UKH

I’m thoroughly enjoying getting to grips with my A6400, and my chosen lenses. And taking much better photos than I used to.

I’m mostly still just pulling JPEGs straight from the camera, with the odd playing about editing RAW using the free CaptureOne for Sony.

I’d like to start taking editing more seriously and wondered the best way to go about this? Just play about? Do a course, online or otherwise?

Im always impressed with some of the galleries on here and wondered how you learned how to edit?

After just using jpegs for years with the excellent free picturegallery software that used to come with windows (now discontinued and replaced with some much inferior social media orientated thing, but can still be downloaded I think) I eventually switched to RAW with the free CaptureOne for Fuji (with immediate better results simply from recovering highlights and shadows) and taught myself to use it by just playing around. I hardly ever use anything that isn't on the Quick menu. I really don't feel the need for anything else, but maybe I should!

I watched about 100 Peter McKinnon videos!

I bought a book years ago called Landscape Photography Workshop and picked up the basics from that. Otherwise I use Youtube vids from Capture One and Affinity. I also look at various photographers sites where they explain how they created a particular image. Keith Cooper, Andy Mumford and Joe Cornish are but three who are good for this.

I trawl the photography sites an forums a bit as well, especially PhotographyLife, which is American but has a lot of brilliant articles, including some by John 'Verm' Sherman. 

I find going back to re-process old photos is both very instructive and rewarding.

I watch Alex Nail's videos, which a I find very inspiring for mountain landscape photography (he basically does what I do but better!). He has some on simple processing with the message that it can be kept simple, which I like (lightroom based but the principles are the same).

Thanks all. So really no need to spend cash on a course, or similar. Just a bit of research to build my knowledge and play about to build my experience.

Thanks for the various ‘named’ tips.

I think the most important thing is to learn to see what needs doing to a photo and then edit purposefully - video tutorials can give you a head start (or send you down useless rabbit holes - I echo the Alex Nail recommendation) but really it's just taking and processing loads of photos. Combine that with a solid understanding of the basic tools - exposure, contrast, highlights and shadows. Play with them and see what they do, not just individually but in combination. For example, I more or less treat exposure and contrast as 2 halves of one tool. The final piece of the puzzle is learning to use tools which let you work on areas of an image locally, without affecting the whole image. Lightroom is now much better at this than it used to be.

Like learning anything new, your going to be shit at for a while but it gets easier. 

The thing about editing is, once you learn to do it competently, you just realise that you're really just at the starting line and there's a whole load of other factors which make a good photo.

As I think I've said before on here, editing can't make a bad photo good but it can allow you to realise the potential of a good photo.

Everybody has given you excellent advice on here.

The only suggestion I can offer is to get your camera to take RAW images as well as or instead of your JPEG images.

There is nothing wrong with JPEG and if they are taken in good lighting, exposed well and with the correct white balance then they will look great. However when it comes to editing then you are limited in how much you can manipulate the image before you break it.

With a JPEG your camera is making a lot of decisions about what data to keep and what to throw away to get the best image in the smallest file size possible.

Now that you are enjoying editing your images on a computer, it’s the extra data that your camera throws away that you need to get more enjoyment out of the editing process.

Taking RAW images means that you will, at some point, have to covert every single photo you take into a JPEG to share those images with other people online or social media however this can be done automatically by good software like your Capture One.

Editing RAW images yourself can produce superior results because you are not letting your camera throw away any information captured on its sensor by shooting JPEG.

Thanks. Some really interesting points. Particularly about what “needs doing”.

I’m assuming once I start playing about more I’ll learn what’s possible in editing, and then become more aware of what needs to be done to improve the image. Rather than what I’m doing at the moment, which is just trial and error.

Thanks 😊 

Some very good advice on here

definitely  shoot raw, when you get a handle on the processing go back to some of your earlier pictures and look at them again and maybe play around.

A great learning tool is to go out with other photographers and contrast the look of your photographs and see what they’ve done.

Don't overprocces 

but don’t underprocess 

Remember with raw files if you stick to a non destructive program, just press cancel/reset or what whenever is the option in the program you are using and you are back to the photo as it was initially processed on import.

In the early days I took both raw and jpeg and used to compare how the camera interpreted the raw files and it gave a guide of what the raw could look like.

