Recent content by symmetricalOCD

I've been looking again at lighting, would you say a 140 x 30cm softbox is more useful than a 110 x 45? which one should I go for? do you have a preference? I plan on mostly doing video and photography of objects, less so than human beings, with the odd filming of me talking into the camera, I'd...

thanks Garry, I don't have a flash so will look at investing in one, I forgot to say that I'm looking for a bi-colour light as well but don't really need any extra features like special effects as I'll likely never use them, to start with I will get just one light and probably then get a second...

hi everyone, my old raleno LED panel lights failed recently so I've been looking at getting a new more professional setup, would it be worth getting something like an amaran 200 xS? I like the look of the nanlite FS-300B as well but it might be overkill? also I am a musician, can I mount one of...

don't get the screen, get a calibrator, it will make the biggest difference. I might not have gotten a new screen if I got the calibrator first, it really makes that much difference. They also cost far less than a new screen.

I haven't learnt anything useful from books, only experience. Also don't listen too much to critique, it isn't important unless you respect the person giving the critique. Be creative and take lots of photos! I had to take a LOT of bad ones to get better, I now take far less but they are...

I have a 16 gig ram, i7 2600k PC and find LR5 not that much faster than version 4. I think version 3 was by far the most stable they released, for some reason they can't seem to get version 4 or 5 optimised for high spec PC's. I have a feeling Adobe optimise their software for Mac OS and not...

I think lightroom is the better software, especially since version 5, it's becoming more and more powerful with each new release, elements is good for layering but I'm finding myself using layering less and less. If you definitely need layering there are plenty of free alternatives

pixlr and pixlr-o-matic is very under rated, it can do almost everything faststone can do and has some amazing film like effects, worth a try for sure. link to it here: http://pixlr.com/editor/

I think lightroom is good enough personally, as long as you mess around with the settings and hold the alt key, you will actually see what it's removing from the image. I'm not knocking other plug-ins but I can get good enough results, also the full version of photoshop is amazing for noise...

hobnobs

you could try adding actual gloss paper textures in photoshop as layers but I can't see it looking as good as a real gloss print, not sure if it would work as well

actually graham I said feedback is appreciated lol but glad you liked it! from now on I'm making it bold font. well done Rhodese, well deserved, I'll look forward to the next one.

you need a calibrator for your screen, like spyder or huey. In lightroom I use the sync feature a lot for consistency

here's my edit: DSC_7215-1 by btyreman, on Flickr all done in LR5: cropped to 1:1 ratio, warmed up white balance, - highlights, - blacks, + Clarity, +Vibrance Tone Curve: + Highlights, - Shadows. Split Tone: Boosted reds in the shadows. slight white vignette around the edges, sharpened...

I think once calibrated they look amazing with deep and rich colours, my mum has one and I calibrated it with a spyder 4 elite which made it far better than stock but I wouldn't use it for editing because the apps that you can get don't seem good enough yet.