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This picture makes me think it's January 1982.
edit: It's like it captured the qualities of physical film of the time, similar to (free) Analog Efex Pro from the Nik collection.
Also, if you haven't already seen the zillion posts about it, Google just made the Nik plug-in suite free. Totally frickin' free. ABSOLUTELY amazingly awesomely great. A must-have set of tools!
Howdy - everything was done in photoshop: the dust removal I did by hand using the clone tool, although the healing brush works well for simple cleanups -- I'm just used to doing it by hand.
The brightness/contrast/etc I used something called Nik Color Efex - which comes with several dozen plugins. The ones I used on yours is called Pro Contrast + Color Styler.
https://www.google.com/nikcollection/products/color-efex-pro/
Nice shot. Check out the Google Nik collection, specifically the Dfine tool to clean up the noise in the sky a bit. I find it does a pretty good job. I took almost all of the images that are on my site currently and most of them use Dfine for the noise in the sky. Keep shooting!
Sure.
Adobe Photoshop :)
More specifically opened the Nikon RAW file in Adobe Camera Raw.
- Bumped the exposure by +1.40EV and applied a bit of tonal adjustment.
- Pulled WB to 5400K
- Added some sharpening (utilising the masking feature).
- Pulled the yellow hue towards orange.
- Corrected lens distortion/vignetting.
- Pushed and pulled my way slightly in Camera Calibration panel.
- Exited ACR and opened in PS
- Applied some specific tonal curve layers, one of them being set to Lighten; to lift mids & shadow detail.
- Sharpen with the now free NIK Sharpener Pro 3
- Reduce image size to 1200px on the longest edge
- Convert the color profile from AdobeRGB to sRGB because imgur will toss the AdobeRGB profile and make it look muddy otherwise.
- Save as JPEG 12 (5 scan progressive) in PS and upload :)
You're a little too warm for my liking but that's more of a personal preference. You could stand to bring the shadows out a little as the caravan park and the child on the beach are somewhat lost. You've perhaps gone a little overboard on recovering the highlights - if you were looking at this scene with the naked eye you'd almost certainly have some blowout in the sky toward the far right. A lot of photographers have this phobia of clipping but if it's used properly it can look great. Sort those and I think you'll be on to something.
Because you're new: Install and learn the Nik collection now that it's free. Give VSCO or Mastin a try if you're into that kind of thing (more flexible than most people think). Buy more RAM, use an SSD. Learn how sharpening works. Find a workflow. Watch YouTube videos. Write to XMP. Embrace the virtual copy. Have fun (that's an order).
Great stuff! I don't know if you already use it, but the Nik Collection is a great free Photoshop plugin that beeple uses. You can blend in some rough edges with the filters in the collection. :-))))
https://www.google.com/nikcollection/ - They have a trial if you want to give it a shot.
https://support.google.com/nikcollection/answer/3000889?hl=en&ref_topic=3000839 - Looks like you're supported.
I have used Nik for Windows & CC 2015. I love it, great collection of tools.
Nah, no relation to Nikon.
They're kind of an odd set of tools to post process images. You fire them up from within Lightroom with an image you've broadly worked on already. THere's a whole range of stuff there - HDR processing, Noise reduction (Dfine 2), Colour correction (Vivenza), filters, film emulation,, black and white conversion. Click the different tool names along the top bar here it'll give an idea what they do.
Just download them and play wit a few of your favorite images. It makes copies and your originals are retained so don't worry about breaking anything.
Hugely powerful (and confusing!) software, but you'll find stuff in there to help you bring out the best in your images. They were $500 or something. Now free.
To add to that, once you know how to do this (using Curves etc.), then know that there are also plugins and presets that have pre-made looks like this that can help you quickly get these kind of colors (at least as a starting point). Many photographers use VSCO presets in Lightroom I believe.
Also, the NIK collection is free.
The Nik Collection used to cost around $150 a month ago. But it's now free and includes seven tools/plugins(I use them together with Lightroom and Photoshop). The Nik Collection. A few of the plugins are great for color editing. Don't know about any other programs though.
Let's start by saying that there is something really flawed with the OPX's photo postprocessing algorithm. The denoiser will kill the detail and the colors even in manual mode. Plus still there is no RAW mode, but this is the next best thing.
All the photos were taken with OOS 2.2.0-x, with the stock HAL.
The trick is to use Cameranext. Set the jpeg quality to 100%, turn off the denoiser and set sharpness to 0.
Once you have a pic (preferably taken with low ISO), you're going to need Photoshop and Google's free Nik Collection. Just two tools are needed: Dfine 2 will automatically remove all the unwanted noise (it will need some tweaking, since il will kill some of the detail of the pic, just lower the contrast noise reduction a bit) and "Output Sharpener" (again, some tweaking will be needed).
