Photo editing or not

[Garbz]

Re the distinction between "editing" and "processing," can anyone recommend a guide or reference that will help me learn the technicalities of digital processing? Please and thank you.

Honestly I suggest you try youtube. Here's some key words for you:

Dodging
Burning
Curves
Saturation

That covers the basics. But really the best thing you can do is have a play in the software find out what it's capable of. If there's something you don't understand search it on youtube and someone will likely offer you an example, or if there's a specific image you like post it here and ask us what the technique is called and you'll easily be able to find information online on how to replicate it.

 

[kungfuleg]

Thanks!

 

[fokker]

I guarentee you that editing, at some level, can markedly improve on ANY photo that is straight outta the camera. If you doubt the benefits of knowing how to edit, check out this guy's thread, his editing work is absolutely top notch and all his shots are stunning as a result.

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/general-gallery/156045-mostly-automotive-my-photos.html

 

[marmots]

you can do a lot with just a little bit of editing too

here is something i did in less than 10 min

 

[manaheim]

^ I mean no offense... I really don't... but I might not post that picture as a good example of editing.

BTW, did you notice the dust and fingerprints in same?

 

[marmots]

^ I mean no offense... I really don't... but I might not post that picture as a good example of editing.

BTW, did you notice the dust and fingerprints in same?

do you mean the editing is bad, or the overall image is bad?

i didn't take the picture, but i thought the editing was an improvement

 

[manaheim]

Both, frankly. :-(

 

[marmots]

.

 

[manaheim]

 

[skieur]

Re the distinction between "editing" and "processing," can anyone recommend a guide or reference that will help me learn the technicalities of digital processing? Please and thank you.

Most photographers don't make the distinction. Postprocessing includes editing or editing includes postprocessing in the generalizations used. There is no general guide that I know of on the "technicalities of digital processing". There are however several books on how to use Photoshop,(the program that does the editing and postprocessing) but you really need the program in order to understand the book and the program has a steep learning curve.

You would probably do better trying to find a general book on photography that includes digital processing or buying a magazine that covers the basics of postprocessing.

skieur

 

[greybeard]

All of my pictures need post processing. They usually need straightened and cropped to some extent. I would suggest that you down load Adobe Lightroom 4.0 beta. or Adobe Lightroom 3.6 trial. The beta is free and the trial version is free for 30 days. I've been using the beta for a while now and have had no problems. These programs offer the basic photo editing such as white balance, cropping, spotting, and straightening. They also organize things for you so you can find what you want when you need it.

 

[fokker]

If you had to choose between lightroom and photoshop, its lighroom for me all the way. i do about 95% of my editing in lightroom and only use photoshop for serious stuff.

 

[KmH]

I have Lightroom and CS5 and do most of my editing in CS5 by using Bridge and/or CS5 to host Camera Raw.

Camera Raw CS5 and Lightroom 3's Develope module, which is where editing is done in Lightroom, are both ACR 6 (Adobe Camera Raw 6)

Camera Raw CS6 and Lightroom 4's Develope module both use ACR 7.

 

[table1349]

Re the distinction between "editing" and "processing," can anyone recommend a guide or reference that will help me learn the technicalities of digital processing? Please and thank you.

Most photographers don't make the distinction. Postprocessing includes editing or editing includes postprocessing in the generalizations used. There is no general guide that I know of on the "technicalities of digital processing". There are however several books on how to use Photoshop,(the program that does the editing and postprocessing) but you really need the program in order to understand the book and the program has a steep learning curve.

You would probably do better trying to find a general book on photography that includes digital processing or buying a magazine that covers the basics of postprocessing.

skieur

I agree that most photographers don't. I do have one general distinction that I make between the two. When you begin to add or remove an artifact or artifacts from the photo such as wires, leaves, hair, people etc. to me you have moved from post processing to editing.

 

[greybeard]

If you had to choose between lightroom and photoshop, its lighroom for me all the way. i do about 95% of my editing in lightroom and only use photoshop for serious stuff.

This is what I do too. Unless you need to do things like darkening the sky, removing or replacing objects and the like, Lightroom will do what you need and much more easily and faster than anything else.