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Little investment
11 years ago
General
With all of the investments that I've put into the hardware side of my photos, I recently noticed that I hadn't really invested in the software side. Whatever programs I had that came with the camera, I've been using, and that seemed to be really illogical for a number of different reasons; not the least of which being that because of my poor photo-taking skills I end up editing any given photo between 10-20 minutes. If I'm investing that much time in front of the computer to edit these photos and make them presentable, why have I not yet invested into the proper sort of program to really help me do that? So, I went and purchased Adobe Lightroom 5. And damn this thing is nice. I love the features, it handles .raw natively (compared to the program that came with my camera, which didn't even support the raw photos that the camera takes), and while I'm still very new at using the program and have only yet used it on pictures that are easy to work with; I feel that my overall edits are going to be better than the old software I was using.
I'm not sure if the interface is more or less intuitive than my old program (Capture NX 2), because I've used that for so long that I'm very well adjusted to it. But so far I do feel that what is at my fingertips now is far and beyond what I had with Capture. There's a bit of a learning curve as with any new software, and I'm still trying to find equivalent functions in Lightroom that I had in Capture, but I"m also thinking I may not need it. Capture had the ability to tweak dynamic lighting, a function and data value both of the software and a setting on the camera itself. Despite my not finding any reference to it in Lightroom yet, I may not even need it. Lightroom presents me with some basic edits in a much more user-friendly fashion and I have the before & after images right next to each other (another awesome feature), so even without D-lighting controls I may be able to tweak various settings for lighting levels in a superior fashion.
But blah blah blah. How does this all relate to you? My first batch of photos using the new software is now up on my Flickr, so take a look and critique
ilovecritique them! Either critique the pictures on their own merits, or compare them to the older pics and tell me what is good or bad for either side. Now again, these were just the first few pics and they were all very well-lit photos, so not a lot of editing had to go into them in the first place. But, tweaks are tweaks, I'd like to know if I'm headed in the right direction, and we can always revisit the topic when a more substantial number of photos are up.
I don't know if I'm genuinely editing these photos better, but it does feel better so far.
So far my only issue is the program not properly sizing my signature .png file when merging it automatically onto an exported photo (another fantastic feature that saves me a bunch of time). But that's something I can fix later, so right now my sig is noticeably larger on the newer photos. Rest assured it is not due to an enlarged ego; just a quirk that I haven't figured out yet.
I'm not sure if the interface is more or less intuitive than my old program (Capture NX 2), because I've used that for so long that I'm very well adjusted to it. But so far I do feel that what is at my fingertips now is far and beyond what I had with Capture. There's a bit of a learning curve as with any new software, and I'm still trying to find equivalent functions in Lightroom that I had in Capture, but I"m also thinking I may not need it. Capture had the ability to tweak dynamic lighting, a function and data value both of the software and a setting on the camera itself. Despite my not finding any reference to it in Lightroom yet, I may not even need it. Lightroom presents me with some basic edits in a much more user-friendly fashion and I have the before & after images right next to each other (another awesome feature), so even without D-lighting controls I may be able to tweak various settings for lighting levels in a superior fashion.
But blah blah blah. How does this all relate to you? My first batch of photos using the new software is now up on my Flickr, so take a look and critique
ilovecritique them! Either critique the pictures on their own merits, or compare them to the older pics and tell me what is good or bad for either side. Now again, these were just the first few pics and they were all very well-lit photos, so not a lot of editing had to go into them in the first place. But, tweaks are tweaks, I'd like to know if I'm headed in the right direction, and we can always revisit the topic when a more substantial number of photos are up.I don't know if I'm genuinely editing these photos better, but it does feel better so far.
So far my only issue is the program not properly sizing my signature .png file when merging it automatically onto an exported photo (another fantastic feature that saves me a bunch of time). But that's something I can fix later, so right now my sig is noticeably larger on the newer photos. Rest assured it is not due to an enlarged ego; just a quirk that I haven't figured out yet.
