Beginner How much PP do you do on average ?

Nikon f1.8

Nikon f1.8

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Paul
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I'm pretty new to this PP stuff as you can see from the image below.

when I'm in auto / P mode my images come out half decent, if I try in shutter or aperture priority they tend to come out somewhat noisy...so
how long does it take on an average image to make it clean and pop as per some of the images on here, I'm using Canon DPP to process the raw files.

image was took early on this afternoon in not the best of conditions (rain and wind)

[url=https://flic.kr/p/ZSsmjJ]robin by Paul, on Flickr[/URL]
 
I have just had a quick play in photoshop, simply cropped, boosted contrast and sharpened which took me best part of a minute.
I can't post it as you have image editing turned off.
 
I can't see the exposure information or camera model or lens used.
Can you help?
 
Images that pop pop due to good light and composition, not due to PP and the image you have posted is taken in dull light so will never pop in the way you want it too

But broadly speaking I PP every shot I take in raw (which is all of them bar camera phone shots), sometimes this will take seconds and other times a few minutes, but rarely longer.

Given you are struggling with the modes of the camera I would suggest the best thing to do is learn about the exposure triangle (google will give you many tutorials), all photography skills lead on from this and it is the first thing you should learn. It isn't complicated but unlocks so many aspects of photography it is critical to have nailed down in your mind.
 
troutfisher said:
I have just had a quick play in photoshop, simply cropped, boosted contrast and sharpened which took me best part of a minute.
I can't post it as you have image editing turned off.
Click to expand...

Sorry, now turned on

soupdragon said:
I can't see the exposure information or camera model or lens used.
Can you help?
Click to expand...

It's on the Flickr page when you click on the image

markgodley said:
Have you PP the image?

If so did you sharpen? If so, did you use the mask feature?
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Yes, I used DPP and done a bit of sharpening and colour adjustments, TBH it is not the most intuitive software but hey, it was free :)

Nawty said:
Images that pop pop due to good light and composition, not due to PP and the image you have posted is taken in dull light so will never pop in the way you want it too

But broadly speaking I PP every shot I take in raw (which is all of them bar camera phone shots), sometimes this will take seconds and other times a few minutes, but rarely longer.

Given you are struggling with the modes of the camera I would suggest the best thing to do is learn about the exposure triangle (google will give you many tutorials), all photography skills lead on from this and it is the first thing you should learn. It isn't complicated but unlocks so many aspects of photography it is critical to have nailed down in your mind.
Click to expand...

thanks Nawty... a few minutes, wow I spent about 15 on the above image and it still seems a bit flat. I have just bought the lens and was keen to try it out so seeing a couple of birds on my feeders I took a few shots, the weather was really miserable and I had no control over that, rather than bump up the ISO I just set the lens wide open.

Is it best to have a higher ISO and try to reduce the noise, frankly the noise on some of the images scares me, especially when I see such clean crisp ones posted here.
 
Canon f1.8 said:
thanks Nawty... a few minutes, wow I spent about 15 on the above image and it still seems a bit flat. I have just bought the lens and was keen to try it out so seeing a couple of birds on my feeders I took a few shots, the weather was really miserable and I had no control over that, rather than bump up the ISO I just set the lens wide open.

Is it best to have a higher ISO and try to reduce the noise, frankly the noise on some of the images scares me, especially when I see such clean crisp ones posted here.
Click to expand...


Once again, it's all about light.

If you don't have enough light then one of the points of the exposure triangle will have to give, which one that is depends on the lens and the camera - some lenses are soft wide open and others do high ISO well so it depends on your kit.

I understand the eagerness to try the new lens but don't judge it on its performance in poor light, ESPECIALLY if you are going to have to crop the image as this magnifies any noise/softness. Also, underexposing will result in lots of noise when you do PP as you will increase the exposure and that also amplifies the noise.

Look at the photos you want to emulate, they will be taken in good light and have minimal cropping will have been done and almost certainly you will have good separation of the subject to the background which makes the bird stand out (i.e. not on the feeder), that's the secret really and the hardest part is getting close enough to the little birds in the first place with them in a good position. It is the old adage that it is the 12" behind the camera that is the important bit to taking great photos.
 
I quite like DPP. It's as easy to use as any other raw converter.

As I shoot raw only, I adjust almost everything with the exception of vignette control. I actually quite like that at times.
Oddly enough, ca can be quite attractive too.

DPP is also good for applying global changes.
 
Nawty said:
Once again, it's all about light.

If you don't have enough light then one of the points of the exposure triangle will have to give, which one that is depends on the lens and the camera - some lenses are soft wide open and others do high ISO well so it depends on your kit.

I understand the eagerness to try the new lens but don't judge it on its performance in poor light, ESPECIALLY if you are going to have to crop the image as this magnifies any noise/softness. Also, underexposing will result in lots of noise when you do PP as you will increase the exposure and that also amplifies the noise.

