beyond exposure.....

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Okay, I've had my camera for a bit now, and I feel like I have a pretty good idea of how to get good exposure, not perfect..or not that I even get it good sometimes....but, I understand the balance between ISO, shutter, and f/stop. I've been poking around google and notreally getting the results I'm looking for, but I know I can still take better pictures.

So in my Nikon menu, I have an Optimize Image setting. I have fooled around with some of the presets, vivid, more vivd, B&W and such, but I would like to get into the custom, I just don't understand what the settings do.....so I'm enlisting your help. I you don't mind what some of these terms mean to the young photographer.....(young by time in photography)......these are all under my custom settings for Optimize image

image sharpening

tone compensation

color mode

saturation

hue adjustment


If you could even go so far as to give me an example ( if possible ) that would be quite awsome...

I know I could just change all the settings and see what happens, but I would like a bit of background understanding.
 
Okay, I've had my camera for a bit now, and I feel like I have a pretty good idea of how to get good exposure, not perfect..or not that I even get it good sometimes....but, I understand the balance between ISO, shutter, and f/stop. I've been poking around google and notreally getting the results I'm looking for, but I know I can still take better pictures.

So in my Nikon menu, I have an Optimize Image setting. I have fooled around with some of the presets, vivid, more vivd, B&W and such, but I would like to get into the custom, I just don't understand what the settings do.....so I'm enlisting your help. I you don't mind what some of these terms mean to the young photographer.....(young by time in photography)......these are all under my custom settings for Optimize image

image sharpening

tone compensation

color mode

saturation

hue adjustment


If you could even go so far as to give me an example ( if possible ) that would be quite awsome...

I know I could just change all the settings and see what happens, but I would like a bit of background understanding.

I think your better off leaving all that stuff alone and making those adjustments in ps.
 
I think your better off leaving all that stuff alone and making those adjustments in ps.

You took the words out of my mouth. Shoot in RAW. That is a format where there is no in-camera processing. RAW will give you maximum flexibility and manipulation ... it also is one additional step.

Most photogs would rather have the image processing handled by a "real" computer than the tiny chip(s) in the camera.

Gary
 
I would recommend start shooting in RAW (.NEF), and you can make all these adjustements yourself on a per-image basis (those image optimizartion settings don't apply to RAW photos). You start with a basic image and you can apply all those settings yourself in post, that way you can see what all those adjustements do. Often times, you'll shoot in a multitude of lighting conditions for each batch of photos you take, so one hue setting or tone setting might not fit the bill for all your images. Over time, you'll start to understand what each of those do simply from doing the adjustements while your editing your pictures (you get to see what a hue or saturation adjustment does to an image in real-time, it's a much faster learning curve). At that point, you can do them in camera to save time, but the only time that should become all that important is if your shooting professionally and you are processing thousands of images per week (and for some people, per day).

I just highly suggest you make the change from jpeg to RAW. I learned a whole lot about your mentioned settings after a few memory cards full.
 
Well, yes they can get quite large... my border on 14 megs. But the ability to tweak the files are well worth it... not to mention that memory isn't all that expensive.
 
are RAW images really huge files? I tought I heard they were like 10 MB or something...

They are roughly 2 times the size of jpegs, give or take. When you start to realize the value of RAW photos, you never shoot jpeg again. I'd highly recommend just getting another memory card, they are getting dirt cheap. I need to get an external HD, the one on my laptop has like 2 gigs left and my ipod is seconding as a HD, lol.
 
"Once you go Raw, there's never a flaw"... lol

If you do any post processing with your pics, and your camera can shoot RAW, I don't see any viable reasons NOT to shoot RAW all the time. The ONLY advantage to JPG is a savings in time... but ONLY if you do zero post processing and need to absolutely send a printable file to your work immediately (IE: a photojournalist needs to send a small printable file to his newspaper for publishing, and they want it yesterday).

The advantages are explained on the forums here countless times. As far as size, it doesn't matter to me... yes RAW are anywhere from 50 to 100 percent larger, but thats not a concern. Getting the best image quality out of my camera that it can, though... is.
 
Okay, I've had my camera for a bit now, and I feel like I have a pretty good idea of how to get good exposure, not perfect..or not that I even get it good sometimes....but, I understand the balance between ISO, shutter, and f/stop. I've been poking around google and notreally getting the results I'm looking for, but I know I can still take better pictures.

So in my Nikon menu, I have an Optimize Image setting. I have fooled around with some of the presets, vivid, more vivd, B&W and such, but I would like to get into the custom, I just don't understand what the settings do.....so I'm enlisting your help. I you don't mind what some of these terms mean to the young photographer.....(young by time in photography)......these are all under my custom settings for Optimize image

image sharpening - Sharpens image, harder edge

tone compensation - sort of like white balance, it makes sure the tones are not to dark or to light

color mode - what color mode, ie sRGB, RGB, etc, your photo will be formatted into

saturation - how intense the colors are

hue adjustment - think of hue as colored filters over your photo, these filters help define the overall hue of the photo. If your photo has to much of say a blue cast to it you can take away some of the blue using the hue adjustment


If you could even go so far as to give me an example ( if possible ) that would be quite awsome...

I know I could just change all the settings and see what happens, but I would like a bit of background understanding.

I explained the settings above, hope that helps, but I also recommend shooting in raw.
 

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