starting post processing what and how to do it

[Trustmeimadoctor]

righty ho

ive never really edited photos before as ive just always shot JPG and just lived with it BUT since i bought a FF camera i thought id start giving it a go to make most of the investment but really i dont have a clue!

so as an example what would i do with this photo? original is RAW. i have cyberlink photodirector.

all help gratefully accepted

[Heres Johnny]

You're slightly knackered before you start because of the horizon, maybe crop in tighter to lose that. That alone would probably improve it.

You could then play with saturation etc to get a look you like. Maybe also apply a curve to shift/change the balance of the dynamic range

30s playing

[Whoozit]

The aim of post processing is to get the image to look like what you had in your mind. Sometimes that’s only subtle changes, sometimes it’s huge. Where you go with the image is entirely up to you. Filters in Instagram for instance, also count as post processing, So does massive photoshop work. Over time, you may see a consistent look in your processing. When combined with your approach to composition and subject, that is the basis of a style.

Maybe start by asking yourself what do you think is missing in the image. Do you want more punch in colours or contrast, change the horizon, emphasise a particular compositional element?

Given the shallow DOF on the dried seaweed, I’ve taken a guess you want that to be the main subject of the image. It’s also got a nice texture to it, and conversion to black-and-white can work well to emphasise textures. I reduced exposure outside of your focus area, increased the midtones and darks contrast a little to stop the out of focus areas becoming a grey blurry mess, and increased the local contrast globally (this tool is called clarity or structure depending on your programme). Here I used Snapseed on the ipad, but these adjustments should be easy to do with nearly any image post pricessing software.

The image quality is crap as I grabbed your Thumbsnap image. Working on your RAW file will obvs deliver higher quality, better tonality range, more flexibility in pushing the processing way out.

Be conscious as well, of post processing non destructively, ie the program is not making changes directly to your original file and you save/export edited images either to a different folder (eg “Final”) or set up automatically with a different name.

Edited by Whoozit on Friday 29th June 07:18

[Trustmeimadoctor]

many thanks it wasnt a good photo to start with i know

[DIW35]

Assuming you're OK with the slanting horizon, which I guess you must be as it would be difficult to get it to slope that much unless it was deliberate, I've left the crop alone.

All I've done is a curves adjustment in each of the RGB channels, which effectively raised the exposure slightly, increased the contrast a touch, darkened the sea and sky a tad so that they have some detail, but not enough to detract from the foreground focus point, and then finally done a touch of sharpening to make the focal point pop.



ETA: I think I may have given the colour a tweak as well using the vibrance tool.

[bony_13]

I don't really enjoy the post processing aspect of photography, but what I've found helps is to download a whole load of free presets (scour the internet, sign up to a few newsletters) and then just scroll through them for some inspiration and often a good start at the final edit.

I'm using Lightroom, but I believe you can get presets for your software.

[V8LM]

Perfectly Clear from Athentech is useful for doing quick post-processing and has a number of presets that you can quickly run down to find the one you like:

RKAmL2VS by v8lemon, on Flickr