Comments on: Down and Dirty – Gritty Urban Photography

By: cfimages

cfimages — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 00:38:48 +0000

Good to know Stevo. I haven't really tested out any of the Alien Skin plug ins. I got the Nik collection a couple of years ago and use that a fair bit, and have just recently installed On One's plug-ins, mainly for their masking tools.

By: Stevo

Stevo — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 00:30:13 +0000

I wanted to add: Alien Skin's Exposure 2 plug-ins for Photoshop also do a great job in making street photos "down and dirty."

By: cfimages

cfimages — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 03:12:13 +0000

That's cool. If you find it necessary to shoot RAW at any time, you can also set your RAW editor to automatically convert to the same JPG settings you have in-camera so it doesn't really take any extra time.

By: MJ Klein

MJ Klein — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 02:59:05 +0000

yeah i seem to remember it is "joint" but for some reason i was thinking it was "Japanese!"

not to beat the issue to death, but the main reason why i don't shoot RAW is time. you can't use RAW for anything directly. you can't send someone a RAW file, or upload a RAW image to flickr or use it on a blog. every RAW file must be personally manipulated by computer to turn it into a format that can be used. i just don't have that kind of time to futz around with the hundreds of shots that i take. since i don't crop photos or manipulate them in PS or Gimp, i bracket shots and i take several shots with different compositions using the zoom lens. i've settled on a set of camera settings that process the data into JPG files that i like and i don't have to do any post processing to get what i want. so for me, shooting RAW is a waste of time and storage space since i don't need RAW files for anything in particular. but of course i have shot RAW when necessary. it's just not necessary very often. thanks Craig.

By: cfimages

cfimages — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 05:42:06 +0000

Glad you like the tips Carrie. Photoshop is a lot of fun to play with, but it's very easy to go too far. If you need any lens advice, feel free to ask.

By: Carrie

Carrie — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 04:56:19 +0000

Great tips, Craig. I don't use Photoshop at all, but since I've got some extra time on my hands I figure it's about time I give it a try. I'm in the market for a new lens this month and then I'm going to get down to business.

By: cfimages

cfimages — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 23:41:44 +0000

I'll be looking out for your results. Thanks Stevo.

By: Stevo

Stevo — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:26:19 +0000

I'm off to give this a try. Excellent tutorial. I've only started using Lightroom. Another application to conquer…

I'll agree with you about RAW. I used to shoot JPEG (because I only had a 1g CF card). My processed RAW images look far better, for both color and sharpness, then my JPGs ever did. Open a RAW and a JPEG side by side (shoot both of the same subject) and compare on screen. I was utterly surprised.

By: cfimages

cfimages — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 10:06:45 +0000

It's actually Joint Photographic Experts Group and there are at least 7 different flavors. Each camera maker has their own definition of RAW but DNG is something of a standard that's available for anyone to use no matter what camera they use.
All JPGs are post processed. They're just done in-camera. But they are still post-processed data. Every photo you've used anywhere has undergone that processing. There's no real difference between setting the saturation (for example) higher in camera for JPG or shooting RAW and doing it later, except one of them you have control over and the other you don't.

To put it in music terms, it's like the difference between a drummer (RAW) and a drum machine (JPG).

By: MJ Klein

MJ Klein — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 09:46:19 +0000

"whereas with JPG someone in a factory in Japan has decided ahead of time what the processing will be" -yes, the Japanese Photo Experts Group, a body of people uniquely qualified to make that judgment. at least it's a standard. RAW is different for every camera.

that being aside, i'm proud to say that any photo that i've taken that's been used in a textbook, website (like wikipedia) etc., has been a jpeg that was unretouched by post processing. just think of all the disc space i've saved! lol