mccosh

<p>I don't think it is a gift.When you first start out there is thousands of different looks you can get from a single image in post processing.</p>

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<p>How do you know you got a good picture thru post processing?</p>

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<p>There are certain elements that you should work on getting right to start with, Exposure, White balance and cropping but even then these can be pushed for creative looks. After that it is very much personal choice.</p>

<p>Photography is an art form especially when it comes to post processing, what one person likes another might dislike, all these thousand's of possibilities will appeal to some and not others. </p>

<p>To help simplify your post processing you need to start working on developing a style. Have a look on line and work out what style you like best and start working towards editing all your images to match this style and keep working towards fine tuning this style. That's not to say that you should try different styles once in a while. But processing the bulk of your images to one style will give your photos a consistent look and will make your post processing much easier.</p>

<p>Hope this helps. </p>

<p>This Photographer should have protected your images as any professional would do. My back up plan is this</p>

<p>1) I shoot with a camera that has two memory cards these are set up to record each image to both cards one backing up the other.</p>

<p>2) At the completion of the day one card is removed from the camera and placed in a card case that remains in my car as an off site backup.</p>

<p>3) As soon as I get home the other card is removed and downloaded to my external hard drive with a second backup copy saved to my internal drive.</p>

<p>4) Once I have edited all the images non-destructive (this means the original images are always left as shoot) and create the clients disks of images along with a back up set of these disks that are filled away. Only then is the backup memory card that was kept in my car is reformatted and put back in my camera back memory case to be reused. The second copy of images on my internal drive are deleted about a month after the client are giving their images. The original images on the external hard drive and the edited copies are kept indefinitely.</p>

<p>This workflow means that before delivery of images to my clients I have three copies - 1) External drive, 2) Internal Drive & 3) Memory card stored in my car as an off site backup. Following this procedure I hopefully totally eliminate the possibility of losing my clients images.</p>

<p>I would ask your photographer has she sent her hard drive away to an image recovery service. They should be able to recover data from the crashed drive. It would also be worthwhile asking all your guests if they took any photos.</p>

<p>SLR Lounge make a great package with over 300 Presets and Brushes. <a href="http://www.slrlounge.com/store-product/lightroom-presets">http://www.slrlounge.com/store-product/lightroom-presets</a> well worth a look.</p>

<p>Hi Vicki,</p>

<p>I am also looking at buying the Tamron 70-200 f/2.8 over the Nikon lens. Have ruled out the Sigma lens as this zoom's in the opposite direction than Nikon lenses. I have the Tamron 28-75 f/2.8 lens and love the quality from it. Exceptionally sharp at f/5.6. <br /><br />Will be very interested to see what others have to say about these two lenses</p>

 

<p>Not quite the same but I shot a Wedding on 4th May this year and then received a message from the bride on the 31st May to say that her mother had just been killed in a car accident and asked if I had some nice photos of her mum from the wedding for the funeral handout. Luckily I had already edited all the images and in any case the mother of the bride is only in a few shots not anywhere near as many as the groom is.<br /> <br />I can appreciate how hard it must be to edit these images, normally when we edit images of the bride and groom we do so to emphasize the love they have for each other. This will be hard but feel as though it is something that still needs to be done. The bride will always have the photos to look back on with fond memories of her short time with her husband. Your job no matter how hard, is to show their love for one another.</p>

<p>Good luck<br />John</p>

<p>I would also recommend the D600 as a second camera. As a wedding photographer I believe you should only be using single focus point with focus lock to always be in a position to focus on exactly the area that you want not what the camera thinks you want. Therefore the 39AF points against 51AF points is irrelevant. The D600 is a very capable camera.</p>

<p>AH! Sorry Marc, should have read your post closer. Coral's software won't work on your Imac. so please ignore my post. Good luck with your search.</p>

 

<p>I use Coral Video Studio Pro 5 check out a slideshow here that was created with this software. It's very easy to use and very powerful. I am only scratching the surface.<br>

<a href="http://mccosh.smugmug.com/Weddings/Karl-Coralie-1/K-C-Preview">http://mccosh.smugmug.com/Weddings/Karl-Coralie-1/K-C-Preview</a></p>

<p>If I was to hire a photographer with an second shooter, then I would expect one photographer to go to the location of the girls getting ready while the other goes to the boys location. If you only have one car then this could also raise an issue. <br /><br />I honestly think that your not in a position to do the job so you should therefore turn down the work until you are in a position to do it properly.</p>

<p>I use both. Lightroom for 98% of my workflow and if the image needs me to work in more depth than Lightroom allows then I have Coral PSP set up as my external editor. Automatically creates a 16bit tiff file and opens this in PSP. Once I have finished editing click save and automatically opens the file back up in Lightroom.<br /><br />Don't use aftershot never have so can't comment except to say that I agree that it comes nowhere near Lightroom. Coral is a good alternative for Photoshop and does work well with Lightroom if set up as above.</p>

<p>Rich, Sorry not able to answer your question but one way would be to download the trial version and check out for yourself if your able to read your D800E files</p>

<p>Gene, here is a very good article on how to create an HDR image using only one raw image and Lightroom.<br /><br /><a href="http://digital-photography-school.com/correcting-and-creating-hdr-images-in-lightroom">http://digital-photography-school.com/correcting-and-creating-hdr-images-in-lightroom</a></p>

