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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Photoshop CS
Jay Gonzalez, Photographer
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Manchester | CT | USA | Posted: 9:41 PM on 07.04.04 |
->> I have always wondered just how many of you actually use Photoshop on a regular basis.
I’ve often wondered if the big boys and girls who shoot the professional games actually do the cropping, color correcting, sharpening, etc, or do they down load them into their computer and fire them off to whom ever there working for? (I’m betting that a copy does stay in your hard drive for your own personal use, aka portfolio.)
Then there are people like myself who after I’m finish with a shoot, I find myself doing all of the work in Photoshop, then hoping that someone might want to use my images. Of course I’ve spent the majority of my time doing weddings. When I was using film, it never was an issue. Then when I found myself wanting to be a head of the “photo curve” I went digital and discovered the all mighty Photoshop.
I’m bringing this up because as I’m maturing my skills as a photographer I’m finding that I need and want to learn more in Photoshop. In fact, besides reading and watching my class room DVD’s from NAPP, I’m thinking about going to some kind of Photoshop college/school.
Call me crazy, but with all of the photographers out there who can actually do a great job, I’m thinking that maybe, just maybe it might give me an edge on a resume having a solid background in Photoshop.
As the great Bill O’Reilly says “What say you?”
Jay |
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Jeff Lewis, Photographer
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Long Beach | CA | USA | Posted: 4:32 AM on 07.05.04 |
->> Photoshop is my best friend. I am dating photo mechanic. She's beautiful.
Seriously, I use photoshop quite a bit and I have not even scraped the surface on the amount of things you can do with that program.
Photo mechanic is great as well. It really helps on captioning all thousand pictures at once and getting them organized, and even just looking at them quickly.
There is so much more to say about these programs, I hope others post.
Jeff |
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Gary Lake, Photographer
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Morgantown | WV | USA | Posted: 7:45 AM on 07.05.04 |
| ->> Total Training (www.totaltraining.com) has an excellent set of PS CS training DVD's available. They run about $200.00. Outstanding presentation and well worth the investment. Covers pretty much everything. (They are the Adobe - preferred training partner) |
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Gary Lake, Photographer
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Morgantown | WV | USA | Posted: 7:47 AM on 07.05.04 |
| ->> Sorry - I see on the site it sells for $300.00. I picked my copy up from an eBay reseller for $200.00. |
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Ed Wolfstein, Photographer
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Burlington | VT | USA | Posted: 10:00 AM on 07.05.04 |
->> Hey, I thought Photo Mechanic was going out with *me*... she lied!
Yes, I agree with Jeff, the combination of Photo Mechanic and Photoshop is great - especially the latest version of PM. I just haven't felt comfortable with the Browser in PS, not even the updated version in CS. Not to mention how Photoshop CS somehow seems to lose ISO information in File Info... and how slow ACDSee has become in version 6 on Windoze...
But getting back to the topic, if you're getting serious about Photoshop, then I'd consider joining NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Professionals) http://www.photoshopuser.com for $99. You get a great magazine in print (Photoshop User), and some pretty cool online tutorials (Dave Cross is a hoot) by some of the best in the business, as you must have discovered in the DVDs. Although I haven't gone (yet) I'm considering some of their one day seminars, http://www.photoshopseminars.com or a complete conference such as the upcoming Photoshop World http://www.photoshopworld.com
Hope that helps a bit.
- Ed. |
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Larry W. Smith, Photographer
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Valley Center | KS | USA | Posted: 10:05 AM on 07.05.04 |
->> A little off topic on this but how is Photoshop CS for converting RAW files? I'm using a Mac and shooting Nikon camera's. Any info would be welcome.
Larry |
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Jay Gonzalez, Photographer
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Manchester | CT | USA | Posted: 10:10 AM on 07.05.04 |
->> Ed,
I did join NAPP a couple of years ago and I have to agree that it's worth the $99.00 per year.
Just by some of the tips I've learned it's paid for itself!! |
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Gary Lake, Photographer
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Morgantown | WV | USA | Posted: 11:14 AM on 07.05.04 |
| ->> Larry - I'm using CS's Camera RAW on my RAW Nikon files and love it. Works great, and gives you really excellent post-shoot control. Basically you can do practically all of your image adjustment in RAW before ever bringing it into PS, which results in a much better finished product. Recently did some black and white conversions and found that if I desaturate using the Camera RAW plugin I can then do some really creative tweaking using the advanced options. By using the individual color adjustments on the calibration tab you can make subtle tonal variations that can really enhance a black and white image. |
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Larry W. Smith, Photographer
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Valley Center | KS | USA | Posted: 12:24 PM on 07.05.04 |
->> Thanks Gary I appreciate the imformation. Very helpful.
