dione961

Hi, new to PP (nearly as new to photography). Thanks to Linda for bringing up the PP section - I would have tried it sooner had I any clue at all (it feels like going to a meeting of race car drivers & not even being able to drive a car at all), but Linda's encouragement has brought me here.

It's evident I need to learn PP. I know I want natural-looking images - I like to try to show what I saw & tried to capture in the camera. I don't want to create super-saturated colours, grim skies, halos around things, etc. I have a 15.6" laptop right now (1920x1080) & PSE 2019.

My process is: download RAW's & JPEGS to Nikon ViewNXi; save each file type into separate directories named for the location of the shoot; view each JPEG & delete all the fails; then as needed, straighten, crop, lighten shadows & dial down highlights & that's about it (none of this in PSE - I haven't figured it out yet). I don't delete RAW files in case I can save some. So far I have only played with 1 RAW file.

I'd get into PP more if I knew how to approach it properly, so that's my question: how should a novice (given my preferences for what I see as a natural look) approach the pp task? How do people get started, what's a good process to follow? Thanks as usual to everyone.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

Basic editing can be condensed into four main areas:-

1) Brightness levels and contrast.

2) Colour and saturation.

3) Sharpening and denoise.

4) Cropping and straightening.


1 to 3 are the sort of editing that jpegs get in-camera.

As a very general rule the adjustments should be done in the order given. Some might say that cropping and straightening should be done first, but sometimes the ideal crop doesn't become apparent until the edit is under way, so it's best to leave your timing options open. However, colour strength changes as brightness and contrast levels change, so it's a good idea to get brightness/contrast sorted first. Sharpening/denoise can interfere with your ability to make selections, so there's something to be said for leaving sharpening/denoise till late on in the edit (they should always be done together).

Beyond that you have things like cloning, changing backgrounds etc (which I would describe as a step beyond basic).

WB and Tint can be used to make global colour adjustments whereas the HSL tool can be used to adjust individual colours. Saturation can be adjusted globally, or each colour can be adjusted separately in the HSL section.

Many adjustments can be applied locally to specific problem areas. For example, extra sharpening and/or denoise can be applied where they're needed. Another common example is areas which require extra brightening of the shadows or darkening of the highlights.

With #4, cropping and straightening are the only two geometric adjustments that are likely to be a recurring requirement, but there are other less basic possibilities such as perspective/lens distortion corrections, stretching and tilting.

As a starting point I would recommend concentrating on 1-4. Since you've expressed a desire to know about PP I would recommend working with the raw files. The down side is that they need to be edited from scratch whereas jpegs can often be OK straight out of camera (SOOC) because of the in-camera processing that they get. However, when you edit jpegs you spend a lot of time dealing with their more restrictive limitations and annoying jpeg artefacts. Hope this helps.

abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

Welcome to the glorious world of post-processing. I am delighted to read a post about post-processing and from someone who wants a good, direct picture. Knowing where you want to go is extremely important. You need to develop your own photographic sensibility so look at many, many pictures, even ones that are a century old. You will learn a lot.

You can simplify your workflow. Forget about the Nikon software and jpg's. Take your raw's directly into PSE. I disagree slightly with RG and I will get into that in my specific response to his post. Here is my workflow with LR. I file my raw's by date: Year>00 month year>shoot number for the month and subject. Once imported, I assign keywords immediately. These include location and subject such as person, object and event. No one likes doing this but it sure helps when you are looking for that needle in the haystack. Apply the right camera and lens profiles.

Unlike RG, I first straighten and take a preliminary crop. Then, I am back on track with RG.

PS Color balance should be inserted here. I use the XRite ColorChecker or ExpoDisc and then apply to all similar lighting situations.

1. Exposure, clarity, tonal range, contrast, dehaze and similar controls. Raw's are usually flat compared to SOOC jpg's so I first add clarity +30 and medium contrast tonal range. A bit of dehaze may also help. These are merely starting points. You must figure out what works best with your equipment and personal style. I also use my own presets but do not know if PSE has them.

