Camera Features versus Photoshop?

[Arieloz]

Hi there, I am a total newbie to the world of photography, and have about 1 million questions, but i will start with just one, *chuckles*. I have used my Canon EOS 50E for the last 3 years but only on the auto settings, I wasnt very adventurous.

I am about to head off to Europe from Australia, so I bought myself a new toy.
A Canon EOS 20D, BG-E2 battery Grip, two batteries, canon 18-55 Lens, and a sigma 50-500 Lens. Also looking at grabbing a Speedlight 580 before I go.

Anway, to the question.

I have been playing around with the 20D and practicing using the B&W shots.
What im wondering about, is there any benefit in using the cameras colour adjustments and light metering, or can you get just as good results from taking a standard shot and editing it in photoshop?

Thanks

Ariel

[steven]

If you are asking if you can get a better black and white picture through taking a digital color and then processing through PS as apposed to letting the camera do it's thing, I would have to say that the PS way will give you a better picture, and give you more control over the end result.

There are many different ways to go from the color picture you camera takes (even when the camera is set to B&W it is really taking a color picture) to a B&W end product. Take a look around and you will find many.

[tim]

I have a book that shows 3 ways to convert color to B&W, each with quite a different result.

[cmM]

I prefer my images that come from the camera to be unaltered (RAW) so I have the flexibility to tweak it in any direction I want. I guess it depends on one's preference

[tim]

RAW turns out to be a hell of a lot of work if you take any significant number of photos. I had to buy a book to learn enough to make it practical and develop a workflow. "Camera RAW with Adobe Photoshop CS" - great book.

[Arieloz]

Ahh thanks everyone for your advice, kind of glad most people use photoshop for tweaking, less functions on the camera i have to learn, hehehehe.


Cheers

Ariel

[tim]

The better the photo you put in the camera the less tweaking you have to do... my tutor, a pro, said he barely ever spends much time on photoshop because he knows how to puts decent shots into the camera. I'm nowhere near that good yet.

[ron chappel]

Hi Ariel!
Congrats on the trip,you've made me jealous;) :)
Have a great time!!

Damn,i had a big reply written and the computer lost it....:cry: .Oh well

Setting the camera to B&W is easiest and quickest .
Otherwise photoshop gives far more options as to how it looks in the end-it's pretty amazing really

If you meant should you use the Auto settings on the camera...you should at least learn what aperture priority and shutter priority can do.This is pretty much the first and most important step in having control over you images-
Stuff like blured backgrounds,getting a moving object sharp,awsome night shots,etc,etc:cool: :cool:

The histogram is probably something you should learn too as it's so easy to understand

If you have any questions,don't hestitae to ask! This forum is full of keen amatuers who like to help

[KennyG]

RAW turns out to be a hell of a lot of work if you take any significant number of photos. I had to buy a book to learn enough to make it practical and develop a workflow. "Camera RAW with Adobe Photoshop CS" - great book.

As someone who shoots 100% RAW with about 1,500 shots per day, I can assure you that RAW file processing is way faster than messing around fixing JPG's, assuming you have the right tools. Capture One is by far the fastest to work with, most accurate and produces the best results The C1 feature of processing images in the background while still being able to work at full power in the foreground sets it above the rest, never mind its quality of output. ACR isn't the best tool for volume workflow in my opinion, nor do I like the horrible things it can do to deep shadow areas or dark/light transistions, but that is a personal thing.

Anyway, the main reason for the post was to comment on B&W images. It is better to take them in colour and convert afterwards. You then have the choice between both images, where if you took it as B&W in the first place, that's all you have. There are a number of free Photoshop actions kicking around that do an excellent job of the conversion if you don't want to get into the tweaking yourself.

Use the histogram a lot, especially in the early days and be ruthless about what you regard as 'keepers'. Now that CF cards are so cheap, even in Europe, buy a few and shoot in high quality JPG or RAW to get the best detail out of your shots.

[dhbailey]

Ahh thanks everyone for your advice, kind of glad most people use photoshop for tweaking, less functions on the camera i have to learn, hehehehe.


Well, it doesn't absolve you from learning about your camera and practicing, practicing, practicing!

There are lots of things that you can do better than the camera, once you know how, such as exposure compensation, white-balance, deciding whether the shot will be better in Tv or Av mode or even full-manual mode. And then with the flash, you'll need to practice to get the proper exposure. The consensus seems to be that the 20D tends to underexpose by about 2/3 of a stop, so if you set the flash-exposure-compensation to +2/3 you should get better results. The important thing to remember, though, is that the quality of the picture is in the eyes of the beholder, so you need to practice to see if you agree.

