Workflow in GIMP for landscapes

Hi,

I have recently started doing photography with a DSLR. My past experience is shooting landscapes and general photography with 35mm and 120 mm film (both slide and negative).

In some ways shooting with film is easy. No need to worry about color palette or white balance. The film emulsion defines the "feel" of the film. Velvia is different from Provia is different from Ektar is different from Portra. How they react to underexposure/overexposure is also different. Velvia greens are quite remarkable and have a characteristic Velvia feel.

Can someone please give me some pointers, about a digital work flow? Or, is it just brute force learning? Are there any guidelines for post processing geared towards Landscape photography? Or, just go by how the photo feels?

Thanks.

Anything useful would be far too long to post here.

First, you will probably need to get some sort of software. I would recommend Lightroom.

After that, do a web search and you will find good tutorials specific to your software. Also, there are some good books on this subject if you go to Amazon and read reviews.

Can someone please give me some pointers, about a digital work flow? Or, is it just brute force learning? Are there any guidelines for post processing geared towards Landscape photography? Or, just go by how the photo feels?

Hi, I would suggest that you let the camera do the "heavy lifting," and that you just use your software (GIMP) for relatively small adjustments.

The two most crucial things when working with camera jpeg images are the "white balance" and exposure. These are especially important because a camera jpeg image does not have a lot of headroom for adjustments; you want to start out as close as feasible. I would suggest to use a custom white balance whenever possible; some plain white paper is generally ok for this, BUT... such paper almost always contains "brighteners," which give a very slight bluish tint in daylight (UV light causes the brighteners to fluoresce). I think you're better off using some sort of "museum" board from an art supply store - this shouldn't have the brighteners. But such board tends to appear yellowish, another bad feature. So look for the whitest such board, which is typical bleached.

To set a custom white balance check your camera's manual for the method. It is necessary that the white card is illuminated by the same light as the scene; in this situation you can probably also use the white card as an exposure guide; aim for pixel values of about 235 to 240. Most digital cameras can display a histogram; try to get the sharp "spike" of the histogram in approximately the right place.

If you are shooting something like a sunset then it is not possible to use a white card properly. As a rule of thumb, setting the camera white balance to normal daylight (~5500 K) is probably a good option.

You should also know something about ICC color management. A question for you - do you know what it means to shoot in sRGB vs AdobeRGB, and that sort of thing?

On the topic of color management, using the camera jpeg will be somewhat limiting on the total range of colors you can capture. Most serious landscape shooters will probably want to shoot in camera "raw" to keep as many options as possible, but I don't believe you can work with it in GIMP. So you might consider setting your camera to shoot both raw and jpeg simultaneously; you have a jpeg to work with NOW, plus the full raw image for possible future use.

When you are working within GIMP, I think your most useful tool will be the "curves." You can use these either for individual colors or for the overall tone. If you make a certain part of the curve steeper, this increases the contrast in this area, and vice versa. Again, you don't want to make much change in a jpeg, as it may cause "banding." (The jpeg has only 256 possible values for each color, if you increase contrast then some of those values will be missing.)

One last note: when you do these edits, using your monitor for guidance, you are relying on it to have a proper color appearance. This is an iffy situation unless you have "profiled" the monitor yourself with a special piece of hardware and software. This is part of the ICC color management I mentioned earlier; printers should also have an ICC profile.

Hopefully this will get you started.

Thanks Rod and Bill for the suggestions. Bill thanks for the detailed response.

I have used GIMP in the past for editing the scans of my slides. So, I know a little about that workflow. I am also familiar with the curves tool and its use for exaggerating/suppressing contrast differently for shadows and highlights.

Since I have a Canon, I am thinking that I will use the Canon digital photo professional for RAW to TIFF conversion. Adjust the white balance and such in DPP and any further processing in GIMP. I am a big fan of the idea that the shot should be 90-95% complete on the field.

I have heard about sRGB and Adobe RGB. My perception is that Adobe RGB matters for high end prints. Otherwise sRGB is fine.

I am planning to shoot in RAW + JPG and will likely use RAW as my main post processing format. RAW -> TIFF -> Process -> Export. I plan to eventually move to a color calibrated monitor. Until then I will rely on the screen of my macbook pro which I think is not bad for photo editing purposes.

Thanks again.