However, when I first started with a camera that could do raw, I did go on a intro course, but that was mainly to learn the basics of good practice (file naming, backups, etc as well as intro to what programs can do). The course also had a section on photoshop which I wants to be hands on and it was to decide type of software I should buy and if I would want to go that far as some of the things Photoshop can do. It “proved” to me that personally I didn’t want advanced post processing and so I bought software only to do the level of stuff I wanted.

Since the course, I read articles, watch YouTube and just play around. However, as I don’t want to do much post processing, I had a tendency to use the programs auto/standard presets for most photos to get their equivalent of an in camera jpeg. Once I’ve done that if I want to use for something else like sending to friends I then tweak to what I want to show.

One final point, (if you want an all in one program) different software processes the initial out of camera raw image (and subsequent processing) differently on import. If your buying software best to look at reviews of what it’s like for your camera.

Thanks. That’s definitely something I’ve been guilty of……”wow look how green I can get this to look”

I’ve read a bit about that. There’s soooo many and they all appear good, but in lots of different ways. I’m on a group on Facebook and when I read about people processing using multiple platforms I’m thinking “that’s not for me”. Their photos are gorgeous, but I’m not sure I could be bothered putting in that amount of effort. Although, who knows, maybe I will in the future.

Like you, I do this for a hobby so keep that in mind. Here is a RAW image taken out of camera and converted straight to JPEG just now with Lightroom as an example. And I've included a link to the same image that was put through the editing washer and put onto my flickr account.

The subject was shot on a bright day with its back to the sun and as things were happening so quickly I under exposed it. Messing about with a RAW image gave me the ability to pull out details in the shadows that could never have been achieved with a JPEG straight out of camera.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/the1lemming/52185530580/in/dateposted/

Loads of great advice already, just want to give another alternative.

I have recently started using Lightroom for iPad. This has a sort of "Inspiration" tab where you can see edited pictures and then go through all the edits that the author has made. Some of them even have text explanation of why certain edits where made attached to them. For some reason I find these tutorials made the principles of editing stick a lot more than watching videos. When following such a tutorial in the app you can also adjust the sliders to check if you would have done something different. Watching a video is more passive which didn't really work for me. Maybe some of the other Raw editors also have this kind of feature but i'm only familiar with Lightroom.

I like the sound of that. Is it free? Although I’d need to buy a new iPad, which obviously won’t be free 🫤

If you have a full copy of Capture One then its quite possibly one of the best bits of kit out there. I have not used it myself because its so expensive to buy at £300 for a licence. Ain't no way I will ever pay monthly.

Unfortunately its quite expensive, something like 10 quid a month for the full version. The iPad only version is cheaper at around 5 a month I think. Luckily I get a deep discount through work (academics) so I only pay 20 something a year. They have a decent trial though so you can check it out. The desktop version might also have a similar feature so you might not have to buy an iPad.

He said he is using the free version for Sony.

If it is like the Fuji free version you can choose to have the initial preview that you work on look precisely the same as your jpegs that you are used to. Having played with lightroom and struggled, I found this really good because I could only improve on them and was immediately getting the benefits of RAW.

So, if you like the free version, my advice would be to stick with it and master the basic shadows, highlights, black and white controls. I rarely use the exposure (unless I badly exposed the shot) or the contrast (prefer to do shadows and highlights separately). Play around with the other stuff.

If you want to try non-global adjustments you can then get a free trial of the full version for a month and have a go before deciding if you want to buy it. I did this but couldn't see myself getting enough benefit for the investment of money and time at the moment (but I might go back to it).

I decided not to bother with all the catalogue and so on stuff (it just felt too intimidating!). I just import the RAW files, process them, and then export jpegs to keep in my own filing system (I also export and keep the RAW files for the very best photos that I may want to come back to at a later date).

Just got the free CaptureOne Express at the moment. I agree on the pay monthly thing. Just not value for money for me. I’d rather spend my money being out taking photos than at a desk processing them.

Yes, no amount of processing can ever compete with the pleasure and results of being in the right place at the right time and pointing your camera in the right direction.

I can highly recommend Luminar photo editing software for performing witchcraft on how good it can edit your photos. It can also created piles of poo if pushed too far.

However its not great for batch processing exports from RAW to JPEG Lightroom is still king exporting to JPEG.