Another thing you need to to practice with is the various ISO settings -- with the 20D's ability to shoot at 3200, you can take some fantastic low-light shots without ruining the mood by using a flash.

Before you go, practice, practice practice!

As for shooting RAW and doing it all in photoshop, how many pictures do you plan to take while overseas? A 1GB CF card can hold about 110 RAW images, so if you fill 2 such cards (a very conservative low number for someone on vacation with a digital camera!) that's 220 pictures you'll have to process after you return before you share them with anybody or print the best ones to put in an album or hang on your walls. If you spend a mere 10 minutes on each picture to make it look perfect, that's a whopping 2200 minutes! That's almost 40 hours of staring at your computer screen. If you are a working person, you'll be able to spend maybe 1 to 2 hours each day working on your pictures, so that'll mean about a month to get your pictures in order so you can share them. As a professional photographer that amount of time would be nothing, but as an amateur you might find that daunting.

Yes, it's possible to get the workflow to such a point that you know in advance what you'll be doing to each picture as basic processing you can create scripts to speed up that process, but that will take some time to develop.

Another thought to taking everything in RAW is that the larger pictures will fill up your CF cards faster, and will fill up your camera's buffer faster, sometimes making it more difficult to take shots in rapid succession, and greatly diminishing your burst mode capabilities.

I'm not trying to persuade you one way or another, but want you to make an informed decision so you can have the best picture-taking experience while on vacation.

And be sure to buy an extra CF card or two, because the only pictures you'll regret will be the ones you don't take!

Enjoy!

[CyberDyneSystems]

I only shoot RAW, (full color) and convert to B&W in Photoshop.

[tim]

As someone who shoots 100% RAW with about 1,500 shots per day, I can assure you that RAW file processing is way faster than messing around fixing JPG's, assuming you have the right tools. Capture One is by far the fastest to work with, most accurate and produces the best results The C1 feature of processing images in the background while still being able to work at full power in the foreground sets it above the rest, never mind its quality of output. ACR isn't the best tool for volume workflow in my opinion, nor do I like the horrible things it can do to deep shadow areas or dark/light transistions, but that is a personal thing.

I'm using photoshop CS, and damn it's slow, so maybe I should check that out. I just looked at their site, Capture One SE "is being discontinued" - at $99 I can afford it, but $499 for the pro version is out of my price range. Does anyone have more info on this?

[cmM]

Tim, Capture One is the mother of all RAW processing softwares in my eyes ;)

[tim]

Can you help with this question (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=52904)? Basically which version to use, given SE is being discontinued and LE is 10MB vs 35MB so probably cuts out lots of features.

[cmM]

I have the PRO version. I don't know about the other ones.

[Neens_wa]

Ariel -

My first camera was an Elan IIE. I shot in auto mode for three/four years, until I got a 10D this past fall.... <chuckle> Upon opening the box, I knew it was time to $#!t or get off the pot and learn how to use the equpiment properly, and while I've shot a lot of UGLY stuff, I've learned heaps, and shot a LOT of really really nice images. Welcome to photographic adulthood! hahah When you crank out awesome images OFF auto mode, you'll feel like a million bucks. ha!

Do NOT shoot in the B&W mode. Your camera is a STRONG tool, use it properly - ignore that B&W mode, personally, I feel it's a waste. I don't have the 20D, but I did shoot in B&W mode with a higher megapixel canon point 'n shoot, and when zoooooooming in on the images in Photoshop CS, I noticed some pixellation that was only visible on images shot in the B&W mode. Anyone experience this with the pro-sumer bodies? The telephoto wasn't maxxed out, etc... normal shots, but the B&W was a waste.

I recommend you begin by shooting in aperature priority mode (AV), setting your wbalance, and ISO. BTW - don't leave home without that book - and if you can, pick up the magic lantern book for your camera for some good airplane reading!

Now, for your B&W images - there are some wonderful publications to help with this... You'll be going from color to B&W in 10 minutes without batting an eye!!! Try these:

1. Photoshop/Photoshop CS for PHotographers - excellant books for learning.
2. How to Wow - Photoshop for PHotography
3. MANY of the UK published magazines available here in the states at Barnes * Noble/Borders, etc... most notably DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHER and DIGITAL PHOTO EFFECTS (prices at 10 - 13.00 per issue) have CDs and lessons (as well as some free software & plugins). (BTW - Digital Photo Pro (US mag) has an excellant article on RAW this month, and personally, I am a slave to four different UK photo mags, they are THE best....)