2. This step involves local adjustments. My most often used tool is the radial filter then the linear gradient, adjustment brush and spot removal tool. These are the real power of LR and, I presume, PSE. Once you are comfortable with the global adjustments, learn these.

3. Straighten non-parallel lines.

4. Remove noise and sharpen. I do not do a lot here but just in case. My go-to sharpening tool is the shake reduction filter in PS. I do not know if PSE has it. I also like the high-pass filter.

5. Review the edits and redo as appropriate. Recrop, if necessary, to the final aspect ratio if printing. Do not otherwise resize.

6. I often apply a slight negative vignette, usually between -10 and -20, to make the subject stand out more.

7. If I am exporting, I usually increase the exposure by 2/3 of a stop since my jpg's are consistently a little dark. I export either to a folder called email which I use to send to friends or to the print folder.

I also assign stars to track my progress. 1, reject, and move to the reject folder under the shoot folder. 2, unused. 3, to be reviewed again later for processing or rejecting. 4, done. 5, either outstanding or for printing. You can set LR to advance automatically after setting a star.

Between RG and me, you should be off to the races. Be patient and post your pictures here for advice. Good luck and enjoy.

Fstop12 Loc: Kentucky

How do you learn? Are you a visual learner or book learner. Personally, I do better watching video tutorials on the subject I am wanting to learn. I just never grasped the info reading from a book. From basic to in depth, there are many free How to Photoshop Tutorials on the web. Jesus Ramirez from the Photoshop Learning Channel is an excellent teacher.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdQ_ZkYaMe6qPoueUyPQgpQ

Regardless of your learning technique, it is important to remember that Photoshop can't be mastered in a day. Be patient, take it slow and concentrate on the very basic things first. As you learn the building blocks you will better understand how and when to apply the editing tools. As always, this board if filled with some amazing talent with spot on information. There are people here that can help you as you learn.

abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

If you read my very long post, you will see I am in substantial agreement with RG who is one of the very best contributors here. He does mention two important things. The HSL panel is great for modifying colors. I refer to it as the poor man's polarizer because it does such a great job on skies. The other point is that once you get used to editing raw's you will hate doing jpg's. They have such less latitude because they have fewer data that the raw's. That is why I do not shoot them unless I am traveling and want to share immediately.

I tend to leave the saturation alone. I usually get what I want through clarity, dehaze, tonal range and contrast. You can go overboard very quickly with saturation. Vibrance tends to be gently and more natural. Some people may use saturation to adjust color balance but I do not.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

In my post I used the term "saturation" in its generic sense, as opposed to referring specifically to the Saturation adjustment slider. When I want to adjust saturation I lead with Vibrance, add tweaks to individual colours using the HSL tool then use the Saturation slider to give some final overall tweaks if needed.

Another area where my workflow differs slightly from yours is in the use of the Clarity tool. I do my main adjustments with Whites, Highlights, Shadows, Darks, Brightness and Contrast. As you say, adding contrast strengthens colours, but I find that when I push adjustments, the extreme effects of the Contrast adjustments are easier to mitigate whereas Clarity needs to be used with more caution since its extreme effects are more difficult to mitigate. I use Clarity for final tweaking to add more pop, clarity and dehaze when needed.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Welcome, Dione! First, don't think of the task as being about 2,000 images Although it would be fantastic if each of those were equally fabulous, I suspect you have a few that stand out for you as favorites. Work on the ones that you are happiest with for composition and subject (and initial exposure - no "oops" moments) first. Once you're comfortable in a workflow, the rest will come much easier.

R.G. and abc1234 have offered excellent and detailed information for the why of many of the actions. As Fstop12 suggests, raw editing and editors can't be learned in a single day. Come back here often for specific or general assistance. Those folks and others will be happy to assist!

