armando_roldan Posted November 25, 2004 Share Posted November 25, 2004 I been reading what seems like hundreds of questions and the easiest answer to anyone with issues with D70 images is " just fix it in photoshop CS* or * you can use this plug-in in photoshop* etc. Well folks, after getting a D70, an i-ttl flash, compact flash cards and superwide wide angle lens to be compatible with the 1.5x image growth with the D70, I haven't got $700 for photoshop and the rest fo the supporting videos and reading material on how to learn to use it. Anyone here just thrilled with a image , be it NEF or Jpg and saved without editing? maybe my tastes are different from quite a few peopel here but I am quite satisfied with my straight unedited images. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vivek iyer Posted November 25, 2004 Share Posted November 25, 2004 Good for you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ilkka_nissila Posted November 25, 2004 Share Posted November 25, 2004 I usually adjust levels in Photoshop but that's all I do to D70 images(apart from some cropping). An image editor is often needed and the more you do digital photography, the more you see opportunities to use one. There are many cheaper image editors available which can be used (almost) as well as photoshop. How about Picture Window Pro which is <$100? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ron_goodman1 Posted November 25, 2004 Share Posted November 25, 2004 If you're running Mac OS X, Graphic Converter will handle the basics, including reading NEF files. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wogears Posted November 25, 2004 Share Posted November 25, 2004 Golly, after I got my new Nikon F-1 to celebrate President Johnson's election, all anybody talked about was this "dodging and burning" stuff, and different contrast grades of paper and split toning and... Wasn't anybody just thrilled with the little contact prints? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
r_wagner Posted November 25, 2004 Share Posted November 25, 2004 Photoshop Elements 3.0 (around $65.00 after rebates) does a pretty good job. And if latter you start thinking about Photoshop CS you will have a basic understanding of Adobe's system. -RW Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rick_twigg Posted November 25, 2004 Share Posted November 25, 2004 I second the suggestion for Photoshop Elements 3.0. It's a great value. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david_h._hartman Posted November 25, 2004 Share Posted November 25, 2004 Get a program with a "Curves Palette." Id have no use for Photoshop Elements as they left this most important element out. Do not use brightness and contrast as these cause clipping, use levels and curves instead.<br> <br> Regards,<br> <br> Dave Hartman.<br> <br> PS: I dont have a D70 but Ive been using Photoshop since v3.0 and used Photostyler and Gray FX before. I finally broke down an bought a 6.3 MP P&S last night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fxt_px Posted November 25, 2004 Share Posted November 25, 2004 The answer is simply PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 2.0. I have both Elements and PS7 - and quite honestly, for a guy like me with limited needs - I cant see spending the extra $600 for PS7 (or CS). ELEMENTS (2.0 OR 3.0) has many of the more utilized tools available in PS7. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cappoldt Posted November 25, 2004 Share Posted November 25, 2004 Jeez...I think I just found the only spot on the Web where everyone's actually PAID for their software... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msitaraman Posted November 25, 2004 Share Posted November 25, 2004 Armando, I have Photoshop CS, Photoshop Elements, and Nikon Capture 4.1. I have a Nikon D100. After the first couple of weeks, I've been using Nikon Capture exclusively to process RAW images. About once a month, I use PS CS for some local area adjustment that could just as easily be done in Elements. Why does the $100 Nikon Capture work so well? 1. The interface is well suited to batch processing. 2. Raw adjustments (and conversion) is better than in PS CS. 3. Shadow/Highlight control is noticeably better. 4. Color saturation and white balance are better. 5. The interface is quite a bit better; you can move adjustment sliders for multiple adjustments simultaneously. The cons? At first, it seems a bit slow to load. But the superior user interface/GUI makes up for it in overall efficiency and speed. Most images only need overall adjustments in the first post-processing. Very few indeed need local tweaking. So PS is not reslly needed 95% of the time, if that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamiew Posted November 25, 2004 Share Posted November 25, 2004 Armando. I think you are missing the point. The "just fix in photoshop" is not specific to the D70. As a matter of fact, it's also not specific to photoshop. It's more of a general comment that if you have minor issues with any image from any camera you need to fix it in whatever image editor you have. It's more like fix it in post processing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grant_. Posted November 25, 2004 Share Posted November 25, 2004 i think post processing is essential to any good photograph...just as printing is....youve never seen a 'master' print that was straight from a neg, ever.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grant_. Posted November 25, 2004 Share Posted November 25, 2004 cept for polaroids of course, and who gives a shyt about those... :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brian_ristuccia1 Posted November 25, 2004 Share Posted November 25, 2004 The vast majority of images I take are simply corrected for white balance and exposure at raw conversion time. There's no real photo editing to do. If you have a Windows PC handy, you can use the software included with the camera for this purpose. Even if you need to do more complex editing, there's no need to shell out $700 on photoshop. There's plenty of good Free tools. I use the gimp with the rawphoto plugin to open and edit raw images from the D70. Typical case has been open file, spot white balance, drag exposure slider, fix any redeye. Maybe 30 seconds a shot unless there's a lot of eyes to click on. For batch conversions, I use the combination of dcraw, imagemagick, neftags2jpeg, and exiftran. I've recently added the clens program to my workflow, automagically correcting barrel distortion in images taken at the wide end of the kit zoom lens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grant_. Posted November 25, 2004 Share Posted November 25, 2004 <i>There's no real photo editing to do</i> <br><br> if theres anyone that needs it most its you! jeeze... