[Auzzie-Phoenix]

I got a bit of a wild hair today and decided to shoot some RAW+. I've done this on multiple occasions before, but today was a bit different in that I decided to actually PP one of the images. Mainly because I wasn't happy with the shot and wanted to rescue it, and also because I wanted to try my hand at tweaking in corel. For those not familiar with the software I use from other posts around PF, I use Corel Photo-Paint X4, which is a component of the Corel Graphics Suite X4 package. CGS X4 is quite a bit out of date as the current revision is X7, but despite that it's some heavy duty software on par with the Adobe software for each generation. Corel Photo-Paint, as a software package does tend to be a bit beefier than Corel's other offering- Corel Paint Shop Pro (and its usage tailored variants).

Without further ado, here are my comparison images. The top image is the resized camera jpeg output file, and the second image is the image I tweaked in corel as my first true attempt at using corel's RAW lab:



Kinda dull and lifeless, as well as a bit overdriven in places.



I may have gone a bit overboard on the shadows, but I think that I salvaged a bit of sky/clouds as part of the trade-off.

Image details during shot: Taken with K-50 using smc pentax-m 28mm f/2.8 lens with agfacolor 49mm CPL filter and screw-in lens hood. White balance is set to sunlight/daytime, ISO is 100, 1/400 exposure, f/2.8, spot metered. Color scheme is set to natural.

[phoenixvision]

well, the foreground grass and water are defintiely improved...the sky is not much better either way...burn out skies like that I find...where they are halfway between being read, and not reading at all...better to just brun them out completely, that partial burn out only draws attention to the incomplete light.....you should check out LR...its really very intuitive...and does such a good job....

[LensBeginner]

I must say I don't like what you've done to the WB, it looks yellowish to me...
Ok, here goes... have you calibrated your monitor?
Many monitors (especially Samsung's...) tend to look bluish if compared to a calibrated monitor, who knows why... maybe their marketing dept said them that "blue is cool"...
So if you try to PP on an uncalibrated monitor, the result will be like this.
Kinda like an old, faded film.
Sorry if I've been harsh, I'll follow this thread to give you all the assistance I can.

[schnitzer79]

first of all im not sure why you used f2.8 since you couldve gone with f8 and a slower shutter speed so to get more depth of field. if you shot in raw, maybe you can pull a little more detail out of that sky which would make it look better. im viewing this at work so i know the screen here isnt calibrated but the WB is certainly not right.
maybe in B&W, some added contrast and vignetting it would look better??

[crewl1]

The white balance seems off. Were you trying to go for some sort of vintage look?
If not, there is still much more I think you can do to make the result more natural looking, but better than the original.

[LensBeginner]

If you're not overly protective of your RAW files (as I am...) you could upload it, and we could play with it, then we'd upload our jpeg version and tell you what the "magic settings" were...

[Vitalii]

where did you focus? The image looks unsharp averall. f2.8 is really not the best choice for such shots - if you wanted some bokeh before and after the sitting bench, a 50mm f1.8, or even tele from larger distance will be better suited for this task. Wide angle Lenses have basicaly big problem with bokeh, unless you shoot really short distance.
elsewise it is prefferable to shoot landscapes on higher f-settings, focusing on hyperfocal length.
blowing up is always bad idea, pentax aready meters pictures a bit darker - getting details out of shadows, is much easier than of blow-ups.

the Corel Photo-Paint X4 has a really bad camera raw editor, with an old Photoshop or Lightroom you will be much better off. Stuff like local contrast, or advanced settings which can help you with that blown up sky, are simply lacking in the corel raw editor.

the way you have PP, don´t really need a RAW file, you would have achieved same result in JPG with any editor.
in fact i think smth. went wrong with camera raw lab on corel, because a RAW file has MUCH more information which will be adjusted, and you have just the same amount of information before and after.

try some other software, to see if you are getting better results, otherwise, don´t force yourself into RAW, it is more important to Shoot write - the PP software is for adjusting and not fixing, so you can adjust only small details.
There is no way you can rescue a picture - a bad shot picture stays a bad shot adjusted picture. you can distract from the bad things, but unsharp things will stay unsharp, bad composition, will stay bad composition, and blow ups will mostly stay blow ups.

---------- Post added 11-11-14 at 11:48 ----------

best way to show you the difference.
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/26-mini-challenges-games-photo-stories/27...nge-127-a.html

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Last edited by Vitalii; 11-11-2014 at 04:01 AM.

[wildman]

I don't like what you've done to the WB,

the WB is certainly not right.

The white balance seems off

Ran the first one through my calibrated monitor in PS quickly just to see what difference it would make....

[Auzzie-Phoenix]

Forgot to change aperture, which is why it was at f/2.8. I did add the bluish tint though since I was trying to fix the sky and remove the yellow cast from the harsh sun during "golden hour" (between 2:30p and 4p here).

[Parallax]

I must say I don't like what you've done to the WB, it looks yellowish to me...

I agree. The WB is off.

[johan kruger]

I think the biggest problem was the time of day that this shot was taken. the editing done by wildman does look a bit better. The horizon is also almost blown out.

[LensBeginner]

I tried my hand with PP and jpeg, but it's not much use doing it from a jpeg.
Some tricks only works when you can recover the highlights, otherwise you just worsen the situation.

[Imp]

I don't think you should do blue tinting for that, just if you saturate the blue more it should work. That makes the current blue bluer without giving a blue tint overall

[Auzzie-Phoenix]

Back from work and redid the attempt using more moderate changes compared to the original. There might still be a bluish tint to it, I'm unsure. Someone mentioned calibrating the monitor which in my case isn't possible since the LED backlight has a slight red tinge to it. I do have plans to purchase a new monitor in the future, but after buying the dslr, I can't quite fit it in the budget yet (plus despite being about 6 years old the current one is still working well so I argue with myself about replacing functioning parts a bit).



I kept the color temperature at a much higher range than the last edit attempt, plus I didn't saturate nearly as much. Shadows were only minimally boosted, same with sharpness. Exposure was dropped by -0.1 and brightness increased by 1. I also used minimal reduction to luminance noise and color noise. Also, I'd like to thank everyone for the critiques as I'm gradually using your feedback to tweak refinement levels as a learning process for the RAW lab portion of corel.

Edit: Yeah... I think I still have the temperature too low on the image....

Let's try this again... between the above image and this one, which is better?



MUCH higher temp. range on the image and even fewer tweaks everywhere else.

Someone asked earlier for the RAW? I have no way of hosting it. I don't have anything like dropbox/skydrive, etc...

[Parallax]

The second one is far better!

p.s. All monitors can be calibrated.