Photo post processing

[flamin lib]

I shot this baby cantaloupe over at a friend's house. Like most shots it needs a little clean up so I thought I'd share what most of my images go through.

Before:
[img]?1[/img]

After:
[img]?1[/img]

It helps if you have at least a modest case of CDO (it's exactly like OCD but the letters are in the right order).

I just noticed that I missed a spot . . .

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Very interesting, my dear flamin lib!

I see two places where stuff is gone in the second photo. A brownish leaf and a stray tendril.

And maybe I see one other spot that you might have removed: where the stem twists, a row of dark dots.

How'd I do?

And how did you do this?

And if I may ask one more question: do you shoot in RAW?



On edit: I forgot to say it's a gorgeous shot, either way!

[flamin lib]

3. I shoot in JPEG plus Raw. If the JPEG looks good I edit that.

Oly has very good JPEG processing in-camera. If the tonal range is outside the JPEG capability I can rely on RAW. 90% of my stuff is JPEG.

I routinely run images through Corel's 'one step photo fix' that uses pre-set brightness/contrast/noise/etc settings. About half the time I disagree with it and customize the adjustments. Then I run it through a high pass sharpening tool. I burn in the corners and any hot spots as well as any overly bright details to lessen their prominence.

I spent about half an hour removing small imperfections and dodging/burning to selectively change brightness.

I really do have OCD. As a Realtor every house I showed had absolutely level and straight pictures on every wall after I left, I can't help it . I have to eventually just leave the damn thing alone or I get lost in making changes at the pixel level. I save the image several times along the way with -1,-2 appended to the file name so when I go too far, and I invariably do, I can recover a copy that's not over processed. I also save the original un-altered and there's always the untouched RAW file.

Now, if I could just get really cruel in the 'delete file' stage I'd be so much better off.

[2naSalit]

2. Nice!

That looks much like the clean up I do in my photos. Once I discovered the macro capabilities with digital, I have been having more fun with my cameras than I might otherwise.

[flamin lib]

4. Thanks. Now if I could get better at culling images before downloading them

the workflow would go so much faster.

[2naSalit]

5. Do you download from your camera

oe do you put the memory card in the computer and download that way? I take the card out of the camera, I never connect the camera to the computer unless, and it's only happened once, I left the damn card in the computer and took off an a several hour shoot and had to use the internal memory.

[flamin lib]

6. My Oly gear doesn't have internal memory, only the card.

I typically use a card reader and run the files through File Explorer. I enlarge the images to full screen and sort through them using DELETE to clean up any obviously bad focus/exposure/etc before going to Corel Paintshop Photo Pro and do it all over again in File Manage mode. I use PS because I can own it and have a dvd backup. That way I can upgrade on my terms. I'm currently two generations behind current. As best I can tell Photo Shop has nothing of note over what Corel offers.

The new OLY cameras all have wifi transfer so I could do it wireless but at 72 I'm habitual in my work flow. I've just begun to use the Oly IOshare on my smart phone as a remote control and for image sharing with family. Was kinda forced into it as all new firmware updates go through IO share now. The remote control is neat, I can see what the camera sees on my Galaxy, select focus point and make all camera settings from the phone. It's still a little slow on shutter release so not worth much for wildlife but great in studio.

[2naSalit]

7. OMG! Can you still get Corel?

They have a photo package? I had to leave them behind because nobody uses them much and I was dropped into a Microsoft planet which I have never been happy about. There are many reasons I loved Corel in the early days but most specifically because they didn't decide to rewrite typesetting jargon that has been in use for centuries.

I don't see anything worth paying for in photoshop so I never bothered to buy any photo editing software. If Corel is available, I'd buy that next week.

[flamin lib]

8. Yeah. The Corel name isn't on it anymore.

https://www.paintshoppro.com/en/products/paintshop-pro/standard/?sourceid=psp2020-xx-ppc_brkws&x-vehicle=ppc_brkws&campaignid=1696212657&adgroupid=65403914319&adid=329496560535&gclid=Cj0KCQjwl4v4BRDaARIsAFjATPnwk2Qoqh7Rz8AmgNl3DiXwz3tG_3VnuvlQyGtBf4AhSkEdbmaGg7YaAoWhEALw_wcB

At $65 it's cheap too.

[2naSalit]

9. Oh, Thank you!

Going there right now!

[2naSalit]

10. Wow...

that's more than I might ever use but it looks like something I'd like to play around with.

Thank you muchly.

[ManiacJoe]

11. Paintshop Pro is good stuff.

I started using PSP before Corel bought it from JASC.
It has a good UI layout.
It uses most (all?) of the same plug-ins as Adobe's Photoshop.

When the Corel stop using the corel.com for all its products?