dr_ming

For Photoshop 'tuition' get:

Photoshop 7 for Photographers by Martin Evening

This is an excellent book, and focusses only on the Photoshop tools applicable to digital image manipulation (not web graphics etc.). It costs about £20 from 7DayShop etc. Note the book has been updated for each new release of Photoshop, so theres a v5, v5.5 and v6 version as well.

Note also that you are totally wasting your time with photoshop if you are working on an uncalibrated monitor / printer combination. One of the best (cheap) ways to accurately set up your system is with DISC1 from www.ktphotonics.co.uk.

Ming.

[Edited by dr_ming - 11/7/2003 12:07:36 PM]

Sbradley

I'd be up for any information exchange as well.

I use a Fuji Finepix S2 Pro, and although I get some reasonable results I still reckon I can improve.

Some of my stuff:













Edited because I can't type URLs properly

Or spell my initials...

SB


[Edited by Sbradley - 11/7/2003 12:42:49 PM]

IWatkins

Yep, you used to buy a plugin for Photoshop to do the RAW conversion.

Photoshop 8 (or CS as it is known) has this built in. The RAW preview is also built into the image browser. I.e. dump your RAW onto the hard disk, fire up Photoshop and browse your images. Open each image in turn (or batch) and apply your conversions to the RAW, white balance etc. and they then appear as 16-bit images within Photoshop. Do your usual stuff, like levels, unsharp mask etc., all within 16-bit before you prepare for output. By 16-bit, they mean 16-bit per channel rather than overall.

I can't say how much I like this new workflow. It is perfect as far as I am concerned.

List of camera that the RAW import on Photoshop CS, is listed here.

Cheers

Ian

[Edited by IWatkins - 11/8/2003 2:50:20 PM]

Luke

Well its all new to me.....

There is so many different programmes for this that and the other.... So many ways to edit .store etc

Would like to find out some basics..

maybe this could be a thread/forum for digital photography?? !!

Luke

tt

TopBanana

Which camera have you got? Mine (a 300d) works in almost exactly the same way as a film SLR.

Luke

Canon DCS 520


I want to find out more about basic set up and editing.. File types.Jpeg ,RAW etc. File store programmes. basic photoshop etc etc etc

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

Luke,

You're not too far from me. Fancy meeting up for a photo shoot somewhere? I'd be happy to discuss file formats, Photoshop, recommended software, digital settings etc over a pint.

Andy.

Luke

Andy

Nice offer Cheers

Will have to be beging of next year ..I off to Nigeria for a bit..

Hobo_Jojo

a lot of the same techniqes that apply to normal photography apply to digital, do some google searches

apples24

iTrader: (1)

what bout a canon ixus 2? i have nightmares sometimes having to switch of flashes etc, half the settings dont seem to do much to me?

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

Apples24: what settings in particular? It's much easier to answer specific questions than to write page after page of waffle that may or may not help

The usual settings that 'don't make much difference' are ISO and white balance - am I right?

A.

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

Simon: they're awesome - you could teach most of us a thing or two about motorsports photography

Did you have press access to the circuit to get those? The biggest problem I have at racing circuits is visibility - there's always a chicken wire fence in the way, and it's not always possible to get it far enough out of focus to make it disappear.

A.

Sbradley

I was in the inside at Clearways. I, um, have a press pass...

But I've still got lots to learn about the theory. I can get the action OK most of the time but I need to understand (in particular) depth of field and the relationship to actual aperture (rather than just knowing that the smaller the aperture the greater the depth) and exactly what the implications of stopping up or down are.

Oh, and getting my head around some of the sharpening things in Photoshop, and understanding the difference between RAW, TIFF and different resolution JPG formats would be handy.

But thanks for the kind words anyway

SB

dr_ming

SB,

For a DOF calculator, download the excellent f/calc from tangentsoft.net. Note that if you are using a 35mm DSLR, the 35mm focal length still holds true, even though you get an effective magnification because of the under size sensor (the distance between the focal point of the lens and the 'film' plane is still 35mm, regardless).

