Hi all,
That Coot has had more work done than a has-been Hollywood celebrity!
It's pretty clear to me that people have different computer monitors, different
preferences, different skill sets, and different tolerances for opening a file
in multiple programs to get it to do what they want it to do.
Thanks to watching you all work on that photo, I have assessed my situation a
little more clearly:
*Nikon View NX2 does everything I want it to do except it applies all changes
to the whole photo (no brushes, no dodging/burning specific parts of the photo)
and I'm starting to want that...
*GIMP is free but way too slow even on my nice new Mac with tons of RAM. If I
can make it work faster, I'll spend the time studying YouTube videos to learn
how to use it better
*If I can't get GIMP to work fast, I might buy Nikon Capture ($135) since I
already know the interface in Nikon View or Apple Aperture ($80) or even
Photoshop Elements. All can do more than I can possibly learn in the time I
have.
We had a 2-day internet outage at my house, and now I have to get back to
school work. So I don't have lots of time to study what you all did in detail,
but once May comes and I have more time to take pictures and learn more about
editing, I'll go back over the lesson!
-Frank Hensley
P.S. Attached is a Hensley's Sparrow... er, I mean Henslow's Sparrow that I
shot today. With the internet down, I didn't have any other choice - I had to
go take photos.
________________________________
From: Frank Hensley <dr_frank_hensley@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "missbirdphotos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <missbirdphotos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2012 6:52 AM
Subject: [missbirdphotos] An idea for helping each other learn about
post-processing
I wonder what you all think of this: (Oops, sorry. I live in MS now, don't I?
I'll try again.)
I wonder what y'all think of this: If someone would volunteer to post a RAW
photo (probably too big for an attachment, so it would need to go on a server
for download) and then anyone who wanted to could try post-processing. Give
people a couple of days to find time to work on it, and then people could post
.jpgs of their work and we could compare results, discussing both the aspects
of the work and the advantages/disadvantages of the software used. People could
also keep track of how many steps it took and how much actual time was spent.
I'm prompted to do this because I think some people's work just "pops" and
others I look at and say "that's photoshopped" because the results look
over-processed and unnatural to me.
Now we'd need some ground rules. Discussion would have to be civil of course
and allow for the fact we have different tastes and personal preferences. But I
think I would stand to learn a lot, and also it would help me make some
decisions about whether to buy some more expensive software or to keep using
the free stuff I rely on.
It might be best if we had two volunteers at a time, one to post a Nikon RAW
image and one to post a Canon RAW, in case people use software that only
handles one format. I'd be happy to volunteer a Nikon shot if I can figure out
how to make it available for download...
What do you think of the idea? Participation voluntary, or course. We could set
a date for the "big reveal" and then commence discussion. I can think of
several ways to do this that would be educational. For example, we could do an
initial round for a photo with good exposure, then maybe a round that is
overexposed and practice rescue techniques. One round could have rippling water
as a background, but since it is MS maybe a snowy background is a low priority
("Hallelujah!" says the guy who moved here from Chicago!). I think the only
requirement for the photos used would be that they are in focus and close to
correct exposure. They would not have to be anyone's best work - just workable.
Your thoughts? How many of you would play, if we tried this?
-Frank
P.S. Can you tell I'm on Spring Break from school? :)Attachment:
HESP Henslow's_20120317_541_Choctaw Trails.JPG
Description: JPEG image
