Digital Photo Processing

From this to This

thekiwi — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:48:17 GMT

here are 2 images of the same shot. one normal and the 2nd one with the Orton Effect added

For those of you who use Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Elements and know how to use Actions I have uploaded the action that produces this effect to my website http://thekiwi.org/OrtonSoftFocusEffects.zip the site will give you the option to Run or Save click save unzip and add to your photoshop/ Elements actions

Still shots from video frames - what is best method?

Curlybird — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:15:02 GMT

If I want to make some still copies on my computer from images on a video file, what is the best method to get the best quality image? I have Windows Movie Maker on my computer, which enables me to do this but the pictures are very rough-looking. It could be that my video shots aren't very good quality, I suppose but does anyone know of any better method that doesn't cost a lot of $$?

here is something that may interest a few of you

thekiwi — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 07:00:55 GMT

Photographers of all skill levels should be sure to check out this great tutorial on making "Wiggle 3-D" animations that will dazzle your friends and family with your digital wizardry.

http://www.adorama.com/alc/article/11780?utm_source=ET&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=EmailALC082409&j=9381759&e=pdl@thekiwi.org&l=928833_HTML&u=93616054&mid=80238&jb=0

by the way you can use any digital camera

edit

Matt — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 19:02:35 GMT

edit

Removing Chromatic Distortion

lyceel — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 02:16:05 GMT

I typically only go to the RAW image if I really need the extra color depth that's there. This happens sometimes when I've got a challenging lighting situation in the photo, like in this post. Even when I've got the exposure about as good as I can get it, when I process the image, I inevitably end up with a strong chromatic aberration as seen in this photo (I doubled the size of this image to highlight the problem, it's usually not this bad):

To take care of this, I've found that the color replacement brush in Photoshop Elements is a great tool. Set the brush size to just over the width of the distortion band. Then, Alt+Click on the plumage color just inside the distortion, to select the replacement color. Then, start painting the blue (or red) away. Alt+Click on the nearest good color several times as you go down to ensure the colors are consistent. Once you try it a couple of times, you'll get the hang of it. Here's the result:

Any questions?

Feedback and suggestions please

lonestranger — Fri, 08 May 2009 01:34:11 GMT

I took this picture of a Red Tail Hawk about a month ago. Although it's not a great picture, I really like the way I captured it just before landing. I have been pllaying around with it in photoshop trying to give it more punch, but my expectations exceed my experience. Although I think I have made major improvements on the original, I still think it has the potential of being even better. I'll post the original and my favorite edit here, but both(and others) can be viewed and magnified from the Picasa link below. If I could get some feedback and/or suggestions on how others would edit this pic, it would be greatly appreciated.

http://picasaweb.google.ca/lonestranger102/CS3Tests#

Old yeller-Yellow Warbler.

cairnstone — Tue, 19 May 2009 00:32:57 GMT

This was taken using the built-in flash.

Cropped to about 60% the original, but no other editing.

Sony DSLR-A200 camera. Sigma 400mm prime lens.

Aperture priority mode. f8. Shutter speed 1/160 (auto). ISO 200. Manual focus. Flash force fired. Lens hood extended.

Shooting into the sun about 7:30 pm tonight with clear skies.

I think I would have probably have gotten an even better pic closing the aperture and firing the flash, but the little yahoo would not sit still..

Cropping photos in Adobe Photoshop CS3

luv2bird — Tue, 19 May 2009 21:06:10 GMT

When I open a photo and want to crop I click on the crop tool. When I start the mouse click with crop tool it automatically starts to crop the photo vertically from the left top corner of the image but not where I want it to start. I can never seem to place the cursor where I want to start to crop the photo or start it horizontally. How do I do both?

During the start up screen the blue rectangle credits start, then the screen scrolls through copyrights that are displayed for what seems like five minutes, is there a way I can stop the program from doing this every time I start PS?

How do I reset preferences to the defaults and set the camera options to RAW? Thanks.

Photographic - Digital Photography Guide 2009

thekiwi — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:39:07 GMT

I found this PDF book today and am making it available to any of you who are interested it is an extremely good guide giving lots of tips on exposure ISO etc when using your digital camera in any situation

This file is 12mb in size you can get it from my site at this address

http://thekiwi.org/PhotographicDigitalPhotographyGuide2009.pdf

What can I do to bring out eyes?

luv2bird — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:53:07 GMT

Song Sparrow

cairnstone — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 14:17:39 GMT

Taken April 18, 2009.

I was really disappointed when I got home and took this pic off the camera. The sky was very difficult to shoot into and then those darn twigs!

However, all is not lost (next post).

Uncropped.

Don't you just hate those power WIRES !!!

thekiwi — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 22:12:28 GMT

Took this today grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.Nikon D60 f8 1/3200 iso 800.

Ethereal Eastern Phoebe.

cairnstone — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 15:19:39 GMT

How do you like the lighting effects?

Taken April 13, 2009.

Now you see 'em, now you don't.

cairnstone — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 16:38:49 GMT

Hopefully I will encourage others to post to this thread. I have seen many pictures in the Photo Sharing forum that really belong in this forum.

Original picture. No editing or crop whatsoever.

