Bouncing

Bill Pierce

Bill Pierce

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Most of the digital shooters that I know started processing their images in Photoshop. As it grew into a tool with features useful to retouchers, art directors, compositors, e.t.c., the photographers migrated to the simpler Lightroom (or in a few cases, Aperture), sometimes bouncing into Photoshop to use features that were only available in that program. After awhile, also “bouncing” into other programs that had unique features became the way to go. Everybody discovered programs that had features useful to them.

I’m a DxO bouncer. It’s a complete processing program for raw files and jpegs known for having one of the best sets of lens corrections for specific camera and lens combinations. That’s great for landscape, architectural, and other photographers needing the sharpest possible image. That's not the reason I use the program. I use the program because it deals quickly with images that have a large brightness range, contrasty scenes, backlit scenes, e.t.c.. It does a difficult job quickly, and, sometimes, it does it better than other programs.

I wondered if there were other programs or add-ons that folks here had found useful and would like to share.
 
Lightroom 3 for me, bouncing into Nik's Silver Efex Pro 2 ... which I believe to be the best B/W conversion software around. Could occasionally bounce into Photoshop if I knew how to use it, but Lightroom and Silver Efex Pro 2 do pretty much everything I need (and know how to do) ! Oh wait - I sometimes bounce to Photomatix for HDR too (for subtle rather than garish processing) !
 
Nik's Viveza 2 is a wonderful plug-in for Lightroom.

I'm told if one is expert in PS, it is possible to create actions that duplicate what Viveza 2 does. For me Viveza 2 is a fast and easy way to achieve selectively processing.

Here's a quote from Nik's web site.

The most powerful tool to selectively control color and light in your photographs.
Viveza 2 brings a whole new time-saving dimension to your image editing. No complicated selections or layer masks to wear you down. Point, click, slide and voilá - your image looks great. Now featuring global adjustments, fine-detail structure control, and shadow recovery. Viveza 2 will forever change the way you edit images. For Adobe® Photoshop®, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom®, and Apple® Aperture®
 
I use Picture Window Pro rather than Photoshop. It was designed for photographers, not graphic artists, and is much more economical than PS. I picked it a long time ago, and it has always done 99% of what I want to do.

When I got my M8, Capture One came with it. I've upgraded to the Pro version, and still use it as my RAW processor. I find I spend more time in C-One than Picture Window Pro these days--it does most of what I need most of the time. If I need to combine two RAW developments of the same image for dynamic range, do extensive spotting or cloinging, or B&W conversion involving color channel mixing, then I output a 16-bit TIFF from C-One and go into Picture Window Pro.

The other tools I've found useful are Neat Image and Focus Magic.

I prefer to stick with tools I know rather than spend most of my time ascending learning curves.
 
I've been using Aperture for about 6 months now and like it a lot. I've used Mac computers for years and so Aperture feels very familiar and intuitive to me. I tried Lightroom but soon stopped using it because it didn't have that intuitive feeling, for me.

I plan to add Silver Efex and possibly Color Efex soon.
 
I've been very happy with Lightroom 3.4 combined with Photoshop 7.0. I see no reason to "change" to CS5 or "whatever" it is, Photoshop 7.0 works just fine. I've been using Photoshop since 3.0 came out. It was bundled with the Kodak DCS200.
 
raid said:
I only have PS and at work also GIMP. I do not have Lightroom. Do I need it?
Click to expand...
Hi Raid -- If you're good with PS and GIMP, then I'd say maybe you're fine without LR. I got Photoshop along with an Abaton scanner (flatbed, 3-pass color, 300dpi, SCSI), I believe it was v.2 of PS. I never got to know it well, using only the most superficial features plus the scanner plugin. I should have bought a book.

Lightroom shares some program innards with Photoshop, so some capabilities are the same. There is a free trial download of Lightroom that you might try out. Knowing Photoshop might help in figuring it out. To me it was opaque. I had to buy Adobe's Classroom In A Book for LR, and that was a great help. Now I find it easy to use and like it a lot.
 
I started using Capture One with my Olympus E-1 years ago, and have stuck with it since switching to Leica M-digitals. There are now locally applied versions of each of the corrections available, which I intend to use once I find time to review the tutorials on them. Not completely obvious, but then neither is PS.
 
I use LR3 + CS3 . Specially for B&W CS3 is a must when I try to imitate the wet darkroom process ( a little dodging here, a little burning there, some more contrast in this corner ...) I was used to do many (too many) years ago. For colors LR3 is ok, IMO.
robert
 
I use various photo papers, a Besseler 45MX with condenser head, ilford multi contrast filters, bits of cardboard taped to wire, and my hands for dodging and burning. ;)
 
I sometimes bounce between Nikon Capture NX2 and PSE8. Either one would do the trick for me but as you say each has their uses.

Bob
 
Aperture for me, as my main program. I export to Photoshop Elements for perspective correction, since Aperture doesn't have that (yet). Less often I use Elements for resizing.
 
Vuescan for scanning, Nikon Capture NX2 for editing.
I don't want to pay a lot of money for software when photography is a hobby, not a profession.
 
PS was my only tool til LR appeared, and since LR beta 1 that's been the workhorse. Bouncing into PS (always a little reluctantly) as it's the only place to soft-proof before printing, which I find absolutely essential. I'd prefer to do everything from RAW files, but seldom do I get one that makes a good print. Soft-proofing requires adding adjustment layers (sometimes just a curve, but often with some HSL adjustment too) and running some mid-tone and/or local area contrast actions. Then save as TIFF and it shows up straight away in LR without I do anything!
Apart from that I bounce to PS only for Photomerge or to add captions or occasional graphicky stuff - LR does the rest and the Print Module in particular is streets ahead of PS, as it lets you store presets/templates for different paper and rendering combinations. So after soft-proofing in PS I keyword the file with rendering and paper-type info, and can then easily run off more prints straight from LR

I did buy DXO, but never really got into it, and like JSU says, it's a shame it doesn't have profiles for the digital M's. If it did, it might get more use here!
 
I find Lightroom fabulous for processing a large number of images, the whole take from a shoot. Select, adjust, and export the whole set of selected images in sizes for various purposes. This was quite tedious in Photoshop.

To me, Photoshop is the best image editor when you really want to do a lot of work on one image. Layers, blend modes, content aware scaling, stretch, etc.

I "bounce" out to Photoshop for a few images that deserve or need the extra attention. The result goes back into Lightroom for final processing and export.
 
Jim-st said:
So after soft-proofing in PS I keyword the file with rendering and paper-type info, and can then easily run off more prints straight from LR
Click to expand...

This is a good idea, my WF is similar to yours but this can be a good improvement which I did not think. Thanks !
robert
 
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