What a difference proper software makes

theTastyCat · Jul 26, 2016

Hey all - I finally downloaded Paintshop Pro x8. To say the difference in the end result is night and day would be a complete injustice! I haven't ever cared one bit about photography until now, and I've had no previous experience. Here are two of the most recent shots I took before getting decent software - keep in mind they're some of the best I'd taken and both had pretty remarkable conditions!

And now, post-decent software, here's one from yesterday and one from today:

Seriously, take the plunge - I was using Picasa before but real postprocessing software has opened my eyes to what our birds are truly capable of.

And, droning was fun before, but this is just ridiculous - this evening I was driving home when I saw that magnificent sky in the last picture, so I pulled over like I was having a stroke and got her in the air.

Learn a. how to do HDR (high dynamic range, which most of our shots will be since they'll likely involve both bright sky and dark land) and how to use layers in the software - neither one is difficult but they're complete gamechangers.

Happy flying, all!

mangoman · Jul 26, 2016

I'm sorry but the first two are much nicer and more natural looking photos.

What you should do is shoot raw images, expose for the highlights and bump up the shadows in post.

Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots

theTastyCat · Jul 26, 2016

Haha - well I tried! Welcome to the forum, mangoman - honored to be your first post. I do shoot raw but for such sharp differences in light, I just can't get one image to do it all well. But, I am far from done learning - here's a link to a reasonably exposed RAW - would be grateful for you to process it so I can see the difference.

Monkeychops, here's a great tutorial on HDR:

How to Shoot and Post-Process Professional HDR Photos in One Day

And here's a series of *six* tutorials on layers - each video is brief and doesn't move terribly fast, but it does deliver the information.

Part 1 of 6: An Introduction to Layers - Corel Discovery Center

Happy flying!

theTastyCat · Jul 26, 2016

Classic move...forgot to include the link to the RAW!

DJI_0160.DNG

4wd · Jul 26, 2016

I'd agree HDR is better avoided in most cases, but it has it's uses.
Lightroom can pull a lot of detail from dark areas especially from a RAW
The crucial thing is not to overexpose bright areas if possible.
You could make the land in this considerably brighter but it would lose a lot of ambience.

Original resized.

theTastyCat · Jul 26, 2016

Yeah, I see what you're saying - and like everything else, to some degree everybody's got different preferences. Looking back at mine I think the sky is too much - would be better to back it off a bit. But I do prefer the ground to have more to say. And truly, it was incredible in person - so much more majestic than any of the raws out of the camera!

mangoman · Jul 26, 2016

theTastyCat said:
Haha - well I tried! Welcome to the forum, mangoman - honored to be your first post. I do shoot raw but for such sharp differences in light, I just can't get one image to do it all well. But, I am far from done learning

Photo editing and exposure and all that malarkey is definitely a long learning experience! You could try to download Adobe Lightroom, it's much more user friendly than paintshop pro and I'd say the results are a good bit better too.

Sorry if my last post came across as a bit rude, it wasn't my intention!

Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots

theTastyCat · Jul 26, 2016

No worries, mango - I am brand new at this! I was really overwhelmed at first but the learning curve, though steep, has continued to ascend. I'm admittedly a bit of a hedonist, so I've got to watch myself on over-saturating and over-color temping things!

TonG · Jul 27, 2016

theTastyCat said:
No worries, mango - I am brand new at this! I was really overwhelmed at first but the learning curve, though steep, has continued to ascend. I'm admittedly a bit of a hedonist, so I've got to watch myself on over-saturating and over-color temping things!

Edited in Lightroom> mainly suppressing highlights and lightening shadows and some (selective)color corrections

theTastyCat · Jul 27, 2016

Cool, I absolutely see what you are saying. These images are more "honest" - we may just be going for different things. I suppose I'm trying to help the viewer feel the same way as I did when I was there in person; it was stunning, and often a strict photograph doesn't recreate the experience for me.

That said, I'm doing these for fun; if I was taking photographs for a newspaper or for real estate, I'd be approaching it like you all. Admittedly, I'm a hedonist, and I'd be a lot more likely to set one of my latter two as my desktop background than the others