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Since today I have lightroom 2.0 to try for 30 days. I downloaded this because I want to take my (tank) photos in RAW, convert and correct them and save them as TIFF because JPEG loses some quality when opening and closing.

My question, do you use photoshop / lightroom for correcting photo's and what are youre experiences.

This because some functions are not clear for me at the moment and I'am afraid to overcorrect (too green etc)

Also when saving a image as TIFF it becomes very large, some photo's become 30 MB!! Is this normal or do I something wrong


Is this in your opinion overcorrected (the green tints)? I used a helicopter to try first.....


Same question, is this too green?
YP-408 at Reek

All tips and tools are welcome!

Regards,
Lesley

Photoshop has an adjust levels tool to kick out the speckles. I've never worried about adjusting colours. That is asking for trouble.

Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) is lossless, but so is Portable Document Format (PDF). You have to remember Joint Photographic Exploitation Group (JPEG) is a very old format, dating back to early digital imagery days. It is a compromise, and losing resolution after resampling is one of its faults.

300 dpi is the standard for publication and printing. Internet websites fresh best at 144 or 72dpi and small dimensions. Depending on what you want to do, take your pick.

I'd say they're both a bit too green. PaintShop Pro has a pretty good auto adjustment ('One Step Photo Fix') which I find very useful - I imagine PhotoShop and maybe Lightwave have something similar - though you always have to stand back and decide whether the picture is really improved or not. I don't generally have the time or the inclination to start adjusting individual colours on pictures and, as Maple_Leaf_Eh suggests, you can easily stray into something looking artificial though I might try it for a particular picture, e.g. for a wallpaper.

If you want high quality but low file size you could try PNG format, it's lossless.

,

Maple_Leaf_Eh said:

losing resolution after resampling is one of its faults.

OK now,

This is where my computer knowledge/skills show,

Are you saying that with time all my photo's that are JPEG will turn to blurry images much similar to the old Kodak 110 film pictures?

If that's then the case what do I do to prevent this???

I hate to spend money on a quality camera just to end up with crappy pictures in the long run.

Joe D

The ''open and close'' words in my message are a mistake my side. It must be open and save again. Which I do to correct red eyes and sometimes the brightness etc.

I read an article about JPEG/TIFF in Dutch, but I also found something in English on the internet about this. Hope this clears it up.

www.worldstart.com/tip...ps.php/129

Regards,
Lesley

Thank you Lesley,

Once I transfer my pictures from my Camera to the computer I always save them to CD before messing with them. I guess I did the right thing without knowing it.

Joe D

Having used tools such as Photoshop for a considerable amount of time, I can say that colour correction and photo manipulation are disciplines in themselves spanning many books.

As a hobbyist, you'll want to stick with automated solutions to deal with colour correction, brightness, contrast and lens distortion. Photoshop Elements (around $90 bucks) might be worth looking into in this regard (http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopelwin/).

Adobe Light Room and Photoshop are professional products offering vastly more control through numerous powerful tools but with a higher purchase price. If you've never used any photo editing software before, Photoshop's learning curve will be quite steep.

If you decide to become a serious hobbyist, sell prints of your work, or venture into commercial photography. you'll not only need to learn how to operate the above software, but you'll also have to master important concepts. These include photography, the use of Levels and Curves, resolution and bit depth, correcting colour and Alpha Channel masking.

Alternatively, you can experiment with various Photoshop plugins that also automate the adjustment of colour correction and contrast/brightness values of an image with just a few clicks. I believe OnOne.com has products that can do this for you.
In any case, you'll always want to work on improving your photographic techniques as the ability to edit always comes down to their source material.

Regarding file formats, Camera RAW is the best format for preserving as much data as possible for editing. You'll notice that it comes at a cost of file size which can be enormous.

Essentially, you'll want to do your colour and brightness/contrast editing in the Raw file itself using the specific features found in Photoshop elements or Lightroom. These operations are usually non-destructive (they won't throw away data that you might want to keep at a later date). Store the RAW file by burning to CD or through some other medium so that you have your original source image.

There's no point in saving it as a TIFF image unless you have a specific reason for doing so (such as editing your image in another application that can't read Camera RAW).

If you intend to distribute your photos via email or web hosting, you should save it in JPEG format. Why? To preserve bandwidth. An image greater than a few megabytes takes too long to load and will quickly frustrate users. Yes, you will lose some quality but it is a necessary compromise to ensure an acceptable file size. Don't forget that you also have your original RAW file as backup incase you need to make additional edits.

You will also want to make sure that your image is appropriately cropped and the resolution downsampled to at least 72 DPI to avoid having images so large that viewers are forced to scroll horizontally.

Hope you found this of some use.

I save images that I want in original form as one file name, usually in highest res possible. If I want to edit, I save a second file name in case I don't like the final product. If I then am going to forward or post to somebody/somewhere, I save the final version as a jpg using "Irfanview", which has some nice features, including high res jpgs. I set that to "maximum".

I have occasion to correct, fix, whatever a LOT of older photos, mine and others, from Vietnam. These may be prints or transparancies. I use a variety of tools from "Paint" to "Photoshop" and sometimes just plain ol' MS Picture Manager. Depends of if I'm lifting spots and scratches, correcting brightness/contrast, or color correcting for aged blued or yellowed images.