all. For BIF's my camera is always "preset" and in either M or Tv mode. So there isn't much deviation to really look at/for.

HTH,

Bill
 
What you must be aware of is the little thing called histogram. It is your best friend with regards to exposing digitally. I always push mine as far right as possible and pull exposure back during RAW conversion. That is, I only shoot RAW files, not jpegs. You will get the best image quality with most of the pixels available towards the right side (brighter tones) of your histogram.

Also, shooting to the right will enable you to use higher ISO values and manage digital noise better.
 
I always push mine as far right as possible and pull exposure back during RAW conversion. That is, I only shoot RAW files, not jpegs. You will get the best image quality with most of the pixels available towards the right side (brighter tones) of your histogram.
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I agree with this and always try to expose to the right (ETTR) until the subject just begins to clip. It is reckoned that at least 80% of the tonal range is covered in the brightest 20% of a image. If you underexpose and push in processing not only are you missing out on the dynamic range but also you will be increasing any noise (especially in shadowed area).
 
If you get them in focus with the correct exposure then job done!!!

Unless this is tongue in cheek, I'd respectfully suggest that this is the absolute minimum, and that it is far from job done. I recently spent some time thinking about my own decision-making process, and I came up with this which I attempted to illustrate what I meant. I still have heaps to learn, but one of the reasons I think I have improved in the last two years is because I've started being a lot more critical, and thinking about many more different aspects of a photo than I had before.

I hope this is helpful.

http://www.justbirdphotos.com/blog/2013/10/the-editing-process
 
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