Larry |
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Guy Rhodes, Student/Intern, Photographer
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East Chicago | IN | USA | Posted: 4:15 PM on 07.05.04 |
| ->> Re: Captioning. Is it true that one can add caption information in Photo Mechanic *without* re-compressing the JPEG to save the caption info to the file? I seem to remember a discussion that said Photoshop wasn't the best option for captioning, since it recompressed JPEG's upon saving caption info. |
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Thomas E. Witte, Photographer
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Cincinnati | OH | USA | Posted: 5:02 PM on 07.05.04 |
->> First off, I don't know anyone who doesn't use Photoshop.
Secondly, where the @*#! is the Raw Converter in Photoshop CS? I see the folder, I see the plug in, but I can't find it in the menus and the tutorial leaps right over the part about locating it to open files. |
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Gary Lake, Photographer
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Morgantown | WV | USA | Posted: 5:33 PM on 07.05.04 |
| ->> Thomas - it should open by default when you access a RAW file, BUT - if you have Nikon View installed then Nikon View installs it's own (very much scaled down and less powerful) Photoshop plugin and it opens by default instead of the PS plugin. You have to delete (or move) the Nikon plugin to get CS's version to run. I'm not on my PC right now and I don't recall the exact folder name that the Nikon version installs to, but if you look around you should be able to locate it. Every time I've updated Nikon View I've had to go back and delete the blasted Nikon Photoshop plugin to get my CS version of Camera Raw to work again. Very annoying. I emailed Adobe about this glitch but never got any feedback. |
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Thomas E. Witte, Photographer
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Cincinnati | OH | USA | Posted: 5:39 PM on 07.05.04 |
| ->> I'll be damned... The one thing I didn't try. Thanks Gary. |
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Ed Wolfstein, Photographer
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Burlington | VT | USA | Posted: 8:07 PM on 07.05.04 |
->> About RAW with Photoshop, from the Nikon Knowledge Database:
"During the installation of Nikon View or Picture Project, your system is checked for an installed copy of Adobe Photoshop. If a copy with the minimum version is found, Nikon View will install file format filters which will allow Photoshop to open a NEF/RAW file directly (there are other plugins for YCBCR TIFF format from supported cameras). If you have the Adobe Photoshop "Camera Raw" software installed (optional in Photoshop version 7, included in Photoshop version CS) the Nikon file filters will open the file.
If you prefer to continue using the Adobe software, find and remove the following plugins: Nikon NEF Plugin (Nikon View) Nikon NEF Plugin LE (Picture Project) After a restart of Adobe Photoshop, the Adobe Photoshop "Camera Raw" plugin will handle the opening of Nikon NEF/RAW format files."
Here's the link:
http://support.nikontech.com/cgi-bin/nikonusa.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p...=
More on the Adobe RAW Plug-In here, with links to the latest 2.2 version for CS:
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/cameraraw.html
- Ed. |
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Eric Hagen, Photographer
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Denver | CO | USA | Posted: 11:46 AM on 07.07.04 |
->> Photoshop... yes.
Sometimes I feel guilty and like "less of a photographer" when I heavily edit/crop something in Photoshop. But at the end of the day, I'm doing it to try to sell photos, so for me, the ends justify the means.
I have noticed that since I started shooting sports very regularily, I have a lot less poor quality frames... a lot more simply require trimming to the proper aspect ratio and a very subtle unsharp mask and nothing else.... other shots require modifying the white balance, stronger unsharp, significant cropping, levels adjustment, etc. I tend to shoot with a custom white balance and as the sun sets, it slowly tints my shots more orange so I'll go through and fix the shots from later in the day by hand in Photoshop to normalize the color.... though I have found that parents really like the "over warm" feeling of the sunset photos...
In any case, Photoshop is your friend. Learn it, love it.
If you find yourself thinking "I wish that Photoshop could do this" it probably can. If you find yourself thinking "is there anything more I can do to make this photo better?" The answer is probably YES. So don't be shy.
As for RAW plugins... they work very well. Nikon's Capture has a couple of features that aren't present in Adobe's, but since I shoot Fuji, I have no idea what those features are. I know that with my Fuji, it has MORE features than the Fuji supplied program, but the quality is somewhat less. The Fuji software can spit out photos with roughly the same resolution as a 1DM2 (slightly above 8MP worth) when using the highest settings, though the shots are actually 12MP images. Give it a try... only you can decide whether you like it!
Eric |
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Mike Lewis, Photographer
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Dothan | AL | USA | Posted: 12:08 PM on 07.07.04 |
->> For some cool examples on just how far you can go with photoshop check out
http://www.worth1000.com/default.asp?display=photoshop
If you can win one of these contests then consider yourself a photoshop master. Personaly, I know how to crop and color correct for out press.
Now nothing on that site is journalism but is sure is fun to look at and work safe to boot. |
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Jason DeMott, Photographer
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Gainesville | VA | USA | Posted: 12:27 PM on 07.07.04 |
| ->> Not sure if it's important to you or not, but PS CS RAW conversion translates the EXIF data into XMP format, which isn't readable by many non-adobe apps. |
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