PS Processing

[pfritzd]

Greetings All,

I hope this is the right place ... What is your general work flow for correcting/improving a pictures quality using photoshop(i.e. do you start with color adjustment, or saturation, sharpening, ....)

[Holly]

I do all of my corrections in CS 2's raw converter (Bridge).
In fact I never pull anything up in PS unless it is to play around with layers.
Corrections include:
exposure
contrast
saturation
anything else that needs it..

[AjP]

Usual:

• USM
• Contrast
• Saturation
• NoiseReduction (if needed)
• Crop

Sometimes:

• Exposure
• Levels
• Curves
• WhiteBalance
• Shadow and Highlights

[pfritzd]

Thanks for the tips. I am tryng to get myself organized for better and more consistent results when I begin the processing RAW and jpeg photos

[saroy]

For me, ditto what AjP said.

Though one of my New Year's resolutions is to get a more streamlined process -- create the actions, figure out my organizing and backup methods, etc. Right now all my stuff is very haphazard!

[huxley]

i bring up PS raw converter and fix exposure (white balance if needed) paying attention to my histogram i then adjust shadows highlights and contrast. then if i need to i will pull up the image in ps and adjust noise levels using noise ninja. if not i will then sharpen my image with a sharpener that i picked up at www.thelightsrightstudio.com it lets you pick a way to sharpen specific to the image.
i say it takes me a couple of minutes (not more than 4) to edit a photo with my current workflow, but then again im still learning a lot so im hoping i can create an automated workflow in the future.

[engstrom]

In ACR:

White Balance (occasionally - most of the time As Shot works well)
Exposure - about 1/3 of the time I make corrections
Shadows - most of the time I bump this up to 6 or 7
Brightness - adjust to taste most of the time
Contrast - leave along, I'm using Curves now which offers more control
Saturation - bump up to 10 most of the time
Crop - half of the time I crop the image
Color Noise Reduction/Luminance Smoothing - use on ISO 1600 or 3200 images
Curves - Adjust to bring out contrast where I want it

In Photoshop:

(16 bit mode)
Occasional Shadow Highlight Tool
Occasional Levels
Occasional Curves
Resize
Sharpen
Local Contrast Enhancement (USM 10,50,0)
(8 bit mode)
Save as JPEG

[pfritzd]

thank you everyone. I went out and got Photoshop Restoration & Retouching (by Katrin Eismann) so that I can start putting your tips to use

[Nocturnus]

What is ACR?

Also, should I be loading up RAW files in Photoshop? I've been using the Canon file utility to convert my RAW to JPEG and loading the JPEG in Photoshop.

[Nevyn]

Originally Posted by Nocturnus

What is ACR?

Also, should I be loading up RAW files in Photoshop? I've been using the Canon file utility to convert my RAW to JPEG and loading the JPEG in Photoshop.

ACR is Adobe Camera Raw and is the Raw converter that comes with Photoshop and Elements (later versions).
As for if you should be using it instead of the canon utility to jpg, you could well end up with a few opinions here.

Mine is that yes you should definitely be using ACR (or some other 3rd party converter) since they provide better control over the result and allow better correction of the image, and you should avoid going to jpg's until you need them in that format (ie for publishing at the very end of your workflow) since every time you save a jpg you lose a bit more information and a little bit of image quality.
If you convert to anything or save processed files it should be a tiff or psd (photoshop file format) - both are lossless and won't affect image quality, plus they support 16 bit files (jpg's are 8 bit only) and will maintain any layers you added during processing (jpg's will flatten your image.)

[ShutteredEye]

Do you guys use the saturation tool alot? I haven't touched it at all lately b/c if I add any at all I get "over saturation" comments. In fact I get those comments sometimes when I haven't touched it at all. Is there an adjustment in the camera that changes saturation? (dRebel 350d)

[Nocturnus]

Weird, I downloaded the newer version of ACR and it tells me when I open a RAW file that it's not supported, put the old version back and same thing. I know I was able to open a RAW file in the past.

[Patti Edens]

Originally Posted by ShutteredEye

Do you guys use the saturation tool alot? I haven't touched it at all lately b/c if I add any at all I get "over saturation" comments. In fact I get those comments sometimes when I haven't touched it at all. Is there an adjustment in the camera that changes saturation? (dRebel 350d)

If you already know about Parameters, ignore the rest of this post...

Not with RAW. But, if you are shooting jpegs, check to see what parameters you are using.

Just go to the menu and look at Parameters. I don't use either of the preset parameters that are on my 20D. I use Set 1 and customize it the way I like it. I use -2 on contrast and 0 for the others (Sharpness, Saturation and Color Tone.)

Just so you know, the scale is weird. It has 5 stops - -2, -1, 0, +1, +2. So, zero is not "nothing" if that double negative makes any sense whatsoever.

I'd advise that if you are going to shoot jpeg, play around with the Sets and take some trial shots. Put your camera on a tripod and shoot the same thing (something that has a lot of colors, contrast, etc) over and over with different parameter settings. See which one comes out the best for you.

This will also vary though with different shooting conditions. I haven't figured out when to change mine, so I just always shoot RAW with jpeg. If the jpeg turns out okay, I'm done. If not, I work on the RAW file.

Sorry, That was way too wordy,

Patti

[Nevyn]

Originally Posted by Nocturnus

Weird, I downloaded the newer version of ACR and it tells me when I open a RAW file that it's not supported, put the old version back and same thing. I know I was able to open a RAW file in the past.

Which camera?

[Nocturnus]

I fixed it. I installed a new version of ACR which didnt work with my version of CS..