Look at the photos you want to emulate, they will be taken in good light and have minimal cropping will have been done and almost certainly you will have good separation of the subject to the background which makes the bird stand out (i.e. not on the feeder), that's the secret really and the hardest part is getting close enough to the little birds in the first place with them in a good position. It is the old adage that it is the 12" behind the camera that is the important bit to taking great photos.
Click to expand...

12”,here’s wishing :D
 
Generally, it's personal taste. A lot of people who post post to my local Instagram Photography hashtag heavily process their images, and a lot of people seem to like it.
Not my bag though - I'll generally do more minimal changes

Orangecroc said:
I try to do as little as possible but as much as is needed.
You'll know pretty quickly if a photo is worth keeping, and as you take more, you will start to be more ruthless and bin more.
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As Orangecroc says, the most important part of editing is recognising a good photo from a bad, and being ruthless with binning the bad.
 
Paul, based on the robin picture I'm not absolutely sure what you're referring to as 'noise'. Can you explain more.

Something central to photography is light and we might say that it has two attributes - quantity and quality. We need to judge those, or even control them. But if we're just using the light that's ambient, we may excercise a judgement not just how but whether to take the shot at all.

If we don't pay heed to light, we are just taking photographs of 'things'. Light makes a photograph.

The norm with digital photography is to have the camera produce either jpg files or raw files, or both. If jpg's, then you wouldn't necessarily alter them at all, and if you do then they degrade quickly. They've already been processed by the camera. If raw's, then we have to do the work that the camera did with the jpg, except that we can do it more how we want to. In processing and within reason you can map the tones in the image towards where you want them to be for the effect you want. But remember silk purse and sow's ear.

But how long? As long as necessary. Every picture is different. So forget about numbers.
 
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droj said:
Paul, based on the robin picture I'm not absolutely sure what you're referring to as 'noise'. Can you explain more.

Something central to photography is light and we might say that it has two attributes - quantity and quality. We need to judge those, or even control them. But if we're just using the light that's ambient, we may excercise a judgement not just how but whether to take the shot at all.

If we don't pay heed to light, we are just taking photographs of 'things'. Light makes a photograph.

The norm with digital photography is to have the camera produce either jpg files or raw files, or both. If jpg's, then you wouldn't necessarily alter them at all, and if you do then they degrade quickly. They've already been processed by the camera. If raw's, then we have to do the work that the camera did with the jpg, except that we can do it more how we want to. In processing and within reason you can map the tones in the image towards where you want them to be for the effect you want. But remember silk purse and sow's ear.

But how long? As long as necessary. Every picture is different. So forget about numbers.
Click to expand...

OK
I will try to explain what I mean about noise (with my limited knowledge)

The image above was taken at ISO 400 and f2.8, if I took the same image at f4 or f5.6 then the ISO would obviously go up therefore introducing noise, and that is what I was wondering, how long does it take to get rid of the noise.

I am now aware of the exposure triangle (thanks nawty) as there is some good info on youtube, it is just that if I want the shot and the light is not good then noise will be there and after seeing some images on this forum I was wondering how long folks take to get the noise to an acceptable level.

Some images of birds are nice and clean in the bird sub forum, even with ISO above what I shot above (which maybe is not the best example though), is my DPP software not capable of producing such images.

hope you can understand my explanation, I'm not the best at putting into words what I mean :(
 
Canon f1.8 said:
Some images of birds are nice and clean in the bird sub forum, even with ISO above what I shot above (which maybe is not the best example though), is my DPP software not capable of producing such images.
Click to expand...
Are you comparing like for like. Different camera's, different high ISO capabilities (noise handling). You can't compare your 80d to a 1dx ii or a 7d to a 80d.
 
To have the least noise in your images use the lowest ISO you can get away with, and learn about ETTR (Expose To The Right (of the histogram)). To reduce the noise present in an image as much as possible do as little shadow lifting as possible -- you'll need less shadow lifting if you got the exposure right, and learn how to use the noise reduction features in your usual RAW image processor. The lowest possible ISO means as low a shutter speed as possible without risking an image blurred by camera shake or subject movement. You can't do much about subject movement except choose your moment. To reduce camera shake massively put the camera on a tripod and fire the shutter with a remote release so you don't have to touch the camera to do it.

If your image has plenty of megapixels and you simply want to give the impression of clean noiseless sharpening when zoomed then learn how to reduce the size of your images to only as much as needed. Some people hate noise so much that it distresses them to be able to see it when they zoom in. Reduce the image size two or three times and an awful lot of noise simply disappears.
 
I always do the minimum of processing where ever possible far from my favorite pastime tbh.
I'm finding its just levels these days i adjust since moving to the Fuji X system.
Unless I decide to play with Nik software.
 
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