As a finishing touch, resize the pic to 70-75%. The output image will be approx. 3000 by 2000, good enough even for a print.
There is a product called "Nik Collection". Google bought them a couple of years ago.
They have 2 plugins that are part of the package. Sliver EFX Pro does black and white, including film simulations and grain control. And Analog EXF Pro that does color film simulation. Some of the extreme process sound like just what you are looking for.
I use the Silver EFX for all my black and white work.
Here's the original shot http://i.imgur.com/YaVQ0JA.jpg ISO 400 - 23mm - F5.6 - 1/750s - 13h46 (lot of light)
Basically I corrected the white balance, notched the exposure a bit (+0.4), then pushed the whites (+60) and lowered the blacks (-20) then I used Silver Effex pro https://www.google.com/nikcollection/products/silver-efex-pro/
I could have used the built-in black and white tools in Lightroom, but for this particular shot I liked the output that I was able to get with Silver Effex. On some shots I prefer the built-in lightroom black and white, it depends.
I always do like 2-3 virtual copy of the pictures I select to try different post-processing options on them before picking the best one :)
1: no, you edit full size RAW files, not small jpgs
2: find a local photoshop class and subscibe, make your employer pay if they want you to learn it
3: get a wacom tablet, they are a real help
4: there are macros (actions) but they are just for setup (for frequency separation for example), but it's up to you to do the work. What you might want to look at are tools like VSCO, or portraiture, they work with photoshop to help you edit... (also, check the nik collection https://www.google.com/nikcollection/
Piggybacking off that comment (because I think it's the best answer in the thread so far), not only changing the white balance but also the exposure would probably help. Of course, if you did all these things while taking the picture, you'd get better results than in postprocessing.
Messing around a bit with the brush tool might help with a pseudo-fog, too. Also, google's nik collection has color efex pro which has a graduated fog filter, and google's nik collection is free (so I'd highly recommend it, it used to cost quite a lot, and it's got some really powerful tools).
It’s a sort of filmy look in your images so I was going to see if you’ve tried the VSCO film presets, then I thought it was worth mentioning the free Nik software that can do some analogue effects. Might be a shortcut to getting the look you want: https://www.google.com/nikcollection/products/analog-efex-pro/
Ah, I see. I did not realize.
Did you get google nik? https://www.google.com/nikcollection/ I think I might have said "nix". Their define tool for noise is pretty great. I use CS5, perhaps you can find an older version somewhere online? Maybe same for lightroom?
Yeah, but let me know.
This might a blasphemous suggestion but shoot with almost any black and white film. Scan the image, and then edit again with Silver Efex Pro using one of their older film stocks or tweaking it to your liking. Then push it through Analog Efex Pro to make it look more filmy.
It's a free download and integrates into LR. https://www.google.com/nikcollection/
TLDR - shoot analog, post processing digitally to apply an even more analog look.
Yep, I had the same issues with my D90. I upgraded to a D7200 and I'm comfortable letting auto-ISO go up to 1600. There is less noise, and less of the obnoxious chroma noise.
If you're shooting RAW, you may want to look at noise reduction software. Nik DFine is free. Topaz Denoise has a free trial period and is less expensive than a new body.
Download the google nik collection for free
https://www.google.com/nikcollection/
It's a bunch of plug ins for Lightroom and photoshop. They d various things but Dfine 2 is great for noise reducition, silver EFX is a really nice black and white converter, and colour EFX 2 has a bunch of useful retouching filters and effects.
Have you tried The Nik Collection from Google? It's now free and it's a decent alternative with a good bit of customization. It's fun to play around with. I've never used the VSCO ones personally yet. https://www.google.com/nikcollection/
It is taken with stock camera app with HDR enabled and flash disabled. It has been toned up with Snapseed (great app!) but i do not recommend to edit any photos on small phone screen - the result is visible on my picture as it is bit oversaturated and contrast goes black on farther plan. this said, Google has released great pack of tools to edit photos on PC - NIK collection
https://www.google.com/nikcollection
Enjoy your Nexus! Best phone I ever used , the fingerprint scanner and its place is just so brilliant. Sure, it gets bit dated if you compare it to SGS7 Edge (I love its camera autofocus and OIS) but it is the best phone on the market just after that.
Oh and if your screen start ti piss you off (yellow color tint all times and other tint on lower brightness plus the fact the screen is not very bright on the sun) I recommend to switch to CHROMA rom and ElementalX kernel (version 1.16) and DarkSpice interactive governor profile. All this and High Brightness widget bought from PlayStore will sort the screen problem and CHROMA rom is just pure rom without absolutely any apps on it - you decide what to install.
