How and How much do you like to edit your pictures

[MarineTeng]

Just curious to see before after shots of people's photos what what programs they use to edit them and how much

Using a the Nikon D50 i edit my RAW images taken with the small jpeg to view on camera with the Nikon Editor that is attached with nikon view i believe, i usually edit white Balance exposure composition and sometimes color and sharpening, here is a picture before/after with color constrast auto fix, low sharpening
before:

After:

 

[returnofsid]

I'm curious as to which is closest to what you were actually seeing in your tank? Beautiful pic by the way. Great color.

 

[MarineTeng]

my tank's not as blue as the first one, but as slightly more than the second one, i'm still finding it hard to make my pictures like i see it in my tank

 

[Blazer88]

Can you set a custom WB on the D50? You may have clipping on the blue channel (use the RGB histogram if you have that option). I find it's easier to do the color correction in the RAW conversion if the original is as close as possible to what your eye will see, and make sure there are no blown highlights. One other thing that I notice, the original is quite under exposed. If you under expose a shot and then "brighten" it back up in PP you can bring out noise and other artifacts (especially in the shadows). Do you view the histogram after the shot? I would "shoot to the right", meaning to expose to shot as high as possible without blowing any highlights. It's best to darken an image rather than brighten it. Just a few thoughts.

 

[MarineTeng]

thanks for the advice i read somewhere it was good to underpose a bit, maybe i misread it, i'll try some with overexposing, and ya i have the histogram thing on so i can see them before i bring them to the comp, i think my screen shows the pictures brighter than they really are though because i always think that they are too bright then when i put them on the computer they are too dark, tonight i'll see if i can take more pics
anyone have any before and after shots they want to share?

 

[returnofsid]

I'd look into White Balance as well. I think your camera has several White Balance custom and automatic settings. From what I understand, getting your WB correct will give more true to color photos.

 

[Blazer88]

Most people will slightly underexpose the shot just a bit to get a faster shutter speed if needed. I myself do this on occasion, but shutter speed shouldn't be a concern when shooting corals like your picture above. Here is an example of what exposing to the right means, check post #14 for examples.
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=66836

 

[MarineTeng]

ya shutter speed isn't the problem, i am tripod with rather long shutter speeds, the one above is specifically 1/2 second for shutter f40 white balance shade, iso 200, i think i misunderstood histogram (after reading the thread) and thought it was just another word for picture preview, my bad,

sid, i have tried using some custom white balance by setting it with pvc pipe under the light but i feel it turns the pictures to the other extreme of too yellow, i'll play around with it more though

 

[Blazer88]

As another side note, I wouldn't be using F/40 as your aperture as you are loosing sharpness due to diffraction. Every lens has a "sweet spot" for sharpness and it's usually middle apertures, F/8 - F/11 or so.

Getting back on track with your post, here is a quick example of my editing. This was a clown pic taken in Dang's tank. Here is the original unedited jpeg:

Here is the edited shot using Adobe Lightroom for my RAW processing and Adobe CS2 for the rest. There are quite a few quick tricks that work well for editing clown fish. There was nothing interesting about the original background so I just blacked it out. I also desaturated the stripes and fins on the fish to get rid of any blue hue, sharpened up the eye, and cropped. The end product:

 

[returnofsid]

May I ask what kind of camera everyone is using? Maybe with an added pic? I ask because I'm considering a new camera purchase and am still debating over going with a DSLR (Rebel XT, Nikon D40, 40x or Sony A100 Alpha) or going with a better quality P&S like Canon S3, S5 or G7.

I know the DSLs are ultimately more expandable, but at a much higher price and with a much larger learning curve.

MarineTeng, I don't know about using PVC pipe for white balance. It's hardly ever a TRUE white. I used to do a lot of custom paint matching when I worked at a paint supply company. There's more "shades" of white than there are colors...lol. I'd try a camera supply shop to get a true white or gray sample card used for white balance.

There's also a lot to be said for balancing your monitor and printer to your camera. I went through that process about a year ago. I googled a lot of information about it. It's kind of a PITA but very interested and you'd be surprised how much of a difference it makes. Especially when printing photos. I was amazed at the difference in my prints after calibrating my monitor to my printer!!

 

[MarineTeng]

i don't really print photos but that's good to know,
i use the nikon d50 i like it, it's maybe a bit short on megapixels compared to the rebel xti and such but it works well enough, i think the dSLR's are worth it cause you can tank pictures of lots of stuff quickly, especially fish which will/would/are really hard to shoot with ps cameras.
ya i did a bunch of reading online to find ways to custom white balance and found two home done ones, one put a coffee filter over the lens and set it (couldn't get this to work) and then the pvc pipe way which was decent but took out to much of the blue for me, my camera also let me set it while pointing it at some of the subjects that i was taking which was weird and seemed about the same as using the pvc pipe.

blazer with the high fstop i was trying to get more depth of field, but it doesn't seem to get much better even at higher fstops, though given the lens says it has a limit at 32 but my camera let me go to 64 when focused at 1:1 magnification, thought that was weird, i'll try shooting more at f/4-f/11 as i believe i read these are the best sharpness for my lens

 

[dragoneggs]

Can you set a custom WB on the D50? You may have clipping on the blue channel (use the RGB histogram if you have that option). I find it's easier to do the color correction in the RAW conversion if the original is as close as possible to what your eye will see, and make sure there are no blown highlights. One other thing that I notice, the original is quite under exposed. If you under expose a shot and then "brighten" it back up in PP you can bring out noise and other artifacts (especially in the shadows). Do you view the histogram after the shot? I would "shoot to the right", meaning to expose to shot as high as possible without blowing any highlights. It's best to darken an image rather than brighten it. Just a few thoughts.

Great, great, advice! My problem is that with the MH on the white of the LR is 'blown' easily forcing me to underexpose my subject. I wish I could dial down my HM lighting. If I shoot with actinics only then I have to deal with extreme white balance issues.