OT: Digital SLR part 2

[mdeeds71]

OK now that the camera is on board...now for software.

I have the latest and greatest Iphoto 08 on this Mac I just got a month ago. I have been using the Iphoto for most of my imports. The nikon came with Picture Project and have also utilized it as well. I like the intereface that Iphoto uses and the ability to see the light distrubution as well as retouch and RAW ability though limited. Pic Project I like because it hold more photo data that tells the specifics of the shot since it was designed for the camera. I find it though a bit more problematic importing pics since it utilizes a auto find feature. It ended up putting 4 copies of imports into the files structure when only one was needed.

So who has used these and the recommendations? Is photoshop a viable or to complex software or how about the Nikon program they push Capture NX???

Lets go with round two.

BTW
NikonD40X (was even trying to maybe buy the 80 or 200 but the salesman told me this was more than enough any insights on Jery's Camera Mar Del Ray)
18-55/55-200 lenses.

Interested in a 18-200 or greater lens w/ VR.

Mark

[Erik.Lazdins]

I've got Photoshop CS - didn't do the Nikon pay per software.

disclosure - Nikon D70

[Pete Serotta]

Iphoto is plenty for me (IPHOTO 08), For most it is all you need.

The exception might be if you are taking RAW pictures. Others have LOTS more knowledge in this area than I do,

PhotoSHOP is VERY powerful but the learning curve is large.

Pete

i agree on not buying NIKON software

[mcteague]

Photoshop Elements 5 or 6 should be fine and both can convert RAW files once you download the Adobe updates.

Tim McTeague

[Len J]

OK now that the camera is on board...now for software.

I have the latest and greatest Iphoto 08 on this Mac I just got a month ago. I have been using the Iphoto for most of my imports. The nikon came with Picture Project and have also utilized it as well. I like the intereface that Iphoto uses and the ability to see the light distrubution as well as retouch and RAW ability though limited. Pic Project I like because it hold more photo data that tells the specifics of the shot since it was designed for the camera. I find it though a bit more problematic importing pics since it utilizes a auto find feature. It ended up putting 4 copies of imports into the files structure when only one was needed.

So who has used these and the recommendations? Is photoshop a viable or to complex software or how about the Nikon program they push Capture NX???

Lets go with round two.

BTW
NikonD40X (was even trying to maybe buy the 80 or 200 but the salesman told me this was more than enough any insights on Jery's Camera Mar Del Ray)
18-55/55-200 lenses.

Interested in a 18-200 or greater lens w/ VR.

Mark

Transfer NX/View NX in place of picture project...I like it much better. They are free downloads from Nikon. (Note that you will have to remove Picture project before you install View).

I also use Capture NX for raw conversion and post processing. It renders NEF'S better than any other RAW converter IMO. It also starts with all in camera settings so the first rendering is pretty close to the out of camera JPeg. It's interface is a little clunky (especially if you are used to CS) but it does about 97% of what CS3 does at 20% the price. If you want to batch process many pictures, it's pretty slow also. It is a resource hog though so you should have at least 3 MB of memory. Like any program the more you invest in learning it's capabilities the easier it gets.

Len

BTW, I have the 18-200 VR and it's a great vacation lense. But when I want to really shoot quality I go to the 12-24 F4, 17-55 F/2.8, 70-200 F2.8 Combo...expensive, but the difference is apparent.

[maunahaole]

Elements also comes bundled with all sorts of stuff. You can often get it for less when it is included with something. It came with some ATI video cards and IIRC lexar flash memory cards for a while.

[Steevo]

I'm a new-to Mac guy, enjoying iPhoto for archiving, albums, web posting and quick touch ups. For the most part iPhoto does the job. Photoshop Elements ups the technology and fun factor. Its useful for all those great Photoshop manipulation tricks, as well as photo enhancement. Its a big step beyond iPhoto at a reasonable price.

[benb]

You shouldn't be using Photoshop CS much at all for photography tasks.. use something like Aperture or Lightroom if more basic stuff like iPhoto is not good enough.

Photoshop's workflow will have you sitting at the computer 10x too long.. it's made for a graphic designer who spends all day working on one image.. not a photographer who needs to run through hundreds of images in the same time frame.

You want to swap people's heads or give someone a mustache use Photoshop.. otherwise use something else and save yourself a lot of money and time.

There are competing products that match up against Elements and are a better deal as well.. The full version of Photoshop is the best in it's class.. Elements is not IMO. But again.. neither is the right software for doing quick modifications to lots of photos.

[weatherman]

...........The full version of Photoshop is the best in it's class.. Elements is not IMO.............. .

What is best in class with Elements? I have to admit, I am a bit preplexed by the "post processing" process and don't really understand what I should be doing beyond copying my files onto the pc. At the moment, I shoot .jpg and raw. I shoot raw only because I'd like to (some day) figure out how to really work on my images and improve them. Most importantly, perhaps there is some automated batch process to acquire/improve/catalog these images (obviously questions for another forum).