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I'm going to break down to simple steps for initial actions in Elements assuming you have done no editing in the Nikon software. You will need to determine whether Nikon's raw editor suits you better.

A raw file will go directly to the raw editor (ACR) when you open in PSE. The raw editor of PS Elements has fewer options than photoshop. Below is a fuzzy screenprint from the internet.

The easiest way to see what a slider does is to push it far to the left or the right, then return it to where looks best.

Go down the list in order. For the most part, when going for natural, if you selected auto white balance in your camera, you will probably not need to make changes to WB, temperature or tint.

You can access the de-noise and sharpening screen by clicking on the middle icon below the RGB section. I recommend leaving that in default for now (there are additional tools in the PSE main editor). When you are satisfied with your initial look from using the tools in ACR, you can click "done" - which saves those settings so next time you open the raw file they'll already be there, or click "open" to bring the image into the main editor to continue editing or save as jpg. Don't bother with "save image" on that screen as that will convert to another file type (dng, I think).

(Download)

abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

Clarity like all these adjustments must be used sparingly or you get those nasty extremes as you say. I lead with clarity because it brings life to the raw without going overboard and leaving room to fine tune with the other tools. Clarity and contrast also create the illusion of making the pictures look sharper.

I used to adjust those four areas of the histogram individually but do not find enough of a difference from exposure to matter. However, the whites and highlights do help to tone down blown out highlights. The shadow slider also does a very good job of bringing out the detail in the darker areas. Once I have the exposure right, the clarity and other tools give me the subtle adjustments I want.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Expanding on this snip of abc's:

One of the benefits of being a forum member as opposed to just viewing online articles and videos or reading books, is we have the opportunity develop friendships and find mentors whose strengths are in the realm of what we want to pursue.

I hope every novice who visits PP Forum will feel comfortable reaching out, either by pm, or by asking about an OP's technique within a photo topic, or by posting new topics. If you would like a public tutorial on a specific area, you can let me know via pm. I will attempt to broker the right person for the job

Fstop12 Loc: Kentucky

Couldn't agree more. There are some very talented folks on this board. Old saying, " The mark of a good education is not necessarily knowing the answer but rather knowing where to find the answer".

R.G. Loc: Scotland

ACR is a good place to start, even with jpegs.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

In PSE, there are no WB pre-sets if you start with a jpg, other than "custom" - which reflects whatever you do with the temperature and tint sliders, and "auto" and "as shot." The other tools (see earlier screenprint) are available for jpg's.

For raw, PSE's white balance pre-sets (which can be tweaked) are: daylight, cloudy, shade, tungsten, fluorescent and flash. A topic that explored changing WB for artistic effect is here.

dione961

Many thanks to all - a remarkable group of generous folk for sure. The straight-forward, concise guidance you have all provided - well you just can't buy that. I will copy everything into a set of notes to get started with.

I think I will take the same approach as I did when I joined UHH just a few months ago. Back then I had never used anything other than Auto & I simply decided to jump into Manual only, 'til I could achieve good exposures most of the time (I figured that if I could do that, I'd know enough to know when & why to use aperture or shutter priority). PP seems similar - until now I've ignored the raw's due to ignorance; now, I think I can ignore the JPEG's while I learn pp. That will meaning getting a handle on re-sizing as well, as the raw's are too big to post.

To answer one question, I learn best one-on-one & I have limited 'net access, so UHH is perfect to get started. On April 15 the sailboat is re-floated & we head back to sea around May 1st; then I will have to be guided mostly by books, as we won't have reliable internet access again until October (I will have time for pp practise though!).

Thanks again to all for such great starting guidance - you're all wonderful!! D.

dione961

Hi RG, great post - thanks!! Could you elaborate on the difference between Sharpening & Clarity; what is "HSL" (is that a Lightroom thing?) & what is a "JPEG artefact" - very new to it all!! Thanks, D.

Fstop12 Loc: Kentucky

Sailboat! I want to hear more about your life.