You'll be fine shooting high res JPGS, or RAW, however, if you choose to shoot RAW - you will have more control over your image, which will become very important as you advance in your digital imaging - and it could come into play when you're converting your image, as you may need more/less light/etc. depends on the image, and the issue...nonetheless, it's something to keep in the back of your mind.

Hope I didn't bore or go on too long... and please, treat us with your images when you return!

nina

[Pyromaniac]

I have to agree that shooting in color and then converting to B&W is probably the best with the digital. I have Photoshop CS and am quiet happy with what it can do, though I don't procces nearly as many shots as a pro would. Also I go through them and only edit the ones I intend to print with Photoshop. I will also agree with what everyone else has said about learning the maunal modes. When I got my first 35mm SLR I only used the full auto mode for a long time. Then I started seeing other peoples work with great DOF and time lapse stuff,and figured out that I could't get those kind of results in auto. Now that I have figured out the manual mode I almost never use the auto settings. Plus with the manual mode if it's f@#% up I know who to blame, and it's not the camera. I also will have a better idea of what it was I did wrong with it in manual mode.

[booggerg]

More important question is are there any advantages of using a grad neutral density filter on the camera versus bracket shooting and combining the two shots in photoshop? Which would yield better quality? and are there advantages and disadvantages not obvious?

[jrm]

More important question is are there any advantages of using a grad neutral density filter on the camera versus bracket shooting and combining the two shots in photoshop? Which would yield better quality? and are there advantages and disadvantages not obvious?


Note that if you shoot RAW, you can often use the one original to make a "light" and a "dark" version and combine them.

A grad ND can probably yield a better shot in specific circumstances (i.e. where the light/dark of the scene follows the grad of the filter.) The post-process combine method, however, will be useful on a much wider array of shots. I have had some very nice success with the "combine" method.

--Joe

[jrm]

As someone who shoots 100% RAW with about 1,500 shots per day, I can assure you that RAW file processing is way faster than messing around fixing JPG's, assuming you have the right tools. Capture One is by far the fastest to work with, most accurate and produces the best results The C1 feature of processing images in the background while still being able to work at full power in the foreground sets it above the rest, never mind its quality of output. ACR isn't the best tool for volume workflow in my opinion, nor do I like the horrible things it can do to deep shadow areas or dark/light transistions, but that is a personal thing.

<snip>



I have tried the demo version of C1 twice. Maybe it is just me, but I didn't see any great improvement over PS. A few test images looked slightly better in C1, but the large majority were the same or better in PS.

The early version of C1 I tried has a _horrible_ interface. It took me a while to figure out how to convert an image. The recent version seems to fix much of my concerns, but I still think it has a way to go.

C1 had one "killer" feature that did sell me - the ability to crop and rotate and image as part of the RAW processing. Unfortunately, I then found out that this in only available in the "top of the line" version, which costs much more.

Most people rave about the batch capability of C1. It does have some nice features.

Anyone using PS for RAW processing MUST take a look at Dr. Brown's Image Processor. It is a FREE script from one of the Adobe PhotoShop gurus, and can be found at:

http://www.russellbrown.com/body.html

I set all my RAW parameters for each individual shot in the PS browser. Once done, I run Dr. Brown. It generates any combination of Tiff, PSD, jpeg - can resize, add copyright data and more. A real "must have."

Dont' get me wrong - I have nothing against C1. Enough people rave about it that it must be as good as everyone says. If the less expensive version has crop and rotate, I would have bought it myself.

But PhotoShop is no slouch either. Plus, PS can do many things that C1 cannot (image manipulation, etc.). Anyone serious about graphics is going to have PS anyway. C1 is a nice option, but if money is tight and you can only have one, PS has the overall advantage.

--Joe

[tim]

It looks to me like the demo version of C1 does crop and rotate - you can only rotate at 90/180/270 degrees though, not any angle like the more expensive version. You'd rarely need that, just us PSCS when you need it.

[jrm]

As for shooting RAW and doing it all in photoshop, how many pictures do you plan to take while overseas? A 1GB CF card can hold about 110 RAW images, so if you fill 2 such cards (a very conservative low number for someone on vacation with a digital camera!) that's 220 pictures you'll have to process after you return before you share them with anybody or print the best ones to put in an album or hang on your walls. If you spend a mere 10 minutes on each picture to make it look perfect, that's a whopping 2200 minutes! That's almost 40 hours of staring at your computer screen. If you are a working person, you'll be able to spend maybe 1 to 2 hours each day working on your pictures, so that'll mean about a month to get your pictures in order so you can share them. As a professional photographer that amount of time would be nothing, but as an amateur you might find that daunting.