Again, enjoy your Nexus ! :)
Since the background behind the bar is mostly overexposed sky, you can try to use an adjustment brush on the bar to completely blow it out and make it as white as the background. Will be a pain in the ass though.
To soften the skin your best bet will be to download the Nik Collection since it's now free and use the dynamic skin softener in Color Efex Pro. Not as good as manual retouching in Photoshop, but it's pretty snazzy as long as you don't go overboard.
ibreakphotos is right about the difference in light temperature. Again you can try using an adjustment brush to correct it, but it will also be a pain in the ass and won't be exact.
Unfortunately both the other guys are correct: You've reached the limits of how much you can push the images. Lately I've come across similar situations with the Leica Q / SL sensor - though admittedly at ISO / exposures that would demolish the Canon.
There are plugins that do attempt to reduce banding and other common pushed artifacts but I've found it very, very hard to get extremely pushed and banded images to a state I'm finding anywhere near acceptable.
Where are you getting it's discontinued? It's part of the Nik collection which you can buy here. It's a good collection of tools, although you'll have to invest time to learn it and work out how/when to use it in your workflow.
It has a trial though so you can check how it works and see what you think of it. Your current technique seems pretty good already, although you might get better results with the B&W sliders in camera raw rather then the adjustment in PS...
He might enjoy some plugins/presets for lightroom/photoshop.
Color Efex Pro or Silver Efex Pro might be nice https://www.google.com/nikcollection/products/silver-efex-pro/
Another option might be some nice filters for his lenses (circular polariser, ND), check to see what hes got and the diameter of his lenses (to get the right size).
or maybe a black-rapid style strap.
I use the NIK suite of post processing filters extensively. Typically bleach bypass produces an almost b/w tonal quality to the shadows. You can subvert that look a bit by pumping up the saturation within that filter (which gives it a nice look).
You can download fully functioning 15 day demos here: https://www.google.com/nikcollection/
Bleach bypass & tonal contrast are within the Color Efex4 suite.
Some good videos here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp5lYDsQi4gmGUvE-VCGHJxn74Uk2GfpC
Video on bleach bypass here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_GVUenEaQg
I use Nik Sharpener Pro. I like that it has output presets for different media and viewing distances (I work in print as well as web). It allows me to get the right amount of sharpening much more quickly and confidently than using the hi-pass method. It's not free though.
> so far I only have the Olympus program
Skip the Olympus software.
If you shoot raw, use RawTherapee. If you shoot JPEG, use Gimp. (Gimp can also be configured to use the free Nik software programs, which include tons of filters and would be great for a beginner.)
Both are free, open source, have tons of free online tutorials, and superior to the Olympus software in every way.
Google has a plugin called the Nik Collection. It does several things, but one of the things is called "Analog Efex" which creates this type of old/vintage look. It's free, but it looks like they just sold it to some other company, so it might become a paid thing soon.
Check out the Bleach Bypass Filter in Color Efex Pro. It'll give you something similar.
Quick Example - Default settings on a new layer at 50% opacity.
Nik Analogue EFX Pro can generate grain however you want it, with grain size, density, opacity etc. It gives you a bunch of classic film emulations as starting points.
It's free, asy to use, and a plug in for lightroom.
Beeple is known to use the "NIK collection". That's a collection of free plugins for Photoshop or Aperture. There are also stand-alone applications inside the package (in case you don't have Photoshop or Aperture), but those are a bit clumsy to use.
Sadly it was bought by Google and is now abandoned (no longer developed, so might break any time your OS or Photoshop gets updated), which makes it hard to properly depend on it in your working pipeline. :(
It's still great stuff though, fetch it from here as long it's still available: https://www.google.com/nikcollection/
Mostly you probably want to look into "Analog Efex" to get those nice film noise like and dirt effects. It also has various blur effects (Bokeh can add a nice touch to quick renders easily), but generally DOF is probably something you want to let the renderer do that has access to the geometry of the scene. :)
Get a light, any sort will do. I have one from a hardware store. Put it in different positions and at different heights around the subject. Create shadows. Take shots. Experiment.
Shoot RAW if you're not already. Learn how to use Lightroom or similar tool. I can't overstate how important this is. Get the Google Nik collection and play with them. They're free so there's is no excuse.
Stop underexposing. Play with black and white.
Research how to pose models. No offence, but my wife would make me delete this in a second if she was the subject. She looks as wide as a truck.
Practice, practice, practice.
