General artwork (non-game related)

[KIO]

Found a really nice book on photoshop, read some of it.. Well, it describes how really great and useful playing with RAW files is, how you can tone them and use the great and amazing histogram for that, to keep the highlights not blown and shadows not too dark... Well, ok, here are two shots, one is the default outcome of Canon AWB (Auto white balance) that happened inside the camera, and the other is the result of my own efforts (took me about an hour, just playing with all the adjustments)... Which one do you think is which and which one is better.

[DARKIUSMAXIMUS]

left pic looks brighter to mee thats about all i can say mate

[Cynyx]

luminosity, contrast and color levels seem better for the pic on the right -at least for me.
on the right : more natural exception for background of the pic : too much contrast.
So is it the pic edited or not ? waste of time or not ?

[KIO]

left pic looks brighter to mee thats about all i can say mate

F'ckin exactly! Left pic is the default Canon compression that it does on the fly.. Yes, there is a bit of overbrightening, which I, being in possession of the great human brain, have fixed in my photo... But then I couldnt get the contrast high enough without going over the "no overbright" limit... Although my pic does look more real, just the color of the guy is a bit too dark, but I couldnt be arsed to fix it anymore, however the Auto-White Balance and autosharpening pic looks more appealing and comes out by default with no need for manual developing... I really struggle to see the advantage of using RAW over a decent JPG which the camera produces...
But then I still have more than half of the book to read..


I also did some tests with HDR-making using RAW and JPGs. First one is a HDR from Camera JPGs, second is from RAW imported into PhotoMatix and third is with added sharpness to the previous one.

For one, the default autobalance failed (a bit) so the image looks really orange, however, the light was orange from a tungsten light, so why not... For RAWs I corrected the autobalance so that white looks white, however.. I edited DNG files in Adobe Camera Raw and saved it in that program. So i corrected white balance, added sharpness etc... But this all my editing is only accessible from Adobe Camera Raw, so when I import them into PhotoMatix it doesnt see any of the changes and offers me to set the white balance within it... Couldnt find a way around that, so just matched the settings for white balance and got the middle pic.. You can see that the JPG based pic is waaaay sharper, in fact a bit too sharp in places and all my sharpness adjustments in DNG were not seen in Photomatix ffs... So I ended up just quickly adding sharpness to the final picture of the HDR, which is the third pic and is kiiiinda better than the first jpg-based, but not much...


EDIT: Wooho, thanks Cynyx, you saw something I still cant see:))) I mean I understand that manual developing gives better luminosity and color balance, but I cant convince myself of it...

[DARKIUSMAXIMUS]

ok i am bored now

[F1r3]

ok i am bored now

lol. nice watch kio

[KIO]

Lol, screw you guys :P The watch is an Eco-Drive, so I care about polar bears...
But seriously, Fire, do you use RAWs for HDR? And how much editing do you do afterwards...

[F1r3]

ok..

So i corrected white balance, added sharpness etc... But this all my editing is only accessible from Adobe Camera Raw, so when I import them into PhotoMatix it doesnt see any of the changes and offers me to set the white balance within it... Couldnt find a way around that

if you dont convert your raws to dng then adobe camera raw (ACR) stores all changes in sidecar ".XMP" files and Photomatix doest recognize them. If you go with DNG then Photomatix also wont see data that ACR adds to the file and which corresponds to the changes made. One workaround is to convert your raws/dngs to 16-bit TIFFs in PS and use them in Photomatix, that way you wont lose quality.

You can see that the JPG based pic is waaaay sharper

That's because when you shoot in JPG your camera automatically applies sharpness, WB and other parameters to the picture, you cant tweak them yourself later without losing quality. RAW, on the other hand, is just raw sensor data, it's not even a picture until its processed...

Fire, do you use RAWs for HDR? And how much editing do you do afterwards...

yes I always user RAW for HDR. After Photomatix I usually take my image to Adobe LR and tweak the color,sharpness and some other settings. If I'm feeling really creative then I use PS ;)

[KIO]

