Latest attempts…critiques welcome

[dusty montgomery]

John-that makes sense-filling the toolbox with as many tools as one can, thanks. I guess I am gonna have o drag my butt out of bed before 8a.m.

John Michael-Evidently, I got DPP when I bought the Canon. I loaded it, played with it for a while, and came up with the below image after a couple minutes. Being the neophyte I am, I am certain it will handle my needs for now, but Ido believe I will have to get CS3 at some point.

I think it’s important to get stuff right without the post

It seems to me that we all know this to be one of the truest mantras in Photography, and David, thank you for reiterating; I do need to shoot well and not rely on software. Once that is done, the correct exposures that is, how does one decide or determine proper aesthetics? Beauty is in the eye…….? Is there an est. set of guidelines? I would imagine one could say the guidelines differ pending upon the intended audience: mags, art, personal value, etc.

D.

[John Bennett]

My ow persoanl experinece is that I often don’t know Dusty.
How much is too much? Sometimes its hard to tell. Im sure there are times I “finalise” an image and somone else thinks its been sharpened a tad to much, or saturated a bit to much, or too much “punch” added. Or its a little “dark” (underexposed) or overexposed.

Photography like any art form is subjective. To use a cliche image with a cliche statement.
Sunsets. Some people flat out love over saturated images and gobble them up, some people come to loathe them.

Take a decent image and convert it to B&W. Which do you like more?
Drives me nuts sometimes trying to decide. Usually I opt for the “safe” approach. No crops (anymore), no cloning, enough adjustments to bring out the image, yet try to keep it natural looking.

If its an image I want to play with. Typically images I dont think are all that, I go nuts sometimes to see how much I can alter it. Spend 30 minutes trying this and that compare two side by side with different adjustments  and then delete it or them 🙂

The last week or so Ive been playing alot with filter effects in post. adding Colour cast to help me recognise them,adding some to change the tone/mood from a nuetral to a warm image. Adding false light that wasnt there etc. Eventually I want to learn how to do composites…Take a moon, add it to a scene witha stag in a field, add boats where none existed. A a strom system overhead where none exited for “mood” etc.

Those would only be for sale as prints. dont ever think about trying to send something like to a magazine 🙂

[john michael white]

Dusty,

Take a look at GIMP and see if it might work for you….

http://www.gimp.org/

http://docs.gimp.org/en/

I don’t blame you if you want CS3, I just can’t allocate $700 for it.

[dusty montgomery]

John,
I must have posted one of the older versions of this image-this last one does not look like the one I did w/ Canon’s DPP, but thanks for clueing me in to that. I’ll try gimp as well.

I do not want to part with that much change either, but my wife is working on her Master’s, so we can get the basic Photoshop for something like $200 through the college bookstore. One of the probs. though with purchasing academic software is that upgrades are not available as they would be for for full retail copies.
Dusty

[Eric DeWitt]

For most of the photo post work you will be doing, whatever the current version of PS is will last you for at least a few years.

[nick davis]

I think it might not be such a bad idea if you get on the water before 8 am lol. 1.)for the fishing 2.)to take pics. See you Sat bro.

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