<snip>

And be sure to buy an extra CF card or two, because the only pictures you'll regret will be the ones you don't take!

Enjoy!


My last vacation, I ended up taking about 1500 photos in a week. All RAW.

My trick was, I brought a laptop with photoshop on it. Whenever possible, I would download the pictures off the card. (Every so often, I would also burn a backup CD of the photos that were downloaded)

At night, before I went to sleep, I would do some basic RAW processing and batch output to jpegs. The jpegs were loaded into iPhoto (on a Mac here) so the family could view/email/etc. Most of the "family snapshots" were done at this point and wouldn't benefit much from any further processing (how much time do you really want to spend on a shot that will be printed onto 4x6 for Aunt Millie's refrigerator?)

No reason anyone should be spending 10 minutes per RAW photo (on all their shots). That kind of time is reserved for the "really good" ones. If you have 200 photos that are "that good" then you aren't going to be here asking for advice! :)

You can make settings for your first photo, then apply those setting to all the rest, or a group of similarly exposed shots (C1 and PS can both do that). Then just breeze through the photos and make some minor changes to this "preset". This can be done pretty quick. That' the great thing about RAW - you are not changing the original file. The "quick processing" will allow you to see which shots are the "keepers." Then, you can go back later and re-work the chosen few to "perfection."

RAW is the way to go. Once you establish a workflow and see the possibilities, it is hard to go back to jpegs.


The tip on getting an extra CF card is _invaluable_. You never know when a card can go bad or just fill up. Always have a spare on hand!

--Joe

[jrm]

It looks to me like the demo version of C1 does crop and rotate - you can only rotate at 90/180/270 degrees though, not any angle like the more expensive version. You'd rarely need that, just us PSCS when you need it.


Sorry, it was the "any angle" rotate I was referring to. Seems my eye is "off" by a few degrees. Most handheld shots I take that involve a horizon are slightly slanted. I saw the feature in the instructions and was very disappointed when I was it was only in the high-end version.

Of course, i could just learn to shoot straight. :)

I was also sure the crop function was not available. Checking their website, I see that cropping IS available in the LE version. Either I remember it wrong, or that feature was added since I tried the demo (I did try it at the time they had just introduced the LE version for Mac and did not have a DRebel edition for Mac). If they ever add arbitrary rotation to LE, that's when they will get my $99. :)

In looking at the product description, i also noticed that batch processing is limited to 20 conversions at a time. PS does have an edge of sorts here, as it has no limit on batch operations. Of course, you pretty much have to batch in PS because it will not let you work on another image while it is processing (C1 has a big advantage here.)

Again, if you have the $ for both, that is the way to go.

[Neens_wa]

Gee thanks, Joe...

Now I gotta go in and tell my boss, uh, I don't feel so good, and, uh, I need to go home (she doesn't need to know it's so I can run this Doc. Brown thing you posted!)

Having just hopped over to the RAW side two months ago, for me it's been a PAIN to adjust the RAW images... but learning always has it's painful price. Your post, and the accompanying link, makes me think it's seriously necessary for me to go home now. I know that finishing "Camera RAW with Adobe Photoshop CS" on the boat coming to work this morning probably didn't help either... ha!

nina
(good post!)

[jrm]

Gee thanks, Joe...

Now I gotta go in and tell my boss, uh, I don't feel so good, and, uh, I need to go home (she doesn't need to know it's so I can run this Doc. Brown thing you posted!)

Having just hopped over to the RAW side two months ago, for me it's been a PAIN to adjust the RAW images... but learning always has it's painful price. Your post, and the accompanying link, makes me think it's seriously necessary for me to go home now. I know that finishing "Camera RAW with Adobe Photoshop CS" on the boat coming to work this morning probably didn't help either... ha!

nina
(good post!)

Hehe... have fun. I have used Dr. Brown's since I first started with RAW and PSCS. It makes PhotoShop an entirely different experience. Check out the video tutorial on the website - it explains everything you need to know.

Another PhotoShop RAW converter tip... when dragging the "Exposure" or "Shadow" sliders, hold down the option key. This will highlight the areas that are being clipped in "alpha channel" style. Makes it very easy to see clogged shadows or blown highlights. (Also note that the clipped areas are in color to show you clipping on individual channels.)

--Joe