Glad to hear you're enfusing! A quick free polishing tool (and photoshop plug-in) is Nik Collection's Color Effects Pro 4. Specifically the 'Pro Contrast' tool's 'Dynamic Contrast' slider. It does an awesome job at leveling out darker areas of the image without blowing out highlights and adds punch.
Definitely stick to manual exposure: keep ISO at 100, and shoot f8 for most scenes. The only thing that needs adjusting is the shutter speed and focus. Shutter speed is easy, as 95% of the time you're just scrolling the shutter wheel until the meter evens out at 0 EV. (Evaluative Metering Mode) For focus at 24mm or less, you can practically leave it at 3 meters throughout the entire shoot...possible closer to 1.5 m in tiny rooms, like half-baths.
Hope this helps!
Nik Collection is free and contains Silver Efex Pro, which has controllable filters and presets to emulate film look pretty well.
There's a lot of novelty in physically developing photos and shooting on film with old bodies and optics, it can be a ton of fun.
The look of the photo, however, can be achieved by just post-processing digital sensor data from a modern body.
I primarily used Nik Software's Pro Contrast plugin - it increases contrast without blowing out the highlights. This gave it a touch of an "HDR" look.
I adjusted her eye's brightness and saturation separately (with Photoshop's built in Exposure and Hue/Saturation layers).
Throw filters at it :) Or make your own filters with curves or the HSL panel in Lightroom. The Nik Collection of filters is now available for free by courtesy of Google.
> How do you get this brown-ish soft tone (and also the sharpness)?
There are multiple ways to get the brown-ish tone in various editing softwares, but you may be able to emulate it by having a warming color balances and adding oranges in the shadows by using the split-tone slider in Adobe Lightroom.
As for sharpening, you want to make sure that you get your subject in focus when you're shooting, and then when you are post-processing you can use various sharpening methods. Some people use Nik Plugins, others use the high pass filter, etc etc.
> Also, would it be achievable using my Sigma 30mm 2.8 to get that type of shot or would I have to get the Sigma 60mm (or the Sony 50mm 1.8)? And which one, in your opinion, would be better?
Go with the 50mm or the 60mm. I don't have direct experience either of these lenses, but I do know that these longer focal lengths will give you better subject isolation compared to the 30mm. The major differences between the 50mm and the 60mm are that the 50mm has optical stabilization, and the 50mm has as faster 1.8 max-aperture. If you want to take pictures of people in generally well-lit scenarios go with the Sigma 60mm. If you find yourself frequently shooting in poorly-lit scenarios (aka indoors), then go with the 50mm. You can't go wrong with either.
Very simple actually.
I used Photoshop's auto tone/contrast to improve the toning and the mono-coloured "tint".
I added a levels adjustment layer and used the "Auto" setting to bring up the brightness (Photoshop auto levels almost always increases the brightness/exposure).
Added another levels adjustment layer, bring both shadows and highlights in to add contrast. (this combined with the previous step improves clarity in cases similar to this photo)
Last step is Google's Nik Collection filters -> Dfine 2 (removes noise) and traced a small area of tree on the right and another small area on the far left - almost top. Or just set it to automatic.
I think it really depends on what you're doing with it. If you're shooting a lot of things and you professional level editing features, I'd say it's worth the money. $10 a month isn't a lot for what you actually get. Any and all updates automatically to both LR and PS.
But, you have to think, at the end of the day it's $120 a year. If you had $120 in your hand, do you think you do enough photo work to give that up when you can find cheaper/free editing software out there that will work fine for hobbyists.
Like Google Nik for example.
In order to make a decent BW image similar to this you need to go well beyond simple slider adjustments. Images like this use a lot of local/selective contrast adjustments. Darken here, lighten there. Sharpen that, soften this. Frankly it's as old school as it gets. You need to dodge and burn. You can research various ways to do that, from soft light layers, to masks on adjustment layers.
A good photoshop plug in to check out (especially since it's free now) is Niks Silver Efex Pro. It is a very powerful BW image editor used in photoshop or lightroom.
Semi-related, Google recently made the Nik Collection free in case you would be interested in downloading the current versions:
https://www.google.com/nikcollection/
I installed the Mac version on my 10.11.4 MBPR without any hiccups (though I haven't actually used it yet, but the installation was fine).
If there is too much noise in the photos due to high ISO, converting them to black and white does wonders - (providing b&w is an acceptable format for you/clients).
Plus as you can see already posted in this sub the Nik collection to editing tools seems to include a noise reduction one https://www.google.com/nikcollection/products/dfine/ that might help out. Havent tried it myself.
