{"id":4883,"date":"2011-01-19T15:17:50","date_gmt":"2011-01-19T20:17:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/?p=4883"},"modified":"2011-01-19T15:21:19","modified_gmt":"2011-01-19T20:21:19","slug":"photography-and-post-processing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2011\/01\/19\/photography-and-post-processing\/","title":{"rendered":"Photography and post-processing"},"content":{"rendered":"

W<\/span>hen I started my first 365 project back — hey, it was two years ago tomorrow! I didn’t realize that until I was half way through the sentence!! Ahem, anyway, when I started my first 365 back in January 2009, I posted almost every shot straight out of the camera (SOOC). I had it in my head that post-processing (that is, adjusting the exposure, white balance or even crop) was somehow making my photo less “true” to the original.<\/p>\n

About two months into the project, I started using Photoshop <\/a>and became a convert. In the spring of that year, I discovered The Pioneer Woman’s Photoshop actions<\/a>, and became a veritable junkie. Over the course of six or so months, I figured out how to do a few things in Photoshop very well — adjustments like curves, white balance, and of course my beloved actions, which I ran on just about every picture. (In fact, looking back at some of those images, one might argue I could have used a lighter touch with some of those actions!) Other things, like cutting the head out of one picture and pasting it in to another, or the kind of magic worked by my friend Justin in pictures like this<\/a> just escape me. (No really, go click on the link to see Justin’s picture, it’s worth it!!)<\/p>\n

The only problem with Photoshop was that we were using a version supplied by Beloved’s employer, and he was uncomfortable with me using it for even semi-commercial purposes. When I started taking portraits and commissions, we decided we’d buy a copy of Photoshop Elements<\/a> for me to use, and avoid any potential licensing conflicts.<\/p>\n

Photoshop is a behemoth of a program. It does so much more than I was using it for. It’s also hugely expensive: currently Photoshop CS5 is $699US from the Adobe store. We picked up a copy of Elements 8, which is a much more practical and stripped-down version of Photoshop that does virtually everything I was using Photoshop for, at Costco for less than $100 last summer.<\/p>\n

Also around that time, I downloaded the free beta of Adobe Lightroom<\/a> 3.0 and once I got the hang of it, I never looked back. The beta ended in June of last year, and I had to buy my own copy. I love Lightroom! I love my presets, I love the ease of use, and I love the interface. Playing with pictures in Lightroom is one of my very favourite things to do, and post-processing has become as much fun as actually taking the pictures themselves. The only time I open Photoshop anymore is for my TtV pictures, because there are a few actions that I like that I haven’t been able to replicate in Lightroom.<\/p>\n

I know a lot of you are doing your own 365 project right now (I love that so many of you are, in fact!) and even if you’re fairly new to photography, I’m betting that if you stick with it, eventually you’re going to start thinking about buying some post-processing software. If you do, I can’t say enough good things about Lightroom. Having said that, here’s two things you MUST know: first, you can download a free trial of Lightroom to check it out. And even better, Adobe offers smashing educational discounts<\/a> on all its software for students and teachers. The full price on Lightroom is $299US, but you can get it for $89US with the educational discount. It’s *so* worth it, and all you need is to submit a copy of your student or faculty card (or, ahem, your dependent student’s student card — hint, hint. What, your five year old doesn’t need to learn post-processing with his ABCs?) <\/p>\n

So, are you guys interested in chatting more about Lightroom and stuff like that here? So many blogs are already doing a much better job than I ever could with Lightroom tips and tutorials and presets, but now that I’ve re-engaged the photo-obsessed part of my brain, I’m looking for more creative outlets! And if you’ve got other non-Adobe suggestions for post processing, please share them!<\/p>\n

(Nope, this is not a sponsored post – I’m just in love with Adobe’s products.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I started my first 365 project back — hey, it was two years ago tomorrow! I didn’t realize that until I was half way through the sentence!! Ahem, anyway, when I started my first 365 back in January 2009, I posted almost every shot straight out of the camera (SOOC). I had it in … Continue reading “Photography and post-processing”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-family-photographer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4883"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4889,"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4883\/revisions\/4889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}