new digital (numpty)....help!

[Peter McCullough]

Been into digital photography for only ten months or so, I only shoot in hi-res jPeg (all the time) as I've NO/NIL/ZILTCH/ZERO editing skills/experience in this area.

With my Canon 5D Mk1 body I got the computer disc that came in the box, so I've now loaded that onto my laptop.

So as I only shoot hi-res jPeg, if I change my present shooting to RAW from now on, don't I need to convert it back into a jPeg file anyway? I can barely import an image into some place without starting to use 'special tools', so I may be lost with all the things to do to improve/change/adapt a photo etc...................yikes it really scares me!

As a complete editing numpty guru (like I know nothing about this subject), will/would the editing suite that came with my Canon 5D (loaded onto my laptop) get me up and running ok if I change to shooting in RAW from now on?

Or, might it be best to aim for something like the editing suite 'Lightroom' in the near future? What kind of cost is Lightroom and were is best to buy it please? Which version is best for me please?



Sorry for all my queries/questions, any replies greatly appreciated!! Thank you.

 

[Dan Cattermole]

You don't have to apologies Peter, Thats what this place is for....

I'm not a canon man myself, but I think proceedure is generally the same if you want to get the highest potential out of your shots. I think you'll find that everyone on here shoots in RAW.

I shoot in RAW all the time, then I upload my shots on to the Olympus software which was suplied with my cam.
That way, I can do all my edits and not loose noticable quality as I would if I was to shoot in jpeg.
Once I'm happy with my edits, I then save my pictures in jpeg as its a more compatable file to view in .... lets say.... slideshow or preview etc.
I do generaly keep the copy of the RAW file if I ever had to revert back to it and continue with post proccessing.

I don't know anything about the canon software provided, however there are many Canon GODS on here that can point you in the right direction.
I would of thought you could alter your basics, exposures, etc.

I hope this helps a little bit Peter, but as I said, you'll have some very good responses to follow and be advised as best as possible.

 

[adrian jordin]

I can't speak for the Canon software or Lightroom, though there are plenty of people around here who will...

Personally, I shoot in RAW all the time and I have some free software to convert from RAW to JPEG. RawTherapee Features

In many cases that's all I need to do, other times I will process further using Photoshop.
The advantage is that you can edit and process the JPEG without touching the RAW file which you can keep as your source file.
Note that RAW will take up a lot more memory/disk space so check you have the capacity on your cameras memeory card...

BTW...all this isn't rocket science, (at least IMO...)

 

[Darren Turner]

I use canon & yes i agree with all the above, but the canon software is pants to put it politely so i don't use it. I am pretty sure you can edit your raw files with it though which would be a great starting point for any newcomer to RAW

After editing each image i generally don't keep the raw files, just the saved jpegs in full high res and a web resized version that came from them raw files. If i feel the images are of extreme importance then i may also keep raws, but this doesn't happen often

I use Lightroom as that is far more advance and in my opinion does a far better job.

Daz

 

[Hamish Gill]

This is the easy way to do things

Buy Lightroom (from adobe online)
Buy a memory card reader
Set your camera to raw
Take photos
Take memory card out of camera and put in card reader
Plug card reader into computer
Copy Photos on to computer in folder of choice
Open Lightroom
Import raw files
Edit to your hearts content
Export to jpeg for sharing on your favorite forum
Done ...

It's honestly nothing to be scared of or nervous about ... It's very easy

Think about it this way...
When you shot film you had to process your begs to show people...
Raw is like an unprocessed photo ...
Lightroom (or other editing suite) is your digital darkroom!

 

[Hamish Gill]

Darren might not keep his raw files ... But I recommend keeping them ... Just throwing that in there ...

 

[Hamish Gill]

Oh...
And Lightroom can be downloaded for free on a 30 day trial so you can give it a go before you commit!

 

[Hamish Gill]

And I'll help you at every step of the way!!

 

[Chris Dodkin]

Hamish is on commission from LR - that's how he pays for the site, and his huge mansion in the Malverns!

 

[Kev Pugh]

Just adding don't delete your RAW's would be like burning your Negs, IMO. takes up space on the HD but hey once they are gone you've only got an edit to play with.......

 

[Tim Pindar]

LOL

He's right though, about keeping RAWs and about Lightroom!

As I discover new PP (Post-production) techniques, I sometimes trawl back through previous photos to find suitable candidates for them. This sometimes involves going back to the RAW image and starting from scratch.

 

[Chris Dodkin]

I'd also add that RAW processing has improved over time - so RAW files from years ago, can be revisited with new software for even better results.

It's most likely this trend will continue - with smarter and smarter software out there.

 

[Laurie Parker]

I also use Canon, and Normally use photoshop for any editing, have also been giving Lightroom a go over last few days but always seem to go back to Photoshop much prefer working with layers to be honest, think its all down to personal preference,try various software out before committing yourself to a particular one, that way you will find one that suits you.

Will also agree with the others who KEEP Raw files, its something you can always go back to.

 

[Hamish Gill]

I should get commission, my servants maids and gardeners need feeding and gruel isnt cheap these days ya know?!?!
Seriously though, Barry, Tom, Dan(?), Robert L. Bishop... to name a few people who I have all sold Lightroom to... All swear by it...

The thing is, i have been using it for 4-5 years(?) since version 1.1 i think maybe version 1... I found it easy to pick up after finding photoshop frustrating and nikons software a massive ball ache ... and even after all this time i learn new stuff on it!
But from the get go, its easy as anything to get going ...
once the photos are in the work flow along the bottom, you just select the picture you want and slide the sliders on the right hand side until you have made the picture look better!
nothing is permanent, nothing is destructive to the original file, it saves everything you do into the LR catalog without effecting the original file and then when you are happy you just save a version of it leaving the original file intact and untouched ...

its the most simple process, incredibly easy to pick up, yet takes as long as you can ever have time to spend on it to master!