That's a good point. I don't know much about Snapseed's history and how much they were bought out for. But I do know that Nik Software (the company behind Snapseed) had a lot more going on than Pushbullet does currently
The Nik Collection is a very useful set of add-ons for Lightroom. After the basic work in LR, I used Viveza and Colour Effex Pro for this picture.
Also, I had to rely heavily on noise reduction because I'm a idiot who forgot to disable auto-iso from the previous night, so all Park pictures were noisy as hell because they were shot at ISO 800 :(
100% Analog Efex Pro :)
I don't generally advocate people buy filters and actions and that kinda stuff for Photoshop, especially when starting out, but I make an exception for Google's Nik Collection. It's good stuff.
Yeah I used ColourEfexPro which is part of the Google Nik Collection, I used a film look effect to get a subdued sepia tone.
Here's a link- https://www.google.com/nikcollection/products/color-efex-pro/
Lightroom is solid; however, I prefer to do my noise reduction in Photoshop using a Nik Efex plugin called dfine. I think it also integrates with Lightroom, so you should be good to go there.
Another technique you can use is to take two exposures - one for 30 seconds for the Milky Way, and another for much longer, perhaps 3-4 minutes at f/4 or f/5.6 for the foreground, and then blend them in Photoshop (I realize you don't have Photoshop). You'll want to think about turning on "long exposures noise reduction" in your camera for this technique since it will create many "hot pixels" in your scene.
It depends on your work, and on what you want/need to achieve. Possibly not.
I've used several, and I wish that I could recommend one over all the rest for all circumstances, but I find that different images call for different tools. Lightroom's was hailed as amazingly great (I'm not a LR user, so I can't say,) but I would hope that whatever makes it great has been rolled into PS by now. I'm sure someone else could provide more info on this.
I've used a handful of 3rd party tools. I'm a bit surprised that I don't like Nik Software/Google DFine much, but have been very impressed with Topaz DeNoise. A couple of times I've been able to get very clean results from TD that I couldn't (figure out how to) achieve with other tools.
I don't know how that photographer did that, but you may be interested in Silver Efex Pro which helps work on B&W images specifically.
Lightroom. It's more than an editor. It's an organizer. If you need more advanced editing, then add Photoshop.
On top of that, I use the Google Nik plugins almost exclusively.
My workflow is usually something like this:
- Import into Lightroom
- Tagging, cropping, and first edits in Lightroom (lens correction, maybe exposure, sometimes other tweaks)
- Although the Nik plugins can be used in LR too, I usually open the image in Photoshop and apply pre-sharpening (Nik Sharpener Pro), curve adjustments in Nik Viveza, maybe something in Nik Color Efex Pro, maybe noise reduction in Nik Define, and if I want B&W, finally into Nik Silver Efex Pro.
But really, 95% of what most anyone needs can be done right in Lightroom.
Have you tried using the Google Nik collection? It's a plugin that's installed directly in Photoshop and then accessed through the filter menu. It's completely free and you can create some stunning effects just using the preinstalled recipes. Or you can play about with it and create your own.
Not sure on the halo as that is not something I have tried to edit in Lightroom. I would assume that something could be done with the mask tool (looks like a brush). I would suggest trying Silver Efex Pro 2 for b&w conversion. It is available free as part of the Nik Collection. Google recently sold this to DXO and the current version is free (https://www.google.com/nikcollection/ and now https://nikcollection.dxo.com/). It has quite a few options, but by selectively filtering out colors you can improve the black and white contrast without adding noise.
Seriously, get Lightroom, shoot RAW, get Google Nik Collection, buy a Neutral Density filter, cause that will help you with long exposures when it’s light...This shot is really cool. Love shots like this. But it would benefit from a sunset, I think. That’s something I’ve not done yet...
The noise reduction applied to this one is too heavy. The one you originally submitted has more noise and details, but has a lower resolution. If you have Photoshop, you can try Nik define and see how far you want to remove noise vs how much details to keep.
I bought v3 of Detail back in the day, and I've used ReMask through version 5.
They each did their job well, and the UX was decent, but I haven't used either in a couple years though.
Between LR, Nik and Photoshop's improved selection tools. I rarely feel like I need to reach for another 3rd party plugin anymore.
I'm with /u/WhiteRabbitPhotoshop If Adobe hasn't already suckered you in to their Photoshop subscription you should check out the Nik collection first since it's free, powerful and reasonably intuitive.
If, and only if, you still can't achieve the look you're going for efficiently then the Topaz plugins are worth it.
Just my 2¢.
