Raw images from Canon powershot SD 780

[Epiphany]

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This is test post for me. First time posting photos on here. I haven't played really at all with post processing images. Any suggestions of what I could do with these to make them better?

 

[Kerbouchard]

Do a levels or curves adjustment, or if you software doesn't have that availability, increase the contrast.

 

[Epiphany]

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Thanks for the tip! Better?

 

[Kerbouchard]

Well, they are definitely not as flat as they were, but now I think would probably lower the saturation a bit and the first one could use some sharpening(Unsharp Mask, not sharpen).

 

[Epiphany]

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Am I heading in the right direction?

 

[Kerbouchard]

First still seems a bit soft. I can't tell what is supposed to be the subject and nothing really seems sharp.

I think the second is much better.

If you keep going at this rate, we will have to start talking about subject matter, framing, and composition.

 

[Epiphany]

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I am struggling with this one. I feel like I am limited with what I can do to it. Tried to sharpen it a little more.

 

[Kerbouchard]

I think you are about at the limits of what can be done with that one. For what it's worth, it also looks like you are reediting photos that you already edited. Everytime you save a photo as a jpeg, you are throwing away information. If that shot is important to you, I would recommend going back to the original file(hopefully you didn't save over it, that's why we say you should always work on a copy of the file), and start over, that way you won't have all the lost data in between saves.

Post processing isn't something that fixes everything and sometimes, there will be images that you are better off retaking than trying to fix.

For what it's worth, I think the very first version of that particular photo is better than what you have now. I would take a step back and start over with that one.

 

[Epiphany]

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Ok, this is my last post of this picture. I was going back to the previous edited image before. For this one I went back to the original image and re-edited it again. Not necessarily and important image to me. I just liked the way the sun came through the trees and I just wanted to play with some post processing.

 

[KenC]

I don't think either of them works particularly well in terms of composition, so it's probably a better use of time to read up on composition and spend more time shooting.

 

[Epiphany]

These were pictures I just had laying around from last year before I even thought about getting into photography more. Mostly just using them to play with some post processing since that is new to me as well.