I guess you should choose a circle of confusion size equal to 1 pixel (not sure about this). FYI, the definition of the circle of confusion is (from the tangentsoft website):

Imagine a perfect white point in an empty black room. The point has no height, and no width. If you focus an optically perfect lens on that point, it forms a perfect point on the film as well. If, however, you focus slightly in front of or behind the point, the point will image on the film as a small blurry circle. If that circle is small enough, it will still look like a point when enlarged for printing. The "circle of confusion" is typically calculated as the largest on-film circle that you see as a point when you make an 8 × 12 print and view it from a "normal" viewing distance, typically 2-3 feet. Anything larger is seen as a small circle, and is therefore perceived as out of focus.

Oh, and very nice pictures by the way .


[Edited by dr_ming - 11/7/2003 2:43:08 PM]

Goochie

Thing that gets me is... how do you take a photo like those above with a digital camera?? In my experience, there is a half second delay between pushing the button and the picture being taken - I have some great pictures of peoples heads/trees etc. at Goodwood

dr_ming

This is mainly a problem with digital compacts, not DSLRs. I've used my father-in-law's EOS 10D a lot and there is no more delay than with my film based EOS cameras, and it'll shoot a 9 frame sequence at 2.5fps (poor compared to film I know, but pretty good for a prosumer digital).

Ming.

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

(As dr_ming says): There's no magic there, it's just down to the price of the camera! More expensive cameras have faster processors and less shutter lag, it's that simple.

With any camera, you need to know what that lag is and learn to compensate for it by pressing the shutter early. With most small cameras that lag is quite long, so it's a real problem. Digital SLRs, like the Fuji S2 Pro, tend to be much faster. (The Canon 1D shoots at up to 8 frames/sec and has an imperceptibly small delay).

Sbradley

Hi Goochie,

You're right - there is a delay with most digital point 'n shoot type cameras, but as the good Doctor says, with a digital SLR that just doesn't happen.

The S2 Pro allows me to shoot 9 shots at full resolution (12M pixels), RAW, in a 2.5 fps burst. the Canon D1X is, I believe, good for 8fps for 27 frames...

Still slow compared to a top drawer film camera, but of course you can tell if you got the shot straight away. Not so good if it's newsreel stuff but for most purposes that makes up for any slowness

S(imon)B

IWatkins

Actually, the 10D does 3 fps, but hey, what's 0.5 of a fps between friends ? Thinking about it, the 300D does 2.5 fps, is that what you were thinking of Dr. Ming

Luke, see if the new Photoshop CS supports that camera. If so, get a copy and away you go. It is now the only software I use to process my shots as I shoot exclusively in RAW with the 10D (I used to use three different tools).

Only other thing to remember is shoot often, bracket often, experiment with settings often...... because it is free !!!

Cheers

Ian

alistair

For me the biggest difference with a digital is that taking the picture is half the job - Photoshop is as important as the initial picture !

I decided that Photoshop was worth the effort - there's a lot to learn, but it's worth taking the time !

First thing I bought after a digital body was a laptop, then a PCMCIA Compact Flash reader. I then spent a lot of time with Photoshop.

The amazing thing is the number of pictures I've taken. I had an EOS 5 for a number of years and maybe took a roll of film a month. In under 8 months I've taken over 10,000 shots with my D60 !!! and I've lerned way more because I experiment and can see the resuts instantly.

Al

TopBanana

Amazing shots!

dr_ming

Ian, no, I was thinking of the 10D, but since the one I use doesn't belong to me, I'm not 100% familiar with the exact spec. IIRC, the 300D can only do 4 frames in sucession, vs. the 9 for the 10D.

WRT the RAW mode conversion (I also only shoot in RAW mode - unsharp mask makes a real mess of JPEG artifacts), I read in AP that someone (not Canon) had produced a RAW mode converter plug-in for Photoshop that was compatible with Nikon and Canon camers. Seem to recall it was expensive thhough (~£70).

[Edited by dr_ming - 11/8/2003 10:06:51 AM]

Sbradley

Ah now this bit I can help with.

Adobe do a plugin for Photoshop 6 & 7 which handles RAW images from Canon, Nikon, Fuji and Olympus, but as you say it's a bit dear.

The better news is that Photoshop 8 will do all of this natively as well as handling 64 bit (?) images and a few other things.

Expect to see several digital photographers missing an arm and leg shortly... and Adobe to be keeping a very careful eye on iMesh and the like.

SB