[Raybo]

I'm one of those Jpeg shooters just for the fact that "I" think it will make one a better imager.
Now that I have obtained (I couldn't pass up the great price) a K-5 I would like to dive into PP and need some advice with software.
I don't want to spend a lot of $ and also would like something with a small learning curve.......Oh yea, I will also need something for noise reduction. Any recommendations?

Thanks as always,
Ray

[Mareket]

Lightroom. It's amazing. But it's also rather expensive...

I've heard good things about GIMP but never really managed to get used to it myself. But with Lightroom I never have the need for it anyway. For PP Lightroom is definitely an excellent investment.

But on the JPEG note, I sort of agree that it makes you a better shooter. Primarily because you get out of the mindset of sorting things out later, which RAW lets you do with much more headroom. I don't do HDR, and I only edit basic things in post anyway, so I should really shoot in JPEG.

EDIT: It's worth giving Lightroom a try with their free trial, and if you know any students or something you can get a discount somehow. Maybe. I dunno.

[SpecialK]

Really, there are dozens of threads in this forum on the subject. Just review back a little.

There will be the same 50 opinions :-)

[riff]

Faststone is pretty cool, fast, powerful and easy to use, good algorithms and free for personal use.

FastStone Image Viewer, Screen Capture, Photo Resizer ...

[Rondec]

Get lightroom. I am still using version 3, which you should be able to get for under a hundred dollars and is probably 98 percent of what you need for editing of photos. Lightroom 4 adds some functionality -- a little better noise reduction, lens algorithims, but 3 is adequate to jump into RAW editing.

[maxfield_photo]

Think of RAW like negative film, you shoot the image to capture as much information as possible, then interpret it later. And just like negative film you expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights. JPEG on the other hand is analogous to transparency film, you expose for the highlights, because once they're blown you can't get them back.

[Mareket]

I generally shoot for the highlights and get the shadows back in post. The K-5 seems to have bags of shadow dynamic range and comparatively little highlight range, so I figure to get the highlights sorted and sort the rest out later, so long as the range isn't more than the ISO I'm using can handle.

Am I doing things wrong? :S

[normhead]

I generally shoot for the highlights and get the shadows back in post.

+1
A dark shadow looks so much more natural than a blown highlight.

[boriscleto]

I generally shoot for the highlights and get the shadows back in post. The K-5 seems to have bags of shadow dynamic range and comparatively little highlight range, so I figure to get the highlights sorted and sort the rest out later, so long as the range isn't more than the ISO I'm using can handle.

Am I doing things wrong? :S

In my experience the K-5 has much more highlight dr than the K-x did. Too much shadow recovery leads to too much noise.

[normhead]

Keep the histogram to the left, but don't go off on the left hand side and you'll be fine. The K-5 does have amazing highlight recovery, for anything that's on the histogram. It also has amazing shadow recovery. I like more space to the right than to the left if there's to be a choice if there's room for space on both sides of the curve.

[Raybo]

Keep the histogram to the left, but don't go off on the left hand side and you'll be fine. The K-5 does have amazing highlight recovery, for anything that's on the histogram. It also has amazing shadow recovery. I like more space to the right than to the left if there's to be a choice if there's room for space on both sides of the curve.

Really?
This will be new to me!

Thanks for all the help.

Ray

[Raybo]

Really, there are dozens of threads in this forum on the subject. Just review back a little.

There will be the same 50 opinions :-)

So I have to use the search function before I ask a question?
What came first, the question or the answer?

[Raybo]

Does lightroom do NR or will I need additional software?

Thanks again,
Ray

[riff]

Does lightroom do NR

Yes it does and I think it does a good job.

[mysticcowboy]

Keep the histogram to the left, but don't go off on the left hand side and you'll be fine. The K-5 does have amazing highlight recovery, for anything that's on the histogram. It also has amazing shadow recovery. I like more space to the right than to the left if there's to be a choice if there's room for space on both sides of the curve.

NO! NO! NO!

The general advice is to keep the histogram to the right. The K-5 is able to hold more date in the shadows than a lot of cameras, but there comes quite a bit of noise with recovering shadows. I will keep the histogram, if possible, just to the left of the right hand edge, maybe a third of a stop, but don't expose to the left. The histogram is a logarithmic scale, with the most data closer to the right side. The left hand of the histogram has way, way less data than the right. Yes, with the K-5 you can underexpose and pull out a usable photo. But, a proper exposure, with no blown highlights will offer vastly more data to work with. If you're going to ignore that, just shoot jpeg and save yourself the trouble and expense.

Lightroom is a great program. I use it for about 80% of my work and I normally shoot raw. Now that it's dropped in price, it's not to terrible. Photoshop Elements will also do a good job with processing raw images. It's less expensive than Lightroom and sometimes thrown in as an extra with Wacom tablets and some printers and scanners.