As for me, I'm still using an old version of Lightroom that first came out in 2006, as it was the last version to not go monthly subscription.

Not for me definitely was my decision, and over the years that has never changed. That said my shift to new software this year involved getting one that does more than I need, but I can ignore all the things I don’t want to use!! If was a great price for a one off purchase rather than subscription model and fitted my wants and needs well. Very happy with it so far.

Generally yes, but sometimes either because of work, mojo or other circumstances I don't spend as much time shooting as I might like, and that's when I get a lot out of processing my photos or going over old ones to see what improvements I can make or if any of them will make good black and white images. 

C1Pro is quite expensive, but in term of trips to the hills, it's the same as three tankfuls of fuel which I pay for regularly without a second thought, and does about 4 or 5 trips.

I’ve not done any courses so can’t give you a steer either way on that; maybe I’d be better at editing than I am if I had. 

However, a couple things I have found useful/informative at various points have included:

Watching YouTube videos of photographers showing how they’ve edited something. I would always make sure it’s someone who’s style I like and I’ll choose an image of my own to edit as I watch so I can try things out.

Setting my camera to save both raw and jpeg for a while. I used to do this for two reasons. Firstly, I found it an interesting learning experience to see how closely I could re create the jpeg image. I think working towards a defined end point like this was a good challenge to go alongside trial and error learning. Secondly, when not doing that, it gave me a baseline to compare my edited images to and see if I’d overcooked it. I found it can be easy to lose sight of whether you’ve done too much. 

Re. overprocessing; make your edits and then come back to it the next day to look at it with fresh eyes. I generally over cook the first pass. 

Prioritise getting as much as possible (exposure, light, framing etc) right in camera. Your aim should be to enhance, not compensate.

I'm not so sure about the framing. If in doubt I always zoom out a bit; I can crop at my leisure later.

Fair point and a good thing to consider. Some things you can’t crop out though. I was thinking about times when an image has been spoiled by something that a couple steps to one side would have solved. I suppose I meant composition rather than framing.

Agreed. Almost a golden rule I'd say. 'Keep it a bit slack'.

And then there is the question of whether to digitally remove things. I allow myself to get rid of things which are actually movable such as boats, cars or people and probably birds, but feel on much dodgier ground with things I couldn't realistically in principle move such as telegraph poles, fences, branches of trees, poking into the frame and certainly buildings.

I nearly added a final comment about spending some time thinking about what sort of photographer you want to be and what kind of images you want to make, as I think this guides the editing as much as the taking.

I’ve always found it interesting to read about different peoples principles and process in this regard; Cole Thompson’s “photographic celibacy”, street photographers who consider even cropping or straightening to be unacceptable manipulations, the weeks of extreme and painstakingly laborious edits that can go into a fine art photograph. All food for thought when it comes to the “ethics” of where to draw the line with editing.

Thanks, that’s an interesting approach.

Yeah. Much to my friend’s annoyance, a day out now takes much longer as I’ll spend time looking, composing and playing about with the settings to get the best looking picture I can.

I spent a while last year trying to educate myself about image editing.  Interesting, but it's quite a rabbit hole.  Once you start, you can disappear down it for weeks and at the end of it I wasn't sure that I was any better at editing, I was just confused at a higher level.

YouTube videos help; there are umpteen, so finding someone that communicates well for you is key.  There are also occasional pieces in digital magazines which I found better; I prefer the written to the spoken word, it seems.

I'll offer four bits of general advice.  Shoot in RAW; you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, so try to get as much right in camera as you can; back up your files after every session; and ultimately whilst there are good things to do and best practices to adopt, there is no absolute gold standard 'best', there's just what pleases you.

Have fun, learn lots and remember to come up for air every now and then.

T.

That's till you realise that you double up on images on your storage 😀

OMG! You too? I use an iMac and Photos does my head in for that. Why haven’t they created a way of finding duplicate images for you? I mean there must be a market for it?

Sounds like what I thought might be the case. I need to make sure I keep it simple, and enjoyable.

 Thanks. I think that’s the bit I need to really‘discover’. What is it I want from my images.

Again thanks. I’m  nearing retirement (well part-time first) and hope this will prove to be a hobby I can pursue with my extra time. 

I only shoot raw. 😀