CHG_CANON wrote:
Did you capture RAW and JPEG versions of these images? An editor that just applies the camera settings to the RAW, creating essentially the same as the camera's JPEG, would be a good start, if you don't have the JPEG version directly.
The attached version is essentially that conversion. I chose to change the Creative (Picture) style to Landscape and leveled the image with a bit of cropping. The tone curve is adjusted just slightly, to make the brights brighter and the darks darker. I'm not an expert with Sony Edit and the Sony tools are a challenge to use, for even basic edits beyond this 'auto convert' of the camera settings. I added some sharpening too, but I'd much prefer a tool like Lightroom for all these changes, rather than fumbling around in the Sony software.
I haven't used GIMP, but I've used PSE enough to prefer Lightroom, where GIMP is similar to PS / PSE, and a steep learning-curve to get beyond just <auto> functions. If the Sony software has a similar <auto> capability, I couldn't find it.
So, if your only version(s) of this night scene are RAW files, you're going to have some challenges beyond just performing an 'auto convert' of the camera settings into another format file. And, just "auto-convert" is better served by just shooting in JPEG and skipping RAW altogether.
You might seek to get more artistic in the processing, maybe lightening the shadows within the arches, but keeping the black of the night background? That's work for PS / GIMP, something you could do by masking the sky away and then processing the shadows in the arches. The 'rich' data of the RAW file will help with the detailed (technical) edit, but that work could be quite time consuming, both learning the process and successfully implementing the change. Certainly, you can keep the RAW file forever, and return to the processing over and over until you have the skills, and the software, to realize something more complex than an auto-convert and minor leveling, like this version.
Did you capture RAW and JPEG versions of these ima... (
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Thank you for the insights.
I have learned that I can't open the Sony "RAW" files in GIMP without adding a file translator and I agree that GIMP doesn't seem very friendly.
I've made some adjustments to the image in the Sony editing package, but I don't see any way to make spot corrections with the Sony editor.