In the meantime, I generally settle for my .jpg images and maybe some slight tweaking in Elements although I generally have no set strategy or idea if I'm truly making the image better or worse. I've purchased a few books, but have the attention span of a...(well lets say younger child) so I haven't really been through them yet although I've tried. Bottom line, Elements seems difficult (to me) to do even simple tasks although the organizer system they have to tag photos and display by date seems pretty helpful (and has been when I go looking for an image and can remember when/where it might have been taken).

(Related note: I shoot a Nikon D70)

[avalonracing]

You want to swap people's heads or give someone a mustache use Photoshop..


Yeah, I think I read somewhere that Photoshop was originally designed as a mustache adding software but some intrepid photographers found they could utilize the program in other ways.

[Len J]

What is best in class with Elements? I have to admit, I am a bit preplexed by the "post processing" process and don't really understand what I should be doing beyond copying my files onto the pc. At the moment, I shoot .jpg and raw. I shoot raw only because I'd like to (some day) figure out how to really work on my images and improve them. Most importantly, perhaps there is some automated batch process to acquire/improve/catalog these images (obviously questions for another forum).

In the meantime, I generally settle for my .jpg images and maybe some slight tweaking in Elements although I generally have no set strategy or idea if I'm truly making the image better or worse. I've purchased a few books, but have the attention span of a...(well lets say younger child) so I haven't really been through them yet although I've tried. Bottom line, Elements seems difficult (to me) to do even simple tasks although the organizer system they have to tag photos and display by date seems pretty helpful (and has been when I go looking for an image and can remember when/where it might have been taken).

(Related note: I shoot a Nikon D70)


Most used Post processing steps:

Shooting Raw

1.)Adjustment of exposure up to +/- 2 stops
2.)Adj of WB
3.)Adj to contrast curves
4.)Adjustment of Sharpening
5.)leveling the shot
6.)cropping the shot

In addition, you can clone out objects or dust spots as well as adjust color, distortion, noise, switch to B & W (Or other Photo effects. I also have a filter program that allows me to apply filters to raw images as if they were shot with them

For JPegs....you can do everything but 1 & 2.

Len

[fhernandez1960]

Here are my 2c

For the amateur iphoto is very very good. In particular verion 8 of ilife.

Workflows can be very simple of extremely complex. In any event they boil down to how quickly can you do metadata annotations, categorize your pictures and do any post processing needed, watermarking, web publishing backup and recovery and communications with clients i.e. emails, thumbnail sheets etc.

For me. the process is involved and it follows a variation of the DAM book
"http://www.thedambook.com/pages/about.html" that I adapted it for non commercial purposes but it can be used professionally without a problem.

I run on a MAC and this is my workflow:

1) Create a folder for the event I shot

vacation with Jessica Simpson

2. Create three sub-folders

01 Raw
02 Jpeg
03 Trash
04 Processed

3. Drag and Drop all my jpegs into the "02 Jpeg" folder from the cardreader

4. Drag and Drop all my RAW files into the "02 Raw" folder from the cardreader

5. For Cataloging I use iIVIEW (now microsoft owned company). http://www.iview-multimedia.com/

In this software I can very easily apply all metadata to every file such as keywords, copyright info, watermarks, country, town etc. you get the picture.

I use iviews label rating system for each photo to prioritize by hot to cool

1) red hot pics
2) Green next best
3) Blue cold ones
4) Brown sh$%tty ones.

Once I go through that very quickly I discard all browns to the 04 Trash folder. At some point I really discard them from the trash folder to the mac real trash folder.

6. If I am shooting RAW+JPEG then I work only on my RED and GREEN images to convert from RAW to JPEG. Why?. It is a pain in the *** to work with RAW. I avoided if I can but must admit it is the BEST way and I repeat BEST way to adjust for exposure, white balance and sharpness. It is also really cool with the cropping tool because while you make adjustments to the RAW (negative) the original RAW always remain the same as taken. Try
to adjust the white balance to 100 pictures you just shot to cool them down
from 5300 kelvins to 5100 in photoshop.

If I am shooting RAW my sofware of choice is Phase One's Capture ONE PRO. I find it is the best product for me but be warned it is a professional tool and not easy to figure out. The range of options is outstanding.

If I need to fix noise at 1600 iso and up I use Noise Ninja.

All that said.. I am intrigued for future versions of Lightroom and Aperture. They offer what I do with three or four pieces of software with one package. I tested both and found them that they are not there yet for me.

Once the raw is ready to be processed, I batch them into the "04 Processed" folder.

I save my catalog in iview and create a DVD backup for offsite storage and a backup of my library to an external Hard Disk.

Publish my photos in smugmug.com



******

If you want to keep it simple.


1) use iphoto 08
2) use .mac backup to backup to external drive on a policy your ilife
incrementally once a week. Bring your dvd's to your office for offsite
storage
3) use "events" to group pictures by something you can search by and use
keywords.

