[Shaneuk]

Hi again all forgive me if there is specific area for this and I have posted in the wrong area.
I have been shooting jpeg only for the two years I've been getting more interested in photography.
Now I have taken the plunge for Raw only and have seen some very elaborate edits on here, which is way beyond me currently.
Browsing in here one day I saw an image someone had uploaded of their daughter in a garden and invited others to edit it, with many interesting colour or crop changes but nothing to technical looking.
At the time I had not edited anything so just thought " that's a good idea I will try that when I begin editing"
Now I can't find that again or anything similar.
I'm looking more for colour and lighting editing changes etc not photo shopping things in and out of photos at this point.
Is there a dedicated area for this type of thing?

[Paul the Sunman]

What software are you using? It may be more or less user-friendly from the beginner point of view.

[Alex645]

I'm looking more for colour and lighting editing changes etc not photo shopping things in and out of photos at this point.
Is there a dedicated area for this type of thing?

Not sure where to find this on the forum, but ultimately there are tutorials on YouTube and many app sites.

I use Photoshop which is going to be the most expensive and most powerful software to use, but Adobe has lots of tutorials:
Photoshop tutorials | Learn how to use Photoshop

Adobe Lightroom is less expensive and more intuitive to use for 90% of what you'll want for most of your RAW images:
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom - YouTube

No doubt other PF members can recommend less expensive RAW editors that they use and prefer.

[ehrwien]

Browsing in here one day I saw an image someone had uploaded of their daughter in a garden and invited others to edit it, with many interesting colour or crop changes but nothing to technical looking.
At the time I had not edited anything so just thought " that's a good idea I will try that when I begin editing"
Now I can't find that again or anything similar.

I think you might have seen a thread (this one perhaps? Post Processing Challenge #352 - Lucy - PentaxForums.com ) from the "Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories" subforum titled "Post Processing Challenge". You can apply a filter in that forum section to only show those Post Processing Challenges: Post-Processing - Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories - PentaxForums.com

[bwgv001]

If you don't have software capable of doing raw development: there are a few free to download:
rawtherapee :RawTherapee - Home
Art : agriggio / ART / wiki / Home ? Bitbucket
darktable: darktable

For darktable and rawtherapee are plenty of tutorials on Youtube

Here you find plenty of pictures that you can "play with"
https://discuss.pixls.us/c/processing/playraw/30

[Shaneuk]

I have tried Dark table first for a few weeks, then gone onto Raw therapee.
I think I slightly prefer Raw therapee.
But it's the artistic change of a photo by lightning etc that currently interests me.
I can change my own images that look better to me, but looking at a stock Raw image like I saw on here that 20 people for example had then cropped, changed lighting.
To both test my limited ability I would be interested to do edit one for example as to what I thought it needs and then look at another edited version from someone else and copy / try to figure out how that person got this image to look that way.
The one I saw on here which had been posted had been changed in so many ways, and as I looked I was amazed at the different possibilities from the same photo, which was the deciding factor in me abandoning jpegs.
As I get more involved I might buy software but from what I saw and read for free software to experiment with these two came highly recommended.

---------- Post added 02-24-21 at 03:41 PM ----------

Thank you yes Lucy 352 is exactly the image I was referring too.
I will download this myself to see how I would change it and also to try and figure out how people got there interpretation of it how they did it.
Much obliged for finding that so quickly.

[dms]

If you are interested in getting a "proper" color, if the software allows you to pick a neutral color area and then set the color temperature, then pick the whites of the eye. Photoshop camera raw allows sampling an area to do this, and I should think other software do also, but I only have/use photoshop. Not foolproof, but generally is reliable.

[UncleVanya]

I would also say that there are options like DXO - it’s not free but I find it easier to do the kinds of things I normally do. There are excellent presets and lens correction profiles.

[Breakfastographer]

I'm sure you'll find what you're looking for.

[kypfer]

Assuming the OP is using a Pentax camera, why not try the Digital Camera Utility software that came with the camera on CD?
A little cryptic, admittedly, but it's "free" and it uses the same terminology as the camera uses, so it's easy to translate between one and the other.
Keep the help file open alongside, you'll need to refer to it frequently in the early stages, but it's all there
Use your on-line translator of choice to read the Japanese-language pages here ???????RAW??????????Digital Camera Utility 5 ?1??????? | PENTAX official for an "expert's" introduction to the program!

[stevejo]

Affinity Photo is also worth a look. It provides everything you should need to process RAW images and edit them. Plenty of features and currently on a 90 day free trial. It is already cheap but also now on a 1/2 price offer too.

I had a go with that weekly pp challenge of Lucy. I find these challenges really good for practicing your techniques and seeing what other people can achieve.

[Alex645]

I would be interested to do edit one for example as to what I thought it needs and then look at another edited version from someone else and copy / try to figure out how that person got this image to look that way.

Why not share a RAW image and start a thread/challenge to how participants edit differently and how? I don't know if it's true, but I thought I had read that Ansel Adams would have a negative he'd share to his students and then they would all have a go at it in the darkroom, and had to document their steps.

Needless to say, I think Adams learned as much from the assignment as his students.

[stevejo]

or just have a go at this weeks PP challenge
but bear in mind that anything goes in these challenges.

[StiffLegged]

I used to develop my own B & W film and print my own too. I loved Ansel Adams's work and would have loved to make prints to his standard but had to realise I wouldn't manage that without his amount of practice and experience – which I didn't have. My early prints were er, forgettable; later ones got better and I can still look at them with pleasure.

Post-processing has been a similar journey: I was rubbish to start with but with practice and learning from others it's getting better. Find yourself a really good photographer – or several – who show their work and their post-processing workflow on YouTube, watch and learn. I'm not going to recommend any because I'm into landscape and I don't know what interests you. Just avoid the ones who go for really complex edits using luminosity masks and multi-layer adjustments: these can come later if you like. I often find all I need are quite subtle changes.


Just remember you're not doing this for other people, you're processing your photos for you. It doesn't matter if somebody doesn't like what you like – it does matter if you hate it and others just give likes!

[leheath8]

I have always avoided any post-processing other than cropping, but recently decided it was time to learn. Not sure if the OP has a Windows or Mac computer, but I have a Mac and Affinity is very reasonably priced ($25 last time I looked) while being much more powerful than I'm likely to need anytime soon. I looked at the various YouTube videos on how to use it and was completely overwhelmed because I had no idea what they were talking about or where to start. However, I recently discovered Udemy, which has a bunch of online classes that cover both the features of the program as well as help you figure out a workflow (what to do, in what order, from basic to more advanced), which is tremendously helpful. They were also reasonably priced - I picked two, each with many, many hours of videos for a total cost of $30.