Im sure the same can be said for aperture, and capture one et al ... but so many people on here use lightroom, a few of us create presets and save them for download and between us i doubt there is a feature we dont know about...

It always sounds like the hard sell when i talk about this stuff, its probably my background in sales ... but as i did when i worked in a shop all i am doing is applying logic to the situation ...
someone who has no experience with photo editing software wants to edit raw and has found a forum with a lot of lightroom users ... realistically speaking ... what better recommendation is there??

(i really must find out if adobe offer commission )

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=photoshop_lightroom&promoid&promoid=DTEUT

 

[Dave Moss]

Ok I dont shoot raw simply because my little Fuji doesnt let me but LR is the best for PP your shots I find photoshop to fiddly to be honest

 

[Tim Pindar]

Since I got Lightroom I rarely go back to Photoshop Elements. This is for 2 reasons:

- the two products are not properly integrated the way full Photoshop is (once you move across to PSE and back, you've hard coded your earlier LR adjustments in a new copy of the photo). Those of you with full Photoshop may not remember this when advising newbies on which software to buy.

- try as I might, I can't get to grips with using Layers in PSE. The concept is fine, it's the execution. The other day I wanted to see how to add a vignette in PSE rather than LR, and via F1 Help found a method which used several layers and had 15 steps which were far from intuitive:
How to Create a Vignette Effect Non-Destructively in Photoshop Elements
There is no way I could recreate those instructions without referring back to that page, as I don't really understand what many of the steps are for. What is the purpose of or reason for "In the layer's palette, click on the filled ellipse layer (should be layer 1) and drag it below the original photo layer (layer 0)."? This is true for a great many PSE "How to" guides. The killer for me was - when I tried to follow the instructions, I couldn't even make it work. I ended up with three layers on my photo, but no visible vignette.
In LR there is a nice little box for adding a vignette with 3-4 sliders - job done.

Lightroom isn't perfect, though. Although LR adjustments are non-destructive, I do wish it were possible to simplify and combine adjustments rather than have sometimes 20-30 of them if you are fiddling with a photo - trying different crops, for instance, or exposure settings. Every tiny movement you make is recorded as a new adjustment. Also I wish it were possible to remove an adjustment much earlier in the stack without losing everything you've done since then. This may be a bit OCD on my part, wanting to keep things neat and tidy.

 

[Hamish Gill]

I think I know what you mean...
I create snapshots at stages where I am happy with certain aspects of what I've done when I'm spending a long time on an image
Nothing is ever fixed though, everything can be switch on and off and adjusted at any point along the way ...
The only trouble I sometimes have is when I've done loads to an image and I don't like one aspect of it it's sometimes hard to find what is causeing the thing that you don't like ...
I think you experienced that with the soft vignette preset before I simplified it and pointed out the adjustments??

 

[adrian jordin]

A couple of things...you don't need the full photoshop..Photoshop elements 9 should do everything that most people need.
(I use an elderly version of PS which is equivalent in functionality to PSE 9).

Secondly, there is no perfect piece of software, which is why I have three or four programs that I use for different things.

Its like choosing cameras and lenses...you need to get hands on to figure out whether it suts you and most software offers a trial version to play with.

BTW, I can do a vignette in PS with one layer and half-a-dozen steps...

 

[Paul Lange]

Hi Peter,

There has been some pretty good advice already posted and in particular I would second the recommendation to trial Lightroom. To buy it costs around £200 though which is not an inconsiderable cost. However it does make life a lot easier and later on if you also buy Photoshop or use GIMP - a free alternative almost just as good as Photoshop but with a slightly clunky interface, you can use the Edit In option in Lightroom which creates a copy of you image and opens it in the other application for editing and once saved reverts you back to viewing it in Lightroom. Whether you are computer savy or not there WILL be a learning curve that almost seems like a sheer vertical surface to begin with.

As an alternative you may be able to use the basic version of Phase One's software. Darren Turner posted a link somewhere to how you can download it along with a voucher that registers it for free. It does some of what Lightroom can do and I think it was able to recognise the Raw files from my Nikons so it might recognise the raw files from your camera too.

IMO you should also consider other costs - It is wise to invest in at least a 1TB USB hard drive, or even better a NAS drive and run regular backups so you have duplicate copies of all your photographs. I've had a hard drive go kaput on me and it's not funny. I use a free programme called EASUS Todo Backup that incrementally backs up my whole hard drive onto a USB hard drive. Should my system crash completely I can recover everything, operating system and all from the back up.

 

[Tim Pindar]

I think I know what you mean...
I create snapshots at stages where I am happy with certain aspects of what I've done when I'm spending a long time on an image
Nothing is ever fixed though, everything can be switch on and off and adjusted at any point along the way ...
The only trouble I sometimes have is when I've done loads to an image and I don't like one aspect of it it's sometimes hard to find what is causeing the thing that you don't like ...
I think you experienced that with the soft vignette preset before I simplified it and pointed out the adjustments??

What is the purpose of the snapshots Hamish? If I mess up the adjustments I can simply select an earlier state on the left, and move on again from there.

Am I right about one point though re LR? For example, say you forget to enable lens correction at the start, so you enable it after you've made lots of other adjustments. Then if you want to undo some of those adjustments, you have to undo the lens correction as well, and remember to redo it? Unlike with layers, you can't pluck out earlier adjustments and remove just those?