Photography Arts Association of India / View topic

admin Joined: 14 Mar 2005 Posts: 4838 Location: NewDelhi

Hi
Here am posting the basic post processing for the starters.
Hope this helps our new members who are into digital photography.
There are so many steps&ways to process the image.
This is normal steps to do any digital image file.
I use Nikon Capture &Photoshop.
Original unprocessed Jpeg file.

Nikon capture,if you using photoshop you can try all steps in Photoshop,while opening the raw file.
Note :If you shooting only Jpeg then start Photostop steps.
Step1.:
Open raw file into Nikon capture.
Apply USM 50. 5. 4
This is just restore the details,because the orignal raw files are soft.

Step2:Set white balance.
Daylight cloudy
Adjust the whitebalance,
here I did dalight cloudy.
You can set manually too.

Step3:Exposure compensation
Give small amount of EV starting .33...see the changes.
Colour mode should be Mode II
Tone Comp(ensation) as set Medium high.

Step4: Save the pic as TIFF FILE

Save as TIFF 16bit/8bit.
If you dont want tiff files ,could save as JPEG too.

If you don't have enough memory to process,or storage problems in computer,you can work on Jpeg too.
Resaving as JPEG’s everytime you lose the details.

Now Open the TIFF in Photoshop
*********************************
Work profile for the image Working space Adobe RGB(1998).

Step1:Levels.
This is called histogram.It reflects tonal value of the pic,starting black on the left to white extreme right. If its extrem left then its under exposed,if its extreme right then its over exposed.. Bring both left and right sliders to where the histogram starts.

Step2:Colour correction
I have prominent white point at bottom of the bird ,apply colour correction.
If the pic has 18%gray then you do midtone correction straightaway.
Most of the time we coun't see the midtone.

If tough to find yourself midtone ,to select black points check this tutorial for selecting the black,white and midtone points.
http://www.employees.org/~atanu/tutorials/BlackandWhiteBalanceSetting.htm

http://www.employees.org/~atanu/tutorials/MiddletoneCorrection.htm

Step3:Crop..If your bird is small in the frame you can crop now.
select crop tool,put the required size.
This pic I want to keep as its,So am not croping .
Avoid heavy crop,you will lose the details.
always try 4:1ratio

Step4:Contrast

Contrast Increase the contrast 5-10 depends on the pic.
You can do contrast adjustments using CURVES too.

Step5:Saturation
Increase 5 to 10 You can increase the selective colour too.

Step6:Save for web.
File=>Save for web
There put the size Height600 *width400
Jpeg,Quality maximum

Save as web Size 600*400

Stpe7: Unsharp Masking

Image=>Mode=>LAB colour
Convert Image mode to Lab mode.
Apply USM.
For web 70,.5.1 it depends on camara ,and ISO .

Always make sure you check the preview,it should not over sharpen look,all the adjustments are subtle.

Step8:Restore blackness-USM

Filter=>Sharpen=>Unsharp Mask

Try Amount 20 to30
Increase Radius up to a number between 20 and 60.
This shot I applied 20,10.5
Amount 20,
Radius 10.5
Check always preview button,pic should look natural,so go for subtly.
This restoring blackness makes the shot more vibrant.

Wire-tailed Swallow

For PRINT,Skip the save web step7...Do other steps tiff file only.
Normal setting for print.
For USM 150,Radius 1.3-1.5,threshold 2
To make it noise free background apply NEATIMAGE at default setting to only background.

Note :in Photoshop create one more layer,do all steps in that layer only.
So that your orignal pic would be there,if anysteps go wrong, you can still work on the pic.

Hope it helps for the NewMembers.
Happy Clicking.
Rathika

This is very helpful to everybody. Thanks for this....

Rathika
Very informative post summed up very nicely......
Iam sure it will help many members .....both old and new ones .....
There is just a minor difference in Canon RAW viewer and Nikon capture , so it shudnt be of worry to Canon users as well .... Very Happy

Thanks for sharing

Happy shooting ....Long live paai
Jatin

admin Joined: 14 Mar 2005 Posts: 4838 Location: NewDelhi

Thank you Neloy and Jatin.
Jatin,Canon user could do same steps in there software.
basic steps are same Smile

Cheers

Thanks so much Rathika for this information.......

I recently bought Adobe Creative Suite (photoshop), was looking for some simple tutorials and tips and I find your post very very useful.

Best
Satvir

Just a querry to everybody .....

Shud we apply noise reduction AFTER resizing and sharpneing or BEFORE resizing and sharpening .....

Just a thought as i was going thru different methods ........

Jatin

admin Joined: 14 Mar 2005 Posts: 4838 Location: NewDelhi

I do as last step,only for the background I run neatimage.Birds I keep as its.

Thanks Rathika. I'm having photoshop but never knew what to do with it, may be with this Tutorial I can play around. Very Happy

Fantastic, thanks for the tips.