PS Nik may not be free forever since it's been acquired by DxO, and it's back in active development. It's still downloadable via Google's site, so grab it just in case. https://www.google.com/nikcollection/
For what they are, I think they look pretty good. Everything about them looks 'right', and there's a consistency about your set. Sure, a lot of them just seem like snapshots, but that's not the point, is it?
Have you tried the NIK plugins for Lightroom yet? They're a game changer, and free!
Film grain? You can use add noise in photoshop or lightroom.
You can also get the NIK collection (https://www.google.com/nikcollection/) and use Analog Efex Pro to make digital photos look more analog.
This is a Sony Alpha 6000 with its kit 16-50mm lens.
The picture has been stitched using Lightroom's panorama feature (6 original pictures) and then the colors - obviously - edited using Color Efex Pro (https://www.google.com/nikcollection/products/color-efex-pro/)
f/9 1/200 16 mm ISO 100
Use Silver efex pro to get your image greyscale exactly like you want in the RGB image: (free for gimp)
https://www.google.com/nikcollection/
then convert the silver effex output to a greyscale image. Greyscale uses the K in CMYK and since you want a B&W print - converting to greyscale will rid you of the blues browns and yellows that come from the RGB-CMYK conversions and give you a nice CMYK file that is only K (black ink) and will be nice and easy to your printer.
How do you like Capture One? I'm in the Lightroom/Photoshop world myself, but I'm always interested to hear others' takes on different software.
I've also been using the Google Nik Collection for some edits, mostly HDR and B&W.
I have shot a few houses to put on the market and what I did that came out well was use a wide angle lens and the real kicker: HDR. I set the camera on a tripod and took 3 exposures, one 1.3stops above, one 1.3stops below, and one exposed properly. Then in lightroom I used the NIK collection to create the HDR and it came out good. I know you asked about camera/gear, but i definitely recommend this approach.
Looks perfectly exposed! One favourite piece of (free) software I love to use with Lightroom is the Nik Collection . Has some more "punchy" colour presets and (IMO) better noise reduction than what is provided in LR.
https://www.google.com/nikcollection/
Use Dfine2.
Let the program make an automated measurement. The press the "Reduce" button. In here you can add negative control points to remove the noise reduction where needed (adjust the sliders on the control point to set the area you want to target). It's quite simple.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp5lYDsQi4gmZgD2fdHHipF5albBgzJRW
edit: added better tutorials.
Favorite photo: I would try retaking this image, move your angle down and to the left. Get rid of that big white door in the background and instead make the background that black area to the right. It will help bring focus onto the ornaments more.
Almost there: Crop in a bit, to help get rid of that wire. Maybe even shoot down the middle of the road, using the bridge as a frame, road as a leading line.
Something I love: Crop in and just use the leaves as an frame for the steeple. Outside of that frame, the image is busy and we don't need to see anything outside of the steeple. Also, removing some of the wider image will remove some context, creating a mysterious feel that will draw people into the image more.
Something I love: Make this image black and white. The colors are a bit flat so there's no need for them. Though, I've often heard (and followed the rule of thumb) that if you need to make a photo black and white, it's not really that good of a photo. To make this one better, I would step back and make the shot wider. Get all of the tree in the frame.
Dog: Getting animals and people in the right moment is always tough when starting out. But, I would try to move him/her away from the table. The lighting is actually pretty decent from what looks to be a simple on-camera flash.
>A goal for me would be to compose beautiful photos with minimal use of photo editing software.
No photo software needed if you're looking for good composition. Good composition can all be done in camera. Lighting and color on the other hand, while a lot of it can be done in camera, you're never going to get everything out of your images unless you learn to use some post process. I would highly recommend the Google Nik Collection.
It's free and very useful for people just starting out with post-processing as it does a lot of the work for you and has a bunch of presets.
Depends on the camera. I find it hard to believe it was 400 ISO and you're getting photo-ruining grain though -- especially in the light. Maybe noticeable noise in the shadows. If you look at the photo in LR, it will tell you what ISO it was shot at.
Noise Reduction and Sharpening is a lot to cover. There's so much information, and while I may be wrong, it doesn't seem like she is too interested in learning that in-depth.
For an easy fix attempt, try Google's Dfine for Noise Reduction. Otherwise, start getting intimate with the Detail panel sliders in LR.
The two biggest issues with the RAW are muddy texture and water colour.
I highly highly recommend Nik Collection for Photoshop or Lightroom.
https://www.google.com/nikcollection/
It's fixed the muddy files for me.
