Digital Leica Post Processing / Workflow

[Jubb Jubb]

Hi all,

I used to be of the mind that post processing is wrong, and I have only really edited inside Camera Raw. I look back on my photos and think if they could be more, way more.

Having recently stumbled onto Mike Heaths work on flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeh001/) , I am completely blown away by his images and colour work. i would love to know how he did it!

What do people on RFF do? Do you edit your photos or have any advice on things to do?

At present I have CS5, but am thinking of purchasing Lightroom.

 

[Andrea Taurisano]

Hi!

Just wanted to thank you for sharing that lovely picture series, indeed consistently beautiful. There's a somehow old look in them with slightly faded colors and not too high contrast which reminds me of some old cibachrome prints of mine. I'm not sure what he did to get that look, but am pretty sure there's a Lightroom preset out there that does the job (and someone here on the forum will probably tell us its name..).

You haven't done much digital post processing, yet would like to get more out of your files. That's why I'd say go for Lightroom. It does just about the same as Photoshop, only in a much more userfriendly way, IMO. And, it's extremely easy to make your own presets that give your images the look you like, only with some minor adjustment case by case.

 

[shadowfox]

Lightroom 3 (skip the previous versions not matter how cheap they are) is an essential tool if you are looking to manage and post-process your photos digitally. It's not even that expensive.

 

[Reddot9]

Years in the darkroom...

Years in the darkroom...

I processed all my images (negs) in the dark room for years. I adjusted every possible parameter (dodge/burn, over/under, different papers, chemical mix, filters, etc.) that I could to get the image I wanted onto paper. That was then, now...

I shoot mainly raw with my M9 and do lots of post processing just like in my darkroom days only now I use Aperture 3 and Silver EFX pro, sometimes Light Room, and do essentially the same tweaking I did with chemicals.

There is nothing wrong or unusual about doing so. It is just what photography has evolved to today. Imaging programs are just darkroom tools in my opinion.

I would hold up any of my "wet silver" prints to my "dry digital prints" and images and say, (excluding textural feel of the paper), that they are the same or very, very close to the same.

RD9

 

[dude163]

if you have CS5 give this page a read:

http://overgaard.dk/100000-exposures-later-III-dodge-and-burn.html

 

[jaapv]

Cs5 needs the book by Martin Evening to start to understand it.

 

[Rezultz]

YouTube is the best resource for learning IMHO. Whether it's dodging and burning or levels/curves or skin retouching, there are hundreds of tutorial videos for it.

 

[ramosa]

I used to use Photoshop, but found that its capacity was far beyond the fairly simple PP that I sought. Since then, I used Lightroom on PC and currently Aperture on Mac. Either one is much more to my liking than PS.

 

[hishma]

I shoot raw and use Aperture to make any necessary adjustments. To me this is analogous to the printing I used to do in the darkroom and I’ve never early understood why people prefer to avoid it. Although I prefer doing as little as possible.

Lots of folks I know use Lightroom and love it, so that’s a good option as well.

Thanks for sharing Mike Heath’s fantastic work, btw.

- Jeff Johnston
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hishma/

 

[peterm1]

Every good photo deserves post processing in my view. If you think PP is wrong then read a book about Ansell Adams to understand how much time and effort he devoted to analogue PP. Its about creating an end result not about adhering to some silly idea of purity of reality. At least in my view as I dont think of myself as a documentary photographer.

My basic PP always involves noise reduction, sharpening, tonal adjustment and maybe color adjustment. But then on top of this it is perfectly acceptable to dodge and burn, and make other selective adjustments like adding some selective blur etc. And I will sometimes deliberately add filters or textures that make images much more abstract. Check out my Flickr page below. I am not sure if the shots are good bad or indifferent but I can say for sure they are much better than they were when they came out of the camera.

PS if you want an alternative to CS5 which is easier to drive then try Corel Paintshop Pro X4. Its fully compatible with most Photoshop compliant plugins and has many tools that will benefit photographers. I like it more than Lightroom as its more powerful but still easy to use. You cna download a 30 day free trial version to try out.

 

[Jubb Jubb]

Thanks for your thoughts all. I am going to trial Lightroom to see how it works but have noticed that a Lightroom 4 beta has just been released to the public.

http://www.macrumors.com/2012/01/10/adobe-releases-beta-of-photoshop-lightroom-4/