Recommended reading

[Tram]

Re: Recommended reading

Since I bought my first digital camera I have only had PSE 2, 9 and 2018. The first of those came bundled with my at the time cutting edge 3.2mp Nikon camera.
Also had Lightroom 3 and 6, former was at the education workers discount price. The latter was bought as an upgrade and still using it now.
I imagine over that time what I would have paid in subscription fees would have been at least fifteen times my total today.

My point being that for the average enthusiast the new Adobe payment plan is very expensive. Keep hearing good things about Affinity, might go in that direction should my editing software become uselessly obsolete.

[raichea]

Re: Recommended reading

Also when chosing which software you will go with you have to consider how much it will lock you in to the software. Lightroom does lock you in quite hard as you are dependant on the information in the control database to regenerate the images from the Raw files.

The other item to be considered is the DAM - Data Asset Management - make sure that the DAM is open and will enable you to access the RAW files without the main program being available and can be used to migrate to another system if you choose to .

I was caught on a very nice (to me) Image management and editing system that was orphaned by the developer with no further support. The migration path to the next program I used was so challenging that I used a cutover date such that all pictures taken before a specific date remain on the old software and pictures taken after the drop dead date reside on the new software.

If the old program no longer works on a future version of the operating system then I will keep a SW environment that will support the old image management system.

Some of the newer potential Lightroom replacements offer migration tools that purport to import your images along with any edits that you have made in Lightroom. Based on what I've read so far, this is with far less than 100% fidelity. This shouldn't really be a surprise.

To be honest, any editing software will lock you in to a fairly great extent. Software writers generally have only reverse engineering and guesswork to figure out what is actually happening in someone else's software as commercial software companies rarely reveal the internal processing of their products. Any edits you make with Elements would be difficult to transfer to another software package for this reason.

[pdk42]

Re: Recommended reading

Yes, Lightroom includes ACR. This does indeed mean that raw conversion and simple image adjustments are the same - but there's a lot more to both Lightroom and Photoshop than the initial raw file processing.

As to using PS in a non-destructive way - well, you can of course use ACR to import the raw files and then fiddle with it in PS until it's as you want it then store it as a PSD/TIFF etc. However, I'm pretty sure that you can't then later go back and undo the actions you've done. The editing history is lost.

Using PS + ACR certainly works and can generate excellent results, but the skills to use PS well are much more demanding than LR and the workflow you need to use is quite different with the need to generate more intermediate files. There's nothing wrong with that - but the learning curve is steeper and the need to handle the image files becomes more of a challenge.

[pdk42]

Re: Recommended reading

Also when chosing which software you will go with you have to consider how much it will lock you in to the software. Lightroom does lock you in quite hard as you are dependant on the information in the control database to regenerate the images from the Raw files.

The other item to be considered is the DAM - Data Asset Management - make sure that the DAM is open and will enable you to access the RAW files without the main program being available and can be used to migrate to another system if you choose to .

Yes, this is true. Any non-destructive PP tool will store the changes in some sort of non-portable way. That means if you fall out of love with that software it'll be messy to move. There is a weak file standard for storing edits (so-called XMP side-car files), but most tools will do things that XMP doesn't support so not all the edits you make will be transferable.

[JohnGG]

Re: Recommended reading

I have been using Darktable for raw processing. Like RawTherapee it is a free, non-destructive raw editor with all changes being recorded in sidecar files. Again like RawTherapee, the UI takes a little getting used to but the software comes with many very powerful modules and is perhaps more fully featured than RawTherapee. Until recently it was only available on Mac and Linux but is now also available to those poor souls cursed with using Windows

There is an excellent series of tutorials on YouTube in the "Bruce Williams Photography" channel. One of the early ones deals with importing catalogues of photos from Lightroom which appears to be very simple, with good preservation of the work already done in LR. Other good demonstrations of the power of Darktable can be seen in YouTube videos by Harry Durgin, although it can sometimes be difficult to follow what he is doing.

Having said all of that, I have to stress that I am still at the baby step stage of raw processing

Cheers,

JohnGG

[Phill D]

Re: Recommended reading

Tracy to get back to books I got a copy of Camera Labs Gordon Laing's book "in camera" This is a pretty nice light read for a recovery and is actually all about getting it right in camera and shooting jpgs. You can spend time learning raw and post processing as well but this would certainly fit with what you do now, give you ideas for when you are fit and well, plus it would support a good guy who produces an excellent website.

[Grumpy Hec]

Re: Recommended reading

Yes, Lightroom includes ACR. This does indeed mean that raw conversion and simple image adjustments are the same - but there's a lot more to both Lightroom and Photoshop than the initial raw file processing.