I'm not saying not to do this--I spend most of my time with Photoshop, seems like, but first (in every sense,) learn to do things with lights and your camera. If your plan is to be a professional photographer, you'll run into situations where you'll be expected to SHOOT what's required, meaning that you shoot to your clients' needs, hand over your images, and they take it from there. (Unless you're a wuss like me who hides under the title of "Fine Arts Photographer," which means I do what I fucking want, and you can like it or lump it.)
Don't don't DON'T start leaning on postproduction as a way to fix lighting and exposure problems. Learn to do that right in the first place. Problems will inevitably occur, and things will always need to be touched up in post-, but don't make that the center of your workflow, as a photographer.
When you can create the images you want with lighting and a camera, THEN you can devote yourself to post- work. It's pretty easy to learn, and there are many, many excellent tools (like Google's Nik plug-ins,) to help out. You can learn all that sitting in a chair. Shooting well takes getting off your ass and trying and trying and trying to get it right, and learning what does and doesn't work. Not as easy. And I get it, not as appealing.
In an almost completely digital era, this advice might not make sense to many people. Photoshop kicks ass. Shooting RAW kicks ass. Use all the tools available, right? Yes. Just don't neglect the most important of your tools--YOUR EYE (this is absolutely, above all, the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT thing that you must train,) lighting (I consider this is a subset of YOUR EYE; seeing light is a learned skill, and is critically, fundamentally important,) and the equipment in your hands.
tl;dr- If you use a decent portfolio to get into a situation as a commercial shooter, you will be expected to know how to make good images with lighting and your camera.
Thanks for the comments much appreciated, as I said I'm new to colouring and I know I've still got much to learn but at least it's a long way from my early efforts where it looked like I'd used a crayon or coloured pencils.
I agree about the glossy and shiny, I think i was concentrating too much on making it look like James Dean - film star rather than focusing on the actual situation. Here's another version where I used a vignette effect in Analog Effex Pro2^* to remove most of the background, which in my opinion makes it look more like it was from a publicity shot for a magazine: http://imgur.com/a/lCcFa
^* - I highly recommend both Analog Effex Pro 2 and Color Effex Pro 4 from Google which I use on my own photos as the filters are really good and easy to customise. They can be directly linked to GIMP and Photoshop software but you might need to know how to script in Python. I use them as stand alone software and save to lossless TIFF (doesn't work with PNG files) and convert to JPG only at the end.
They are both available for free here: https://www.google.com/nikcollection/
30s and 1600 iso should be a brighter image than that. What lens were you using? You want something fast preferably at least 2.8. Also if you have the Raws you can run them through dfine to see if that helps with the noise.
if you'd like to do it in post, try Nic Collection's Analog Efex Pro. it's free, compatible with Mac and Windows, and you can use it as a standalone app if you don't use photoshop or lightroom.
You should install both, but you'll probably be using just Lightroom 99% of the time.
At least for me the basic workflow is the following:
- Import photos to Lightroom, cull out the obviously bad ones in the process and tag the ones you keep with relevant tags for future lookups
- Look if there's an opportunity to make some global adjustments, e.g. all the photos turned out slightly underexposed, and apply the basic fixes to all the photos at once to save some time
- Go through them one by one in the develop module, picking your favourites and post-processing them as you see fit. The controls Lightroom give you are more than enough 99% of the time
- If you encounter a photo that you really want to manipulate or very specific areas need tweaking, right click and open it in Photoshop.
- Export finished photos and remember to make backups
Basically, Lightroom is the photo library and post-processing software, while Photoshop is image manipulation and composition software.
You might also want to check out the Nik Collection, which is a set of plugins/applications you can run through Lightroom and Photoshop. Initially the plugins used to sell for $100 a piece, but Google bundled them up and provides them for free now. https://www.google.com/nikcollection/
I haven't used them a lot yet, but at least the Silver Efex Pro seemed awesome for doing black and white.
Oh, and remember to shoot RAW if you want to do post-processing, it gives you so much more control.
Color Efex is part of Google Nik, which Google made free to download and use not so long ago. https://www.google.com/nikcollection/products/color-efex-pro/ You can use the Nik Collection plugins in Photoshop.
Beeple is very open about using post effects in PS and AE. Whether it's Octane, Physical, etc., the dude post processes the hell out of his work. And tastefully so! OP, look into Google Nik Collection for PS. That's a Beeple go-to.
Quick look -admittedly not all of them - and didn't see anything horrible. Good looking scans from 35 mm are difficult and expensive. You also might be comparing to digital which is going to have a sharper, cleaner look.
Two suggestions: Try some Ektar 100. Very fine grain.
To improve grain and sharpness, try the Google Nik collection and it's now free.
1/2 a suggestion, listen to the Film Photography Podcast. You'll learn some stuff and have a laugh.
