[Chris M]

Could someone give some general advice as to what I should be looking at in post processing. I have elements 8 and have only used the most basic settings in it before, cropping etc.
I took this picture today and know I have a lot to learn regarding composition and camera settings but was quite happy with the result; I'm not looking for a step by step guide just some general tips to get me on my way.
Thanks in advance.

[spock]

I have put your shot through photo shop ell.9,the eye, head area of the G/H is just a bit soft, and out of focus a tad,all I used was the shadow,bright,contrast addjustments,with a bit of sharpening after,

[Chris M]

Thanks spock, just what I needed. There's so many options in Elements that I wasn't sure where to begin.

[revs45]

Hope you don't mind, felt like taking a crack at it.
If it were my shot, a bit more of a head turn towards me would have been preferable, not quite as sharp as i would like either but overall not a bad shot.
Moving to the right when lining up the shot would have given a more desirable BG (the foilage seen on the left), the industrial bridge element is kind of interesting, but maybe not enough to warrent the attention.
cheers!

I ran it through PS CS5, used Noise Ninja at one point, adjusted Shadows/Highlights, boosted some select colours, adjusted Brightness/Contrast, and after re-sizing to 72dpi ran an Unsharp Mask.

[Chris M]

Many thanks revs45; I've saved both your yours and spocks so I can attempt this myself. I agree about moving to the right but that was as far right as I could get due to the fence around the dock, I was tight against It and used one of the fence posts to rest my camera on. Could you explain the resizing to 72dpi and unsharp mask? I understand the 'dots per inch' but not what this and an unsharp mask actually does.
Thanks again.
chris

[Chalky W]

Originally Posted by London CyCam

Thanks spock, just what I needed. There's so many options in Elements that I wasn't sure where to begin.

Hi, the subject of post production is huge and there are lots of threads here that deal with it. Try a forum search on PS Elements and see what comes up, the search button is under the birdforum logo in the top right of your screen in the orange stripe.

Secondary to that I'd try and keep it simple to start with and confine yourself to adjusting for exposure, sharpness, brightness/contrast, cropping and resizing the image for print or the web. All of these subjects will be covered extensively on the web.

At the end of the day I'd suggest you just play with the sliders to see what they do and also to stop tweaking when you're happy with the results, as they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The big danger is to overdo things which can be worse that not doing anything at all.

The ultimate goal as we all know is to get in right in the camera on the day.

Another useful tool to have is a third party noise reduction programme such as Neatimage or one of the numerous other.

Hope that helps a little bit.

Ps. I forgot to say that there are lots of books out there too. One which I found useful when I started out was the 'RSPB Guide to Digital Wildlife Photography'. It explains the basic concepts of photography and also includes a couple of chapters on post processing and covers the basics with examples.

[Chris M]

Thanks Chalky W

I realised after posting that I should really check these things for myself and have been reading quite a bit online today about this new 'dark art' (to me anyway) of post processing. I'll have a look at the noise reduction programmes you mentioned and hopefully I'll be on my way!
Off to look at your link now.
Cheers mate

[kennethwfd]

reading this thread because I am new to advanced digital photography and post image processing. I had my first camera in the late 60's, it was basically a homemade pinhole camera, 120 film, 8 pics to the reel and no settings whatsoever. I progressed to 35mm in the 70's and 80's, digital photography was a novelty, one photography book of this era states that digital cameras with their limited ability are oK as snapshot cameras, but not for serious photographers.

Other interests for about 20 years, did very little photography and brought no new kit

During the last few years, my interest has been rekindled, and progressed through Fuji Finepix 5900, 9500, and finally to Canon 550d, which is what I currently use.

I understand the principles of photo editing, have photoimpact which is a very basic program, the editing tools seem to make the photo worse, use it for cropping and resizing.

asking for a good place to start is any other program as good as photoshop, seen one online with 30 day trial, then $199 for licence key (acdseepro)

If photoshop, what do I need?

Photoediting for dummies?? Thanks, we all have to start somewhere which is why I joined this forum

[Mono]

If you are starting out new then it might be worth having a go with The Gimp http://www.gimp.org/ . It is not to everyone's taste and can be difficult if you are use to the way Photoshop does things, but it is as capable as Photoshop and free.

[ericbowles]

Kenneth

I'm not sure whether you are still looking for help, but Lightroom is probably a better first step than Photoshop. Lightroom is made by Adobe but provides a much simpler interface. Most people find it faster for routine editing.

You may still want to head down the Photoshop path later, but from what I have seen even with Photoshop you will find that Lightroom handles 95% of your editing.

[kennethwfd]

thanks for above info