 

<p>Not to sure that your 100% correct there Jeff.<br>

High-dynamic-range photographs are generally achieved by capturing multiple standard photographs, often using <a title="Bracketing" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracketing#Exposure_bracketing">exposure bracketing</a>, and then merging them into an HDR image.<br>

As the above states "are generally achieved" My understanding is that HDR is an image that displays High Dynamic Range no matter how this was achieved.<br /><br />Your argument is that if I created three images from one raw file in Lightroom one as shot, one with +2 stops exposure and the last with -2 stops exposure and then exported these to lets say the Nik program to create an HDR image from these three images I would have a true HDR image as opposed to being able to do this in Lightroom by pulling +2 stops of information from the shadows and -2 stops of information from the highlights.<br>

I'm not saying that Lightroom would create and image as good as lets say the Nik software again. But the image from Lightroom does have a High Dynamic Range and is therefore a HDR image.<br>

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<p>You can't do this. Lightroom can not pull out exposure <a id="_GPLITA_1" title="Click to Continue > by Browse to Save" href="/digital-darkroom-forum/00bcsA?start=10">information</a> that isn't there in a single image. It doesn't work that way. This is "HDR look" and has little to do with HDR.</p>

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<p>The exposure information is there in a Raw image. As stated maybe to not quite the same extent as three seperate images but you will still get -2 stops to +2 stops from a single raw image. If you look at my photo you will see the boys are in deep shadow under the trees with bright sunlight shinning through. Lightroom has been able to pull detail from both the shadows as well as the highlights. <br /><br />HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. This image certainly has that so the answer to the original question "Can Lightroom produce HDR image" is yes.</p>

<p>If you shoot in Raw format then you can create an HDR image directly within Lightroom from a single image. Ok maybe not to the high end but probably good enough for most people's use.</p><div></div>

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<p>I have PS Elements but I also need 16 bit editing</p>

 

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<p>Coral Paintshop does 16 bit editing and is very reasonably priced. Very powerful program. Here is an image I created in Coral Paintshop from 6 different photos of my son to create the final image of him playing cards with himself x 5... Wasn't that hard to do.</p><div></div>

<p>Coral Paintshop is a great alternative to Adobe Photoshop. Download a free copy from their website <a href="http://www.corel.com/corel/product/index.jsp?pid=prod4220093&cid=catalog20038&segid=4300004&storeKey=us&languageCode=en">http://www.corel.com/corel/product/index.jsp?pid=prod4220093&cid=catalog20038&segid=4300004&storeKey=us&languageCode=en</a></p>

<p>Well I have a D90 that is made in Japan and a D600 that is made in Thailand and the D600 has a much better feel to it and feels like a much better quality camera, as it is. So I wouldn't knock the D600 just because it is assembled in Thailand. </p>

<p>Not sure what D600 you looked at, but mine is very solid and very well made and I am 110% happy with it.</p>

<p>Thanks for the update and glad you found the problem and a solution to it. I did notice that My shutter / mirror on my D600 was quite stiff and loud for the first thousand or so shots. It then started being a lot quieter and smoother in operation. If your camera is still very low shutter count then maybe yours will improve as well over time.</p>

<p>The D600 is a great camera, I give it 5 out of 5. Yes I had a few dust issues but nothing a couple of cleans hasn't fixed. Everyone should know how to keep your sensor clean and be able to clean yourself. </p>

 

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<p>I have not done any lens alignment for any of my lenses on any of my cameras. I take a tripod mounted shot of a target from 10-15ft away of something with fine detail and if the pic and the target look close, I'm happy.</p>

 

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<p>I presume the reason for your post is that your not happy.</p>

<p>One other thing to consider is the light levels between indoors and outdoors is the auto focus struggling in the lower light conditions of the indoors and thus not giving you a crisp sharp image. Also maybe the subject hasn't enough contrast for the auto focus to snap on, The auto focus will have trouble on a flat even coloured object. Make sure your focusing on an edge of an object with some contrast between it and the background.</p>

<p>Could this be caused by the different focus length's between your outdoor and indoor shots. I presume your focusing on a point that is further away outside than you are on the indoor shots.</p>

<p>Have you gone into the setup menu on the D600 and AF fine-tune to create a profile for your 300mm f/4 lens. I had much sharper images on my D600 on both my Nikon 70-300mm VRII lens and my Tamron 28-75 f/2.8 lens once I had set up profiles for each. Interesting that both lens's required -15 adjustment to create the sharpest image.</p>

<p>John</p><div></div>

<p>I wouldn't use an app. These shots need to be done as quickly as possible and the best way of doing that is to hand the MC a list on paper with a pencil to organise everyone and tick off when done. To assist in speed of these shots always start with the biggest family group and ask people to leave. Much quicker asking someone to leave than trying to add them to the group when there talking to someone that they haven't seen in quite a while. I think pulling out a phone after every shot is going to slow up this process.</p>

<p>Just my thoughts for what they are worth.<br>

John</p>

 

<p>Try optimising your catalogue. Under the File menu. This might fix your problem.</p>