software for processing sport pictures

[scott_southard]

Hi everyone.

 

I just talked to Bill and he told me to buy noise ninja. I did, and I am

using it with adobe photo elelments.

 

My first question is should I fix the photo with the histogram first and them

use noise ninja? Or noise ninja then fix the photo.

 

My second question, I have two dell computers and a mac book. I want to buy a

better photo software. I have been looking at Apple's Apurature. Does it

have a noise fixing element in the program?

 

I did take the advise on shooting the high school football pictures.

 

Take a look at my website: www.bbchsfootball.com

 

(go to the game day tag at the top and you will see the latest pictures. Tell

me what you think I used noise ninja and photo shop elements.

 

I shot the the game with the following:

 

1. Manual

2. ISO 1600

3. 250

4. 5.6

5. ALSERVO

6. JPEG

 

My last question, would I get better results shooting in JPEG +RAW?

 

I really appreciate everyones replies.

 

The football team love the pictures.

 

I really want to give them the best picture possible.

 

Thanks

 

Scott Southard

[pmind]

Scott, sorry to selectively answer only one part of your question, but regarding the order in

which Noise Ninja is used, you should be using Levels on an adjustment layer and using NN

on your Background layer (or a copy of it), and saving your edits as Photoshop files and not

overwritting the original RAW/jpegs. If Elements doesn't support Levels on an adjustment

layer, please excuse my ignorance as I use only CS. Paul

[mark u]

Scott,

 

A quick glance at your website shows that following the advice you got in your previous question seems to have paid off pretty well. I think you can see how a faster lens would help some more - f/4 would allow you to shoot at 1/500th and 1600 ISO to help eliminate some of the motion blur that affects some of the shots, and f/2.8 would get you to 1/500th at 800 ISO with much lower noise levels to contend with. You're lucky that the lighting is as good as it is at the home venue at least. Lots of practice will help you get an increased proportion of well composed and timed shots. Anticipating the action is an art - remember that with an SLR you don't see what the camera actually shoots until you come to review the shots, so you need to shoot ahead of the action. Don't be afraid to use portrait orientation to help get some tight framing.

 

 

So far as shooting raw+jpeg rather than jpeg, as I explained in my previous answer, raw files give image processing software more to work with, and tolerate a greater degree of adjustment than jpeg files do. The penalty is reduced burst depth and the need for more CF cards and disk space. Having the jpegs can provide a quick way to decide which shots are worth working on, since even with a lot of practice you will never get 100% keepers, and you might as well discard shots that are out of focus, or where another player has moved in front and obscures too much of the action. You might find that raw isn't needed when you can shoot at lower ISOs.