rscheffler
Well-known
I think I understand what you mean.
At this level of photography, we all like some degree of control, but my feeling is the software isn't quite there yet. It's either too simplistic and you don't have a clue as to what's going on 'under the hood', or it's a mass of sliders and options. Photoshop of course is the ultimate app for any control freak. What we probably need is something that literally reads our minds and our moods. Only recently is the software getting to be good and simple enough for the average consumer. This has probably been driven by cellphone cameras and on-board apps. Having just spent ~10 days on the road with my GF, it's interesting to compare photos. Her cellphone images look good and a few clicks of an Instagram-like app can totally transform them. Meanwhile, my Leica M240 images are OK but definitely need a run through LR with individualized tweaks to bring out the best colors and tonal range. Right now they look a bit blah. In this respect, among camera brands, I think Fuji and perhaps Olympus are at the forefront for usable SOOC images - they already look pretty darn good. Probably a worthwhile consideration for those less technically inclined.
I've been pretty happy with Lightroom and have found I can do nearly everything I need with it. Until a few years ago I shot exclusively Canon digital and used their free DPP software... Unlike many, it seems, I liked it. What it lacked was the ability for local adjustments as found in LR or C1, but I still think its output is/was sharper than LR's, and my feeling is the color was better, too. But LR is convenient. Having diversified my camera brands, it's good to have something mainstream that will support practically every RAW file on the market. It keeps my options open. What also keeps me with LR is what just happened with Apple's Aperture - it's end of line. One can spend a lot of time tweaking files. Those settings generally don't translate to other RAW converters. Switching to a new one means reprocessing older files, again, which means more time and I'm in no mood to try yet another RAW converter.
As for the question of profiling/calibrating. I agree monitor calibration is the most important because it directly influences how you see colors. In my early prepress days, the company didn't bother with calibration and each workstation behaved a bit differently. The only way to really know you were in the ballpark was to know the CMYK values for the most common colors... or the most critical colors, which were skin tones.
At this level of photography, we all like some degree of control, but my feeling is the software isn't quite there yet. It's either too simplistic and you don't have a clue as to what's going on 'under the hood', or it's a mass of sliders and options. Photoshop of course is the ultimate app for any control freak. What we probably need is something that literally reads our minds and our moods. Only recently is the software getting to be good and simple enough for the average consumer. This has probably been driven by cellphone cameras and on-board apps. Having just spent ~10 days on the road with my GF, it's interesting to compare photos. Her cellphone images look good and a few clicks of an Instagram-like app can totally transform them. Meanwhile, my Leica M240 images are OK but definitely need a run through LR with individualized tweaks to bring out the best colors and tonal range. Right now they look a bit blah. In this respect, among camera brands, I think Fuji and perhaps Olympus are at the forefront for usable SOOC images - they already look pretty darn good. Probably a worthwhile consideration for those less technically inclined.
I've been pretty happy with Lightroom and have found I can do nearly everything I need with it. Until a few years ago I shot exclusively Canon digital and used their free DPP software... Unlike many, it seems, I liked it. What it lacked was the ability for local adjustments as found in LR or C1, but I still think its output is/was sharper than LR's, and my feeling is the color was better, too. But LR is convenient. Having diversified my camera brands, it's good to have something mainstream that will support practically every RAW file on the market. It keeps my options open. What also keeps me with LR is what just happened with Apple's Aperture - it's end of line. One can spend a lot of time tweaking files. Those settings generally don't translate to other RAW converters. Switching to a new one means reprocessing older files, again, which means more time and I'm in no mood to try yet another RAW converter.
As for the question of profiling/calibrating. I agree monitor calibration is the most important because it directly influences how you see colors. In my early prepress days, the company didn't bother with calibration and each workstation behaved a bit differently. The only way to really know you were in the ballpark was to know the CMYK values for the most common colors... or the most critical colors, which were skin tones.