Re: Photo Software

[Dog]

You can alter levels in iPhoto5 but certainly without the control in Photoshop 8.

I have over 9000 images stored but only keep recent on the Mac other files are on separate hardrive. Makes life simpler and speeds start up. You just gotta file more carefully.

[Dog]

Forgot to say the basic way to store many pictures with iPhoto in more than one place is to rename your iPhotoLibrary (with iPhoto closed) and when you open iPhoto it will ask which library you wish to use.

Simple.

[Dick Smith]

[quote user="Dog"]You can alter levels in iPhoto5 but certainly without the control in Photoshop 8.

I have over 9000 images stored but only keep recent on the Mac other files are on separate hardrive. Makes life simpler and speeds start up. You just gotta file more carefully.[/quote]

Yup. But over time they still creep up...

I'll try the renaming libraries idea, though. Do you just open 'Library 1' and so on? How do you manage the libraries?

[Dick Smith]

Dog - I am using iPhoto 5 - do I need to upgrade to 6 to do this?

[Dog]

Rename the file iPhotoLibraryMBLA1 for instance or iPhotoMyVolvo1 when you next change just add another number in sequence - you will still know where your stuff is.

Not sure if it works with iPhoto 5 I cannot remember that long ago.

[Dick Smith]

I don't think it does - not that 5 is old, it's the latest version of the free stuff. I've ordered 6, partly because you get iDVD and iWeb as well.

[Will]

I suppose I am biased because I edit photographs as part of my job but as far as I am concerned Photoshop is the only photo software you need (apart from the Windows wizards or Mac equivalent for uploading and possibly your camera's RAW converter if you take your own shots with a high-end digital camera). Photoshop Elements does just about all that the full version does, except that it cannot handle CMYK images, which of course are needed for professional 4-colour printing. But as it costs under £70 rather than several hundred most people can forgive it that.

[cooperlola]

It came free with my £100 scanner! (Elements)

[Dick Smith]

I'm in a quandary - I fall between Elements and CS, and I don't want to pay for CS! Aperture is good, but is proving very difficult to learn (more so than PS). I can see the power, but can't unleash it all! I am convinced by RAW - I shot on JPG on Friday and the loss of quality was noticeable. My version of Elements won't allow that, which is a bummer.

[Will]

[quote user="cooperlola"]It came free with my £100 scanner! (Elements)[/quote]

Mine too (though I have CS at work)

Dick - what is it that you want to do in CS that Elements can't? The only significant difference I've found is the lack of CMYK.

As the different camera makers have their own RAW standards I think you need to put it through the manufacturer's own conversion software anyway before Photoshop can handle it (that seems to be the case with my Nikon, though I've done very little in RAW - Canon etc may be different).

[Dick Smith]

There is an ENG converter for RAW for Elements, but in my case it allows me to manipulate the image, but not save it... This is very annoying as there is no mention on the download site of payment.

I find the interface in PS is much easier to use than Elements - in almost all respects, but especially the use of tools, especially the clone (sorry Mr Zjob).

I really need to get down and learn Aperture. Apart from PS's pre-loaded effects it is streets ahead. And it 'thinks' like a photographer, not a graphic artist or designer.

[Alane]

You might take a look at Adobe Lightroom which is available free on beta test from Adobe until February 2007. I'm told it is similar to Aperture but being a PC user I'm not familiar with that product so can't comment first hand.

I was a long time Paintshop Pro user but finally snapped when the last two releases were of poor quality and decided to look at alternatives. I downloaded the trial version of Elements 5 and quite liked it but rejected it due to it's overall limitations, for example its lack of 16 bit editing support but really because I found I liked the "feel" of Photoshop CS2 which was also available on 30 day trial download. Like Dick Smith I like to use RAW images and the ability to edit without first converting back to 8 bit was atractive.

I saved a considerable amount of cash by purchasing a (legitimate) version of Photoshop 6 and then buying a £120 upgrade to CS2. More than the cost of Elements but to my mind worth the extra. 

