Before and after image editing (1 Viewer)

Great post birdman, I need help with my processing. Always like to see other peoples work flows, mine is just a mess from start to finish, I usually end up binning all I have done normally :eek!: A very nice website you have as well :t: will check it out properly later

Paul

There are many times we put ALL the effort in yet there is something that is just beyond our control be it a branch twig or something man made in the background .
You could have spent hours in the cold waiting for a bird only to find it has a twig sticking out of its head and with all the willing in the world it just wont turn round

I think its quite fair to change an image when the above happens other wise you could go out all year and never get the shot you was aiming for simply because of a twig/blade of grass /feather not quite right etc etc.
Rob.

This is all very interesting to a novice like me. Such impressive results, particularly Roy C's fieldfare. I've been taking bird photos for years but am very much still a beginner...digital enhancement is fine for my needs as I'm no purist and take photos more for the record than anything else.

For too long I've used basic editing software (that's about 10 yrs old!) - MS Picture-It allows me to crop, adjust brightness & contrast and to sharpen a little but that's about it. Though it will make many cringe, I even use the freehand painting tool to make corrections, sometimes to the bird itself.

I know I need to move on and welcome suggestions as to how to go about this. Should I start shooting in RAW (do such large files not cause problems with storage etc)? Will Photoshop fullfill my needs (or could I use a combination of free to use software?) Is it easy to get to grips with? (I opened it up once on someone's PC and it looked so complicated I've since not gone near it). Is it possible to up my game a bit without spending a heap of both time & money and getting thoroughly confused?

Would add to JHanlon's comments...

Roy et al are you self taught with all the processing? Reading your latest post is startlingly similar to exactly what happens to me, ie twig syndrome.

What does everyone recommend/advise as to how to become proficient because as you allude, the software terrifies me, thinking about it not sure why but from comments above sounds like I could have kept many, many photos that ended up in the bin.

Cheers George

GYRob said:

There are many times we put ALL the effort in yet there is something that is just beyond our control be it a branch twig or something man made in the background .
You could have spent hours in the cold waiting for a bird only to find it has a twig sticking out of its head and with all the willing in the world it just wont turn round

I think its quite fair to change an image when the above happens other wise you could go out all year and never get the shot you was aiming for simply because of a twig/blade of grass /feather not quite right etc etc.
Rob.

Click to expand...

I totally agree. In fact, to back up what you have said, I have had just that happen with an Aussie stunner, an Azure Kingfisher. Well what happened was that one landed so close to me that I was gobsmacked. I was not expecting it, it came out of the blue so I had no choice but take a few grabshots. Now ideally, as I mentioned, I would prefer to get everything in camera as right as possible, however, at times I will resort to my Photoshop skills.

Here is one of my older blog posts illustrating before and after digital retouching. While I like the final result, I would have preferred to have taken it that way in the first place. I just have not had much chance to "work" with Azure Kingfishers despite them being quite common around where I live. There are way too many other species to photograph. ||

http://www.amatteroflight.com/wordpress/?p=82

JHanlon, yes, Photoshop is fantastic, it's all you'll ever need really.

George London said:

Would add to JHanlon's comments...

Roy et al are you self taught with all the processing? Reading your latest post is startlingly similar to exactly what happens to me, ie twig syndrome.

What does everyone recommend/advise as to how to become proficient because as you allude, the software terrifies me, thinking about it not sure why but from comments above sounds like I could have kept many, many photos that ended up in the bin.

Cheers George

Click to expand...

Hi George
Photoshop is not really that hard, once you use it a little and practice. I have written a few basic tutorials for some techniques, so feel free to check them out. My best advice is to first, first, make sure you work in RAW and get the exposures as close to perfect (in a digital sense) as possible. See my tutorial 3 Digital exposure to minimize noise!!!!! That is the basic you (I believe everyone) should be doing in RAW and go from there.

http://www.amatteroflight.com/tutorials.html

Hope you get some use out of these.

Hi Folks,
To start I come from the side of the fence that says digital manipulation is fine .... to whatever degree is needed to make an image the image that the photog wants.

It's not up to me or anyone else to judge ....
I accept the purists viewpoint, that's fine if that is what makes your wheels turn.

I come from a background of smelly chemicals and long hours spent in the darkroom manipulating images to make them the best they could be.
Dodge something out, burn another bit in ....

Are Ansel Adams images somehow not valid because of the hours he spent in the darkroom making them the best they could be and what he envisaged ??

Photoshop was the tool I had always longed for, long before digital was more than a thought in a tecs brain cell.

Sure we still have to compose the image as best as possible before taking it, the old rules still apply and can still be broken by those with compositional vision.

We still have to apply the exposure rules, there's no fancy digital fix for blown highlights, but it's sometimes surprising the detail that can be pulled from the shadows.

My photographix world currently has two extremes, one a large estuary where the birds know they can happily spend 50m plus from any human most of the time.
And an area that is full of twigs, branches and wetland plants.

I guess there's a third untapped one and that's the birds that feed 2m away at my door and those that come inside and sit at just a bit further than my arm length and give me the evils saying feed us !!

This is of course a long debated debate, just wander into any photographic society ... scary ...

In my mind this is not 1963 when I first waved a Brownie 127 at the world, it's 2012, would you still be happy with one of those crank handled party line phones ??

To quote, and I can't quickly find who said it...
"I would rather shoot for myself and have no audience, than shoot for an audience and have no self"

To those of you intimidated with Photoshop have a look at Photoshop Elements, it's all you will ever need, heaps cheaper and has not to bad an image organizer as part of it.

Enjoy your photography.

I have always love PS but personally feel there is such a thing as too much manipulation, unless it is to serve a specific purpose. I agree that often a camera will not photograph what the eye can see, so sometimes it is neccessary to adjust the photo to give a fair representation and as has been shown removing some elements can also enhance the final picture. Most of my time on Photoshop is for advertising where a little creativity can go a long way...