First Steps into PP

[hartz]

I decided that it is time to take the plunge and start learning how to post process to make my photos better. I took my son on a hike along with a group up Lions Head and got a few of my favorite shots, of which I decided a few could do with post processing.

I love being out doors, in nature. Mountains are possibly my favorite things in the world, and the harsher, harder, rockier, the better. I think it is probably because man can't make mountains.

The day was actually fairly overcast and created some drama. In especially the shot of the cable car house I wanted to "recover" some of that drama, and to also show the larger than life presence of the mountain.

I've been reading up about post processing online but would welcome some more suggestions for tutorials. In the mean time I am looking for C&C about the outcomes.

I've created a simple little gallery showing the originals Straight out of camera, and alternate processing outcomes, so I will just link the final results here for easier viewing and because many won't go to external sites. How would you have done it different? Do you like the end result? Sometimes I wonder whether I didn't actually just make the photo worse? Some moments I imagine someone might actually print some of these large!

1. Cable Car House on Table Mountain.

I processed this one several times, starting over and just seeing how it came out.

The next one I thought looked much more dramatic in B&W. Did I get it right?

2. Lions Head from below in B&W

I think I should do a bit of perspective control on this one to give it more presence, essentially by giving the top more weight.

3. Kids

Again, shot from below, some perspective control is something I'm thinking about but have not tried yet...

4. Path.

You are welcome to check out the whole gallery. Sorry that it is so slow. Also feel free to C&C the photos, eg angles, technique, etc.

Thanks for your time.

 

[hartz]

I don't know what happened to my reply so I will write it again

My editing has been mostly "destructive" as per your meaning, though some of my editing is done directly in UFRaw which is not so destructive, at least that is my understanding.

I appreciate the principle - it only makes sense: Layer based editing allows you to actually do all the steps in "parallel" and only commits the changes, throwing away data, in the flatten / export / merge state. If every step is a layer, then you could go back to a previous layer (step) to make further adjustments, or reduce the effect, etc. This would be brilliant for sharpening - pre-sharpen, hide the sharpening, remove noise, perform lightening and saturation, then turn the sharpening layer back on (unhide it)!

I have been looking up online tutorials for the various PP steps, and the only one I've found that uses layers is the "brightening" step. I will look for more, but as I said in my original post: Suggestions for tutorials will be much appreciated.

The steps which I understand makes up the bulk of Post Processing is:
Crop
White balance / color correction / B&W conversion
Lightening / gamma correction
Contrast enhancement
Rotate / straighten / perspective control / distortion fixing
Noise removal
Healing/cloning
Sharpening
Special effects, eg selective color, posterising, etc.

What order would you do these? Do you have extra steps? What order do you do them (if not via layers) Do you have good tutorials of any or all of these?

Any comments as to whether my edits made the images better or perhaps actually worse?

Thank you!

 

[rexbobcat]

Was your editing on these images destructive or non-destructive? If you don't understand the difference, that would be
a good place to start, because it forces you to learn about layers and masks. Anyone who doesn't work in layers and
use masks is still editing with the training wheels on.

That's a rather lofty generalization

 

[hartz]

Bump

Any comments as to whether my edits made the images better or perhaps actually worse?

Thank you!

 

[hartz]

Hi Peano,

Thank you, you seem to be the only one taking much interest in my post :-(

The colors look nice the way you did it, though I must say the original colors are quite true to what it looked like - those bushes are somewhat dull green and the sky was very blue - I remember noticing it as I always look at colors closely ... (However ... I am working on an uncalibrated display ... Display color calibration being the nightmare that it is on Linux - for those who are interested I have some very good bookmarks on the topic, despite which I have still not got a working solution)!

In terms of a picture to display somewhere your retouch is great. Possibly.

On thing though for those of us who were there is that the crop loses the environment in which we were, which is definitely part of the memory. I did take some pictures zoomed in closer from the same spot, but not having the foreground feels like "just a shot of the kids acting funny".

Some of us on here do not aspire to become professional photographers. Some just want to take good (better) photos for the home album. And for this class of photographer "crop closer" often do not apply. Imagine after your vacation to Cape Town and you have an album of photos showing your and your beloved's faces without The Mountain seen anywhere because you religiously followed the "crop closer" motto that is so pervasive on this forum!!!

The photo above is a classic case of this problem. It is meant as an album photo, showing that we were on a hike. Yes, a close crop of it makes for a strange-ish photo of the children, but where does it belong?

Thanx!