DSLR newby

Hightower · 12 October 2012, 17:09

I've just bought a Nikon D3100 and after having a couple of Memory cards delivered today have started to play with our toy.

Can anyone recommend a good but simple editing suite. My daughter uses an online one called Pic Monkey for editing photos for effects etc and uses them on Facebook and twitter.

whisper · 12 October 2012, 17:16

Photo shop is really cool

TonyC · 12 October 2012, 17:27

or GIMP which is a free open-source alternative to photoshop

NeilH · 12 October 2012, 17:32

It depends on what you want to do.

Lightroom is very popular and enables you to process lots of photos quickly and is great if you shoot in RAW. You can sharpen, change contrast, crop and importantly straighten the horizon (for photos from your boat) and there are loads of filter effects. You then just export all the pictures as JPEGs in one go.

I have Lightroom and Photoshop Elements and now do most editing in Lightroom. You can do the same things in Photoshop as Lightroom but it takes much longer.

Gimp seems a popular free programme but I have never used it.

HTH
Neil

Hightower · 12 October 2012, 17:45

It's been years since I used a SLR camera. Lots of memory is coming flooding back, but there's still loads to learn. I'm gonna save a fortune on Films and processing!

I've heard of Photoshop and dabbled with it on someone else's computer for 10 mins, I didn't remember it being too user friendly in the time I used it. It really has to be something simple to use.

Lightroom sounds easy to use from Neils description.

NeilH · 12 October 2012, 17:54

Andy
You can download Lightroom for a free trial:

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/i...shop_lightroom

Cheers

Neil

Erin · 12 October 2012, 19:21

It's worth having a look at any discs which came with the camera. Although sometimes a bit simplistic, there is usually some free software which does the basics and gives you an understanding of the various processes before you go spending any hard earnt on proper suites.

There's a steep learning curve on any photo editing, but it is worth getting one of the recognised makes so that you can watch the various tutorials people have put on youtube.

mister p · 12 October 2012, 20:55

Lightroom is best for you right now, get Photoshop and play in between using Lightroom. PS is the only image editing suite worth using ultimately. As Erin says, YouTube has all the tutorials you need.
One bit of advice, you can only make something good better, sh*t pics are unrecoverable.
Concentrate on composition and being as close as you can to you subject, forget zooms, use one lens and get good with that.
Check out AlexP Photographer 99% in camera

Hightower · 12 October 2012, 21:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by mister p

One bit of advice, you can only make something good better, sh*t pics are unrecoverable.
Concentrate on composition and being as close as you can to you subject, forget zooms, use one lens and get good with that.
Check out AlexP Photographer 99% in camera

Yes you're right. Crap shots will always be crap.

Many years ago I owned an SLR I must have spent a fortune on film over the years practicing. This taught me to take my time and the importance to properly compose and frame my shots. Of course the composer is always the worst critic and there where never that many shots I liked that much. Others always commented that the pictures I took were much better than I thought. I did however excel at portrait shots, probably because I could spend my time setting the shot and I had a knack of getting the field of view just how I wanted it.

DSLR's gives me a chance of experimenting and of course improving my photography skills without costing me a fortune and of course the results are instantly viewable on the PC. I can't wait to get stuck in! My daughter is also champing at the bit, so it'll be nice to learn alongside her.

I've had a chance to look at your recommendations (except for GIMP) but I don't want to be spending a lot of money (if any) in the short term looking for complicated Editing suites, I'd just be happy with something simple to experiment with in the first instance. I'm sure I'll upgrade to the full version of Photoshop or Lightroom further down the line.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I'd like to fine tune my first post to reflect the fact that I am looking for some freeware/open sourced software.

One thing I would like to ask is, what's the difference between all the different file formats that you can work in? I would have thought JPEG was the standard.

SPR · 12 October 2012, 21:48

shoot RAW /NEF , this means you will always get best quality!

S.

Hightower · 12 October 2012, 22:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by SPR

shoot RAW /NEF , this means you will always get best quality!

S.

I've got this and a RAW/NEF fine.

If I set it to this does that mean that the downloaded files to the Computer will be in this format too and that I'll have to manually change them?

SPR · 12 October 2012, 22:37

my Nikon I can have jpeg and NEF , NEF us the raw file do if you need to use it you got the best.

so I shot in dual mode

S.

EnglishLes · 13 October 2012, 08:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hightower

I've got this and a RAW/NEF fine.

If I set it to this does that mean that the downloaded files to the Computer will be in this format too and that I'll have to manually change them?

Yes RAW files need to be processed, the software to do this is included with the camera CD. RAW is not a standard format, i.e. Canon RAW is not the same as Nikon RAW. The file suffix will be different to reflect this e.g. Canon is CR1 and Nikon NR1.

RAW files will be much bigger than JPEG as JPEG are compressed.

If you edit an image always keep the original file.

Have fun.

Erin · 13 October 2012, 08:49

RAW is the way to go if you are a pro and have a good understanding of editing suites and more importantly want to change white balance after the event. However, for the majority of us amateurs the in-camera jpeg will produce a more than acceptable output 99% of the time. In fact, google Gary Friedman. He writes very informative but simple to understand articles and has recently been doing seminars to illustrate that jpegs are often superior to RAW for many situations.

Take a simultaneous RAW and jpeg in a slightly challenging condition such as where some noise reduction would be introduced in-camera. Take a close look at the resultant images. I think that unless you are an editing pro you will struggle to get the RAW to match the jpeg in overall acceptability.

willk · 13 October 2012, 08:51

The guys who do my brochure work capture everything in RAW (highest quality - guessing no compression?) and after editing etc., save them as JPEGs for the publishers/website guys. JPEG is fine for snaps and tests, but RAW will be what you'll use for the portrait work. The files are huge and will take longer for the camera to save, reduce storage and possibly slow/prevent continuous shooting? Not sure about the last...

willk · 13 October 2012, 08:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Erin

However, for the majority of us amateurs the in-camera jpeg will produce a more than acceptable output 99% of the time.

Yes

EnglishLes · 13 October 2012, 08:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by willk

The files are huge and will take longer for the camera to save, reduce storage and possibly slow/prevent continuous shooting? Not sure about the last...

As the files are large it could slow/prevent continuous shooting as the camera has a buffer where it stores the data before saving it to the card. Once the buffer is full then no more shots can be taken.

Storage cards have different data transfer rates so the rate of transfer from the buffer to the card will vary depending on the speed of the card in use. I only use SD/SDHC cards so I am not sure if this applies to other card formats.

SPR · 13 October 2012, 11:23

I always believe shooting at highest resolution and highest quality. Once you captured image you can never go back And get it improved.

Garbage in / Garbage out

That saying most people will not appreciate or need the ultra high resolution, Infact I prib don't either!

the last time supplied pictures to local press, they asked for Jpegs - and that was published front page, With heading - Inferno! , it was an old school burning down at night, but not exactly glossy magazine.

each to there own, i suppose!i

Leapy · 13 October 2012, 11:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Erin

for the majority of us amateurs the in-camera jpeg will produce a more than acceptable output 99% of the time.

Shot some stuff recently on a Nikon D5100 in both RAW and jpeg and compared the results. A straw poll of three all thought the jpeg were better without knowing which was which.

jezza2011 · 13 October 2012, 11:49

Well I have a DSLR and in hightest quality vs raw there is not much in it at all.
I always use just the highest quality and can blow up to A4 without any loss of definition. could probaly go higher but my priniter wont do bigger lol.