Howtos in photoshop

thekiwi — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 08:21:49 GMT

I put up a howto on noise reduction I could see that I would have to do a tutorial once a week so I have started a web on how to do it it will cover noise reduction,contast,lighten an image,sharpening,resizing and the correct colorspace for the web

it can be found here http://thekiwi.org/cs4_tutorials/default.html

All you photoshopping addicts

birdseye — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 06:32:50 GMT

I read an article about shooting white birds... i wanted to to retain the shadow areas of the egret...not blow out the whites...here you can see the problem picture, one of 175 taken with this same stupid setting....same result.. great feather detail.. nothing more.. wanna take a stab at fixing it, and telling me what process you used..? thanks for the help...i can post full size in gallery if that would help you do it.. let me know

Downy pic edited

cairnstone — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:15:30 GMT

This is a pic I posted in the Photo Sharing forum.

I adjusted the exposure on the (pruned) wood grain because the flash really reflected off it.

I also cloned out the twig that was just behind her.

JPG from raw image without editing.

thekiwi — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 07:54:17 GMT

Ok for those of you who want to extract a jpg image from your raw file without doing any edits to your file and then save as a jpg down load this small file and install it

for Mac Users OS X

and for windows users please note does not support 64bit

http://downloads.thekiwi.org/

once this is installed you only need to right click obn a raw image and select extract jpg and that is all (that is how on windows) mac I am not sure but you will find instructions in the zip file.

I am sorry if anyone went here to download and had problems I used a script instead of spending time to make my own it had problems and didn't work.

and of course I put it up and didn't test it I have used another script this time I tested it it works fine.

Minor edit

cairnstone — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 14:23:34 GMT

I think I will go and get a good print made of this picture. I did a very minor edit here. Reduced the noise just a tad. Sharpened just a tad. Adjusted the exposure +0.07 and lightened the shadows 7%.

If you have any suggestions before I decide on a final edit I am more than willing to give it a crack before I decide on a final edit to be printed.

The ISO was 400 because the lighting was not great. In fact, it was a miserable cold and blustery day. But, I don't really mind a little noise/grain.

I have added to my photoshop Tutorial

thekiwi — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 20:43:47 GMT

I have added more pages to my tutorial site for you (sharpening)

It can be found here http://thekiwi.org/cs4_tutorials/default.html

Photoshop Reducing noise

thekiwi — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 23:52:33 GMT

Noise Reduction.

Open your image in photoshop create a layer copy use the keys Ctrl + J zoom into 100% (quick way is to double click the magnifying glass)
When doing things like noise reduction sharpen always zoom to 100% first. AND ALWAYS DO THE NOISE REDUCTION if it is needed FIRST!!
Bring up the noise reduction filter which is under Filter | Noise | Reduce Noise.
That will open the reduce noise filter -- Best practice is to reset the sliders all back to zero. Then gradually bring up the sliders until
you get the desired results. Because noise reduction is a smoothing filter you will need to adjust your preserve details slider and sharpen
Don't over do these sliders the top slider is the luminance noise and the 3rd slider is the color noise slider adjust both till the noise disappears.

The Before the filter was applied

Atfer the filter has been applied

Alternate method to ACR to process raw images

thekiwi — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 01:22:30 GMT

I found an alternative to adobe camera raw called Capture one which is put out by Phaseone.com, They have a trail version that can be downloaded. here is the results of my first effort using it never seen it before so I was the blind leading the blind when it came to trying it.

Effort one (this is best viewed in its full size Thumbnail here will look oversharpened)

sweet spot (DSLR LENS)

thekiwi — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 01:54:25 GMT

The so called sweet spot for DSLR lens real or imagined here is my take on this the sweet spot as far as I can work out with my lens at least seems to be 2 stops up from my widest aperture opening here is an example I have used a cheapie kit lens here it is a 18-55mm EF S mount.Some of you may be horrified but as some of you will know the EF S canon mount does not fit on a Canon 10D body it came after the 10D so I took my Dremmel and cut the back off the lens (If any of want to know how I would be willing to show you but at your own risk) the widest aperture for this lens is f3.5 so accordingly the sweet spot would be at f8 that is the 2 stops (f5.6 - f8).

Here is an image that I took tonight using this lens @ f8 and I used flash set the flash setting to -2 (built in flash) please excuse photo is not a bird shot but of my 13 year old house cat. this image is exactly how it came off the camera no sharpening no alterations except for a slight crop and change from raw format to jpg

Maybe I am wrong about a sweet spot but I tend to think it is real try it for your self and see.

Raw versus JPEG?

playsonfreeway — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 06:06:03 GMT

I have a Canon rebel XTi which can save in RAW or JPEG. Which is the better format? I notice that the RAW are darker than the JPEG? I have an older version of photoshop (CS2), which I can do very basic stuff. I want the best quality pictures I can get. If I shoot in RAW and convert to JPEG in photoshop would It just be easier to shoot in JPEG?

Photographic processing

thekiwi — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 23:24:32 GMT

There are those who swear by it and those who don't for me I believe it is a part of the process from camera to computer to editor to print or web.

I use Photoshop as a post editor there are many out there that will do editing however Photoshop is my choice the light version of Photoshop is elements. A few years ago I used the painting program called paint shop pro it did a decent job so I guess it all comes down to what you like to use and can afford.

I have been dabbling in other types of photography other than birds and trying to hone my skills in Photoshop editing as in many things alittle can go along way my biggest problem is sharpening I really do have a bad habit of over doing it and must cut down on how much I sharpen.

If anyone is interested I have posted my images which are birds,people, critters,images that have won awards as voted by other photographers, landscapes etc everyone has had some form of post editing.

My album can be found here http://thekiwi.org/photography/index.php if you wish you can leave comments with any of the images.

The kiwi