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frank_skomial Posted November 26, 2004 Share Posted November 26, 2004 Perfectly exposed and sharp picture in JPG usually does need any photo editing. Digital photo editing of such a picture would only ruin it or changed into something different than the original subject. I have thousands of JPG photos that are perfectly exposes and composed, and no ditigal editing is needed, as it would only deteriorate or alter the good thing. Instead of learning and practicing proper shooting technique, new crop of casual digital photographers tend to go the easy way, not paying for any film is easy, shoot tons of bad photos, and trying to edit them digitally. With this approach Photoshop may be important and necessary. The first remedy is to try to shoot perfect pictures, and do not assume that you would need to make them good by digital editing. Of course you need to know your camera ebility and behavior, and a lot of experience in the old fasion film techniques. More knowledgeable you are about traditional photography, less likely you will need to edit bad photos in Photoshop. Do not let simplicity of taking digital photography take away your creativity and talent. You will certainly be more satisfied by shooting few well though of, composed and exposed perfect pictures, than shotting hundreds of photos hoping that some will happen to be good. Shoot less, but try to make best of your ebility, shoot like you would shoot with film camera, carefully composing a picture and selecting best parameters for the subject and lighting condition. Then you will discover that you may not need Photoshop at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lex_jenkins Posted November 26, 2004 Share Posted November 26, 2004 I have an ancient version of Photoshop on Mac but can't remember the last time (if ever) I used it. Years ago when I first started fooling with digital photo editing I tried several baby programs that flat out pissed me off, including stuff from Ulead, Kodak, Canon, Microsnot and others. On PC my main image editors are Corel Photo Paint 8 and Jasc Paint Shop Pro 7. I'd like to upgrade each but what the heck, they're working fine. Occasionally I'll try a new PS-compatible plug-in. Unless you need access to a number of colorspaces or are a graphics professional (not "just" a photographer) you may not need Photoshop or Corel Photo Paint. I set everything to sRGB as my default mode and get perfectly good prints from any Frontier machine that's competently operated. Picture Window Pro from Digital Light & Color is also well worth considering. Last time I looked there was a free 30-day trial version that was pretty much uncrippled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bill_harris1 Posted November 26, 2004 Share Posted November 26, 2004 You do not need a full version of P/S...The LE version will do any necessary editing. Cost around $100.00 and is much better than anything Nikon puts out. Very easy to use... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
everitt Posted November 26, 2004 Share Posted November 26, 2004 <I/>More knowledgeable you are about traditional photography, less likely you will need to edit bad photos in Photoshop. Do not let simplicity of taking digital photography take away your creativity and talent.</I><P> <P> Ummm.. I don't know about you, but what you call "traditional photography" involves darkroom work, you know, dodging, burning, contrast filters, etc. Not exactly leaving the photo as is. Implying that Photoshop takes away from creativity is one of the most ludicrous things I've heard in a while.. The final print is what's the most important, and by completely ignoring post-processing, you ain't gonna get many good final prints.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karim Ghantous Posted November 26, 2004 Share Posted November 26, 2004 Sure, guys, but what about slides? Nobody ever goes on about how to work on a slide after it's processed. Okay, okay, even with slides you needed filters sometimes, thankfully now replaced with WB controls. But that is available in the free software that comes with your camera. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gaius1 Posted November 26, 2004 Share Posted November 26, 2004 You can get a freeware program called Gimp (or "t3h g1mP" as Linux-users call it, they love to do that funny typing) that is a substitute in a pinch for Photoshop. It's quite powerful, but the user interface is atrocious (like, where Photoshop has two levels of menus, Gimp has about five). Still, did I mention that it's free? They have a website at www.gimp.org. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ilkka_nissila Posted November 26, 2004 Share Posted November 26, 2004 I spend quite a lot of time correcting my slides in Photoshop, in fact much more than digitally captured files. Slides may need a bit of work to print well. Anyone who thinks that no adjustments are needed on a properly exposed image just doesn't know what a good print is. And shooting JPG reduces your chances of having a good result, not increases. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vivek iyer Posted November 26, 2004 Share Posted November 26, 2004 "Anyone who thinks that no adjustments are needed on a properly exposed image just doesn't know what a good print is." Ilkka, I guess you never experienced Cibachrome wet prints. It still exists. Try it and then decide. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grant_. Posted November 26, 2004 Share Posted November 26, 2004 i used to work with someone that did cibachromes, and let me tell you he did a hell of a lotta work to them in the darkroom....just as he would print a bw image....and btw, when have you ever seen slides in a museum or gallery? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now