Yeah, I know that camera adds sharpness and shit.. Thats what I mean - it gets quite decent results on the fly, without me having to sit there tweaking it.. Although i do find some pics a bit oversharp and I prefer my own developed RAWs.. Its just I struggled to get a crisp sharpness without introducing shitty artifacts, but that can be fixed by the masking control in ACR. I use DNG, because my camera isnt supposed to produce RAWs and I use an enthusiast made camera software which forces the camera to save RAW as well... And its non-standard, so I use another enthusiast program to convert those RAWs to DNG, which then work fine with ACR and PS and whatnot..
I do know what RAWs are:)) what I can say for sure is that ACR is much much much better at noise filtering than my camera.. Some noise isnt even present in the RAW, compared to JPG.. Weird artifacting or smth:) I do appreciate the usefullnes of being able to SET the whitebalance and sharpness rather than trying to FIX it in a crappy JPG, its I just need to get into a habit of longwinded editing now:)
I see about the changes in DNG files, its just from reading the book I assumed that developing options are stored INSIDE the DNG, so it is then accessible wherever.. I havent tried TIFFS, but I guess they are somewhere halfway between a compressed bitmap and a RAW:) So ill try that next time, so that my hours of micro-tweaking the DNGs is not wasted in bloody PhotoMatix.
What does LightRoom do that Photoshop cant? also i found ACR quite nice and easy for quick JPG tweaks too.

[F1r3]

What does LightRoom do that Photoshop cant?

absolutely nothing! LR is all about SPEED, you can process an image in LR in less than 20 secs (in PS it would take a lot longer) and apply the same settings to other images. LR is also great for organizing photos (which is in fact its main purpose)

[KIO]

I dont actually have LightRoom installed with my Photoshop extended pack... is it supposed to be there im wondering.. cant remember if I installed everything or not. I dont mind though, I found Adobe Camera Raw very nice to work on jpgs too... and still u can aplly same settings etc..

[KIO]

Have been to Sherlock Holmes museum today.. quite a waste of six quid for a "museum", tbh, but I really liked the first too rooms. Here is one pic I made of Sherlock's working table and violin.

I am also a farmer now, here is ma farm...


EDIT:
Here is also another pic from the park... I didnt work on it any more, but now i think it looks nice.. Well, actually I just quickly tweaked it in ACR as I was uploading it.. so I uploaded it again.

[Cynyx]

first pic is really impressive. really nice one.

[KIO]

Went to Windsor Castle yesterday. This is where the Queeeeeen resides.. sometimes. A couple of pics:

And here is me... Spec-ops, no shit:

[DARKIUSMAXIMUS]

KIO is BORG!!!!
LOOK AT ALL HIS INPLANTS
oh btw love the face hair man

[KOMBATIUSMAXIMUS]

ahhh my friend resistance is futile.... coool pics m8

[Cynyx]

KIO is BORG!!!!
LOOK AT ALL HIS INPLANTS

oh btw love the face hair man

are u in love ? lmao.

[F1r3]

Special agent Kio with a fake passport in his pocket?

[DARKIUSMAXIMUS]

KIO is BORG!!!!
LOOK AT ALL HIS INPLANTS

oh btw love the face hair man

are u in love ? lmao.

now now Cynyx you know i only have eyes for you
Anyway when you comeing in the server for some death or even come spec the guys with some beer and chat ingame?
or come for a game so i can kick ur ARSE or you can come watch the evil twins Fire and Kio kill the rest of us bloody haxors

[Cynyx]

Special agent Kio with a fake passport in his pocket?

Anyway when you comeing in the server for some death or even come spec the guys with some beer and chat ingame?

why not. But need to reinstall the game.

[KIO]

Special agent would keep the fake passport in his underpants (which i didnt)...
I was planning to assassinate the queen and take over the crown, but then I thought "meh..."..

[KOMBATIUSMAXIMUS]

Yeah cynyx m8 we need to get u on skype and we all can have a chat,it usually me,darkius,cynus,fire,bertie,fistro and kio so u r very welcome

[CygnusX1]

Yeah I agree good idea,also nice pics Kio,my wife went "aww" when she saw gardens but i think seven of nine has better breasts than you

[F1r3]

Just witnessed a LOT of aircrafts (helicopters, jet fighters, transport planes) flying over my house. Folks at the military are getting ready for the May 9th victory parade Made some pics.







Wish I had a good zoom lens

[KOMBATIUSMAXIMUS]

The pics are cool m8 they look like sukoi fighters and the bigger ones look like vulcan bombers very nice,also the pics r very clear ur cameras very good m8

[F1r3]

they look like sukoi fighters

yeah Sukhoi (Su-27) and Mig (Mig-29) fighters. I reckon the figthers on the 4th pic are either from this or this group (2 very famous aerobatic display teams from the military)

[KIO]

Look what I made for myself:

Couldnt get around to finishing it in aages.

[Cynyx]

nice

[DARKIUSMAXIMUS]

yeah KIO nice mate erm where is mine ?
ohh thats rite FIRE was doing me one

[KOMBATIUSMAXIMUS]

yeah KIO nice mate erm where is mine ?
ohh thats rite FIRE was doing me one

+1