4) if you are shooting raw. I only recommend this when you have something
really important to shoot. Use your vendor's Nikon or Canon's Raw processing free software and create jpegs to load into iphoto.

Simple.

Francis


PS> I have photoshop version 7 and frankly I only use it when I have
a project where I need to do some creative work. other than that
it is an overkill of a product.

[mdeeds71]

Here are my 2c

For the amateur iphoto is very very good. In particular verion 8 of ilife.

Workflows can be very simple of extremely complex. In any event they boil down to how quickly can you do metadata annotations, categorize your pictures and do any post processing needed, watermarking, web publishing backup and recovery and communications with clients i.e. emails, thumbnail sheets etc.

For me. the process is involved and it follows a variation of the DAM book
"http://www.thedambook.com/pages/about.html" that I adapted it for non commercial purposes but it can be used professionally without a problem.

I run on a MAC and this is my workflow:

1) Create a folder for the event I shot

vacation with Jessica Simpson

2. Create three sub-folders

01 Raw
02 Jpeg
03 Trash
04 Processed

3. Drag and Drop all my jpegs into the "02 Jpeg" folder from the cardreader

4. Drag and Drop all my RAW files into the "02 Raw" folder from the cardreader

5. For Cataloging I use iIVIEW (now microsoft owned company). http://www.iview-multimedia.com/

In this software I can very easily apply all metadata to every file such as keywords, copyright info, watermarks, country, town etc. you get the picture.

I use iviews label rating system for each photo to prioritize by hot to cool

1) red hot pics
2) Green next best
3) Blue cold ones
4) Brown sh$%tty ones.

Once I go through that very quickly I discard all browns to the 04 Trash folder. At some point I really discard them from the trash folder to the mac real trash folder.

6. If I am shooting RAW+JPEG then I work only on my RED and GREEN images to convert from RAW to JPEG. Why?. It is a pain in the *** to work with RAW. I avoided if I can but must admit it is the BEST way and I repeat BEST way to adjust for exposure, white balance and sharpness. It is also really cool with the cropping tool because while you make adjustments to the RAW (negative) the original RAW always remain the same as taken. Try
to adjust the white balance to 100 pictures you just shot to cool them down
from 5300 kelvins to 5100 in photoshop.

If I am shooting RAW my sofware of choice is Phase One's Capture ONE PRO. I find it is the best product for me but be warned it is a professional tool and not easy to figure out. The range of options is outstanding.

If I need to fix noise at 1600 iso and up I use Noise Ninja.

All that said.. I am intrigued for future versions of Lightroom and Aperture. They offer what I do with three or four pieces of software with one package. I tested both and found them that they are not there yet for me.

Once the raw is ready to be processed, I batch them into the "04 Processed" folder.

I save my catalog in iview and create a DVD backup for offsite storage and a backup of my library to an external Hard Disk.

Publish my photos in smugmug.com



******

If you want to keep it simple.


1) use iphoto 08
2) use .mac backup to backup to external drive on a policy your ilife
incrementally once a week. Bring your dvd's to your office for offsite
storage
3) use "events" to group pictures by something you can search by and use
keywords.

4) if you are shooting raw. I only recommend this when you have something
really important to shoot. Use your vendor's Nikon or Canon's Raw processing free software and create jpegs to load into iphoto.

Simple.

Francis


PS> I have photoshop version 7 and frankly I only use it when I have
a project where I need to do some creative work. other than that
it is an overkill of a product.


Thanks Francis,

I am using RAW to be able to keep all the detail possible. I am taking you advise on Iphoto 08 and using it over the Nikon free software. It offers RAW manipulation and the Iphoto adjustments are far better than the Nikon oem stuff.

I would really like to talk in over email or such to get insights on photography and best ways to start to document everywhere I fly to. I have a trip for 5 days (well 3 full days) in Athens Greece and really want some good detail on my shots. Been trying to understand once again the "manual modes" on this Nikon i.e. Program, Shutter Priority, Aperature Priority, and Manual better so that I can get some better detail.

Mark

[mdeeds71]

I am having problem resizing full size pics but was able to get at least one done.

[ChamUK]

It's image quality is great. It's got vt, and a great range. Even though it's not marketed as a pro lens, many pros do use it.

As for software, the good news, is that most of them are available as free demos, so you can give them all a try. Nikon's Capture NX is nice with the control points, but it is slow. Nikon makes great optics and cameras, but for great software, it pays to try the Adobe products. Lightroom is awesome. The quality of the images is easily as good as Capture NX, though an extra step maybe required. As some mentioned earlier, photoshop is primarily a grahic design software. It's the best, but not for just post processing.
Other software to keep in mind:
Photo Mechanic http://www.camerabits.com/
dxo opticspro 5 http://www.dxo.com/intl/photo
capture one http://www.phaseone.com/4/