[Will]

I've been playing with Lightroom and can see that it is geared towards serious photographers (which I am not) rather than designers (which I suppose matches my work and my experience more closely). So I think I'll stick with Photoshop for what I want to do, particularly as I found Lightroom very unstable on my system at work.

So I have been digging deeper into the RAW image issue, as neither CS2 at work or Elements at home seemed to be able to cope with Nikon RAW images.

What one needs to do is download the latest (version 3.6) Camera Raw plug-in from Adobe; it is available free. If you have Photoshop CS2 (rather than any earlier versions) or Elements 3.0 or later, it should solve the problem. It seems to support all the latest digital cameras from all popular makers. I haven't tried it out yet, because I am in the office and my camera and any CF cards with Nikon RAW files are at home - all the Nikon files I have at work, either my own or professional ones from a recent event, were taken as best-quality JPEG so as not to be affected by any compatibility problems.

While digging around the various reference sources I came across a comment that JPGs were like transparencies, i.e. once you have taken the picture that's it, whereas RAW format is like a negative - there is a lot of scope for improvements and corrections before you reach the final stage, and you can keep the original. Of course, in the pre-digital days, we always liked to use transparencies rather than prints if possible for top-quality magazine printing, so JPGs can't be all bad (apart from their habit of losing quality each time they are saved of course). So TIFs should be better in theory, but I find that JPG, handled sensibly, gives better quality in CMYK printing.

[Dog]

Quote:

"Of course, in the pre-digital days, we always liked to use transparencies rather than prints if possible for top-quality magazine printing, so JPGs can't be all bad (apart from their habit of losing quality each time they are saved of course). So TIFs should be better in theory, but I find that JPG, handled sensibly, gives better quality in CMYK printing."

Having spent rather too many years invoved in pre-press I have to tell you that your jpg and tif files will most likely be turned into eps files for CMYK printing.

Also trannies are not always preferred for large format printing CMYK - sometimes an interneg is made (not the best idea) and/or a neg used to print as large a colour print as possible that will fit on a high end scanner for best results.

[Alane]

Will

I've received an e-mail announcing that the beta version of Photoshop CS3 is now available for users of CS2 (the CS2 serial number is required to generate the CS3 serial). I  downloaded it and it improves on the Raw file handling although I'm not sure how useful the additional controls will be in practice it does seem to be a little faster overall. It allows the same controls in the RAW plugin to be applied to jpeg files as well as RAW which is interesting. I expect I'll spend some time over the Christmas hols investigating and processing my latest pics.

http://www.adobe-direct.com/rdir/?apsbjg5myf-1-2-3-0

 

[Will]

[quote user="Dog"]Having spent rather too many years invoved in pre-press I have to tell you that your jpg and tif files will most likely be turned into eps files for CMYK printing.[/quote]

I know - you are quite right. But I was talking about the days of galley proofs and cow gum, and when separations were made from colour images and then the four-colour plates were made from the separations. It seems so crude nowadays, but it worked, and produced some excellent results. I was in fact among the first magazine editors to do my own DTP, and that continues to this day, nearly 20 years on. We now send PDF files made direct from the Quark page files, including all pictures, but in the earlier days we sent Quark pages with rough positional scans, and sent the original prints and trannies to the repro house who made high-quality EPS scans and stripped them into the negatives for making the litho plates. I hate working with EPS personally, but that's just me. So coming from that background it is hardly suprising that I am a Photoshop fan rather than Aperture etc.

Sorry if this seems like gibberish - but discussions of plumbing, chain saws etc are just as meaningless to me [:D]

[Dick Smith]

Ah, Cow Gum.

Do you remember Cibachromes?

[Will]

Yes Dick. They were very expensive, so we only had them to check the magazine covers. That was about the only form of colour proofing available in those days, unlike now when everybody has a decent colour inklet or laser.

[Dick Smith]

I think in the 70s I managed to afford 4 A3 prints of favourite transparencies...

[hoverfrog]

if you know what you are doing, then Gimp is free and offers more than Photoshop.

I agree, iPhoto is a pain as it takes sooo long to load if you have any number of photos :(

For basic stuff Goldberg is good! (Probably Mac only though...)