So you've taken a picture, hopefully with good composition and exposure. But still there's something missing... it lacks the 'punch' that you see in pictures that professionals have taken. You might start to think your camera & lens are not good enough... or that you've done something wrong when taking the picture.
Well actually, theres one step left in your workflow-> post processing... or simply Editing if you like. Editing is not new to digital photography; its been there since the days of film. But today thanks to our very capable computers, we don't have to toil away in a darkroom for hours.
There is a wide variety of editing software available, and you can choose one that suits your needs.
The most famous is probably Adobe Photoshop, which is extremely powerful for image manipulations of all sorts. It is used by both photographers as well as designers. A free open-source alternative called GIMP exists for the same and is nearly as good.
Adobe probably realized that not everyone requires all the features and power of photoshop, and created a software specially for photographers, Lightroom. It has almost everything a photographer needs, without the extra bells and whistles that photoshop has, allowing a fast workflow. Apple's Aperture is an equivalent software. There are free alternatives, but I found nothing nearly as good.
After that you have Googles Picasa, Apple's iPhoto, etc. They are free or low cost, simple to use, but lack power. I suppose they were made for ordinary people who want one-click-enhance results. If you wanted that, you wouldn't be reading this right?
So then, lets focus on Adobe Lightroom.
Lightroom has 5 Modules- Library, Develop, Slideshow, Print & Web. All controls are organized by function and sorted into these modules. You can select a module on the top right.
Library is used for organizing files.
Develop is used for in-depth editing.
The rest are self-explanatory. I won't cover them here even in future articles.
In the Library Module, you can organize photos into 'Collections'. You can rate photos, flag them, compare them, etc. In any module, you see all the photos in a film strip.
When you come from a photo trip or something, you may typically have 100s of photos. Not all of them are good. You need not edit them all. Heres where the library module shines.
The first thing I do after importing photos(which you can do by 'drag & drop' when in library module, or file>import) is going through all the images in the filmstrip and clicking 'X'(shortcut for unpick/reject) on the bad pictures(ones you think can't be saved by editing either). After going through all, just click Photo>Delete Rejected Photos. Why waste time editing bad pictures?
Next we will see the Develop module...
** I must mention here that it is preferable to shoot in RAW rather than JPEG to get the most out of your images, and edit them without any significant loss in quality. This is because JPEG cuts down tone variations from the 16bit RAW file(created by 12bit or 14bit A/D converters) to 8bits. JPEGS also have some amount of sharpening, noise reduction, etc done to them in-camera. RAW files are straight from the CCD or CMOS sensor.
Well actually, theres one step left in your workflow-> post processing... or simply Editing if you like. Editing is not new to digital photography; its been there since the days of film. But today thanks to our very capable computers, we don't have to toil away in a darkroom for hours.
There is a wide variety of editing software available, and you can choose one that suits your needs.
The most famous is probably Adobe Photoshop, which is extremely powerful for image manipulations of all sorts. It is used by both photographers as well as designers. A free open-source alternative called GIMP exists for the same and is nearly as good.
Adobe probably realized that not everyone requires all the features and power of photoshop, and created a software specially for photographers, Lightroom. It has almost everything a photographer needs, without the extra bells and whistles that photoshop has, allowing a fast workflow. Apple's Aperture is an equivalent software. There are free alternatives, but I found nothing nearly as good.
After that you have Googles Picasa, Apple's iPhoto, etc. They are free or low cost, simple to use, but lack power. I suppose they were made for ordinary people who want one-click-enhance results. If you wanted that, you wouldn't be reading this right?
So then, lets focus on Adobe Lightroom.
Lightroom has 5 Modules- Library, Develop, Slideshow, Print & Web. All controls are organized by function and sorted into these modules. You can select a module on the top right.
Library is used for organizing files.
Develop is used for in-depth editing.
The rest are self-explanatory. I won't cover them here even in future articles.
In the Library Module, you can organize photos into 'Collections'. You can rate photos, flag them, compare them, etc. In any module, you see all the photos in a film strip.
When you come from a photo trip or something, you may typically have 100s of photos. Not all of them are good. You need not edit them all. Heres where the library module shines.
The first thing I do after importing photos(which you can do by 'drag & drop' when in library module, or file>import) is going through all the images in the filmstrip and clicking 'X'(shortcut for unpick/reject) on the bad pictures(ones you think can't be saved by editing either). After going through all, just click Photo>Delete Rejected Photos. Why waste time editing bad pictures?
Next we will see the Develop module...
** I must mention here that it is preferable to shoot in RAW rather than JPEG to get the most out of your images, and edit them without any significant loss in quality. This is because JPEG cuts down tone variations from the 16bit RAW file(created by 12bit or 14bit A/D converters) to 8bits. JPEGS also have some amount of sharpening, noise reduction, etc done to them in-camera. RAW files are straight from the CCD or CMOS sensor.