As to using PS in a non-destructive way - well, you can of course use ACR to import the raw files and then fiddle with it in PS until it's as you want it then store it as a PSD/TIFF etc. However, I'm pretty sure that you can't then later go back and undo the actions you've done. The editing history is lost.

Using PS + ACR certainly works and can generate excellent results, but the skills to use PS well are much more demanding than LR and the workflow you need to use is quite different with the need to generate more intermediate files. There's nothing wrong with that - but the learning curve is steeper and the need to handle the image files becomes more of a challenge.

Don't often find myself disagreeing with you Paul but in this case I do.

I use LR for DAM and then into PS from there using the integration they provide. Using smart layers/filters, including ACR I can go back and change as much as I like as long as I stick to non-destructive methodology. Yes there is a learning curve to do that which is certainly not to everyone's taste.

I frequently have several versions of the same image and still have the original RAW file so nothing is lost. Final versions typically include a print and PDI versions all stacked in LR with the original and keyworded for searching plus typically in collections. In short a full history and the ability to go in and review and change.

Personally I enjoy processing as much as I do the taking of the image, perhaps I'm unusual in that, so this works for me very well. I find PS an excellent tool and I enjoy the incredible flexibility. As is often the case in photography there is no right and wrong just what works for you.

Hec

[Grumpy Hec]

Re: Recommended reading

Going back to the original question regarding how to learn editing techniques I think you will struggle to beat YouTube. It's free and there is a wealth of excellent, and of course not so excellent, videos and teachers on there. I find it a great way to learn new techniques or work out how to do something.

I have had books in the past but they tend to be very expensive, very wordy and overlong. I've disposed of most of them in favour of keeping a YouTube library of good videos. Some people prefer books of course but it's personal preference as always.

Hec

[Tram]

Re: Recommended reading

Going back to the original question regarding how to learn editing techniques I think you will struggle to beat YouTube. It's free and there is a wealth of excellent, and of course not so excellent, videos and teachers on there. I find it a great way to learn new techniques or work out how to do something.

I have had books in the past but they tend to be very expensive, very wordy and overlong. I've disposed of most of them in favour of keeping a YouTube library of good videos. Some people prefer books of course but it's personal preference as always.

Hec

I feel the complete opposite to you on this matter.
Much prefer the written form to learn from, like to have it there as a reference as and when required.
My favourite is this one for Lightroom https://www.lightroomqueen.com/shop/...6-missing-faq/

[Grumpy Hec]

Re: Recommended reading

I feel the complete opposite to you on this matter.
Much prefer the written form to learn from, like to have it there as a reference as and when required.
My favourite is this one for Lightroom https://www.lightroomqueen.com/shop/...6-missing-faq/

Fair enough. Whatever works for you. My reference is my YouTube library which is broken into subject areas (Selections, mono, colour etc. etc. ) plus a few notes I keep on things like keyboard shortcuts.

Hec

[Willom]

Re: Recommended reading

I have been trying to learn processing a for a while now but haven't had the time to really get into it (hardly have enough time to take photos at the moment) but I am another one using RAWTherapee. It takes a bit of learning (as I expect any PP software does) but I found a website which has some useful guidance. If you do go down this route let me know and I'll send you the link (it is saved on a different machine). It has plenty of good preset profiles which, for 90%of the time, suit me fine and only need the odd tweak afterwards. I have been meaning to sit down and develop a profile which closely apes the Olympus ooc jpg but I found it easier to shoot jpeg +raw instead.

Good luck and I hope the R and R goes well.

[jonesy]

Re: Recommended reading

Thanks everyone for the input. There seem to be many options for me to look into.

As soon as i feel comfortable sitting at a computer i will take a look at the photos i took on the two weeks leading up to my surgery to see if one jumps out for me to start the process.

In the meantime, whilst sat using the tablet, I'll look at the various suggestions, explore YouTube etc for decent beginner tutorials, and ebooks that will help.

Again, thanks for the advice... i know i will be back, but likely to be with specific questions when i get stuck... or want some comment/criticism

[Jim Ford]

Re: Recommended reading

In the meantime, whilst sat using the tablet, I'll look at the various suggestions, explore YouTube etc for decent beginner tutorials, and ebooks that will help.

Although they're oldish and Photoshop CS2 orientated, the 'Real World' series by the late-great Bruce Fraser, have clear concise explanations of Adobe Raw, Sharpening, Colour matching etc.. The books were published by 'Peachpit Press' and can be found second hand.

Jim