This is a stacked image of 14 pictures with a 20 second exposure. I captured this awhile back but recently revisited it in Photoshop to test out some new plugins. I personally feel this is over edited, but heck I was just playing with some plugins. The plugin used was the Google Nik Collection, which was recently made free by google.
Nik Software's DFine and Topaz Labs's DeNoise are available for free trials, 15 days for Nik and 30 days for Topaz. If you only want to clean up this batch of shots, then these free trials could be just what you need.
Topaz is running a Black Friday special, where you get all 16 of their editing tools for $250, half off the normal price. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be doing that. I know you said you only do minor things, but it couldn't hurt to download the free trials and see what you think.
> Any other killer plug in really good for architecture and interiors photography?
I shoot a LOT of interiors. Two apps I MUST have:
Capture One Pro. I took time to compare Lightroom, DxO Optics Pro, and Capture One Pro in December 2013. Certain things I liked about each, but for me, the name of the game is maximum retrieval of blown highlights AND bringing up shadows, and it has to look natural. Under no circumstances could I match Capture One Pro's incredible "dynamic range expansion" results with the other two apps. So that's my go-to for RAW, which I cannot work without.
Viveza plugin (by NIK; now owned by Google). No matter how well I've lit a shoot, no matter what I can do with it as a RAW file in Capture One Pro, that file is being finished in the Viveza plugin via Photoshop. It is beyond my ability to express how useful this plugin is. It makes EVERYTHING so much better, if used judiciously. In one situation where I couldn't use my strobes for the shot the client wanted, it saved the day. I've fixed localized color contamination, simulated bounced fill flash in situations where there was no place to put the strobe...just go get this plugin.
Photoshop plugin:
First I remove all the dust with the clone tool.
Then:
Nik Software's ColorEFex Pro [1]:
*1. Pro Contrast with colorcast correction
*2. Color Styler
*3. Viveza to brighten up the rear right part of the picture
I then fade back the layer done with color styler until it looks "right".
It's not totally preventable but you can do a couple of things to minimize it.
Always shoot in raw so details can be recovered in post.
If you're ever deciding to expose for the highlights or shadows, always expose for the highlights (ie slightly underexpose the shot). Detail can be recovered from the shadows in post but not from blown highlights.
HDR is practical for commercial photography, it's frequently used in landscape and real estate photography. Everyone has their own style when it comes to HDR so play with it and see what you like, but many professionals try to use HDR photography whilst minimizing the typical "HDR look". Look into the google nik collection, it gives great results very easily.
Edit: Also, using a flash will do wonders in certain scenarios and if you're in a controlled environment you can use lighting set ups and reflectors.
Thanks, I really appreciate that. The amount of processing I do on my photos varies, but I often use (and would recommend trying) Nik Software's Viveza plug-in to give colors more "pop." If you're interested, you can grab an eval/demo version of the entire Nik Collection (including Viveza) here. At the top of the page there's a "Try Now" button where you can choose Mac or Windows.
For the color enhance: I used a photoshop plugin called "Nik ColorEFex Pro" -- they were bought by google a couple years back:
https://www.google.com/nikcollection
It makes for quick tone and contrast adjustments, although it's not quite "one click".
Topaz Adjust and Silver Efex Pro both boost contrast and tonal range in a number of ways. Better than verbal explanations, check out example images processed with those tools.
Topaz, in particular, tends to be used in excess. Restraint can help keep things from looking like cartoons.
You're doing a pretty good job of it. Have you looked at Nik software? There are some good editing templates for just about anything including replicating old cameras.
Dfine is a photoshop pluggin hehe, I know it is likely for there to be plenty of other options on noise reduction programs but Dfine is the pluggin I like: https://www.google.com/nikcollection/products/dfine/
My only piece of advice is to play with the sliders in the develop module in Lightroom to learn it better. My basic edit usually comprises of a slight increase in sharpness, tweaking the exposure and contrast, and applying the lens profile (removing CA, if any). I wouldn't go overboard with any one setting.
A bit of a shortcut it to use something like Google Nik Collection. It's pretty easy to use. Still requires playing around with sliders though.
https://www.google.com/nikcollection/products/viveza/
you can get all of NIK Software filters (the color efex Pro is worth it by itself) from google for $149
I'm sure you could find them other ways as well, but my work supplies a small budget for these types of things. Really highly recommend the Nik Filters suite, very powerful for a lot of different kinds of effects and fixes.
Yep, there are a lot of variations. You can do it in Photoshop, Lightroom or find some plugins.
I actually used Google's Nik Collection and specifically Color Efex Pro
I chose an Infrared filter and did some variations myself.