Trying to learn how to post process - looking for advice

[mangurian]

I am a relative newbie to a decent camera. I bought a cheapo zoom and took some shots this morning. I have two original RAWS on my Google Drive together with some crops (link below).

I haven't a clue on how to post process. Do I just make them look good to me ?
Maybe my 77 year old eyes don't see things the way others do. I would like them to look good to my daughters and friends.

I think "look good to me" must be the answer, but I really don't know what to do first.
I would appreciate some guidance or examples.  Thanks in advance,

I have PaintShop Pro 2018, Photoshop CS2, and Canon's DPP4, AfterShot does not support my camera.

Link To Photos

[Tronhard]

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@mangurian wrote:

I am a relative newbie to a decent camera. I bought a cheapo zoom and took some shots this morning. I have two original RAWS on my Google Drive together with some crops (link below).

I haven't a clue on how to post process. Do I just make them look good to me ?
Maybe my 77 year old eyes don't see things the way others do. I would like them to look good to my daughters and friends.

I think "look good to me" must be the answer, but I really don't know what to do first.
I would appreciate some guidance or examples.  Thanks in advance,

I have PaintShop Pro 2018, Photoshop CS2, and Canon's DPP4, AfterShot does not support my camera.

Link To Photos

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Congratulation to making the move into more serious photography!  I hope you will find it a stimulating and rewarding pasttime.  I must say you have taken some excellent close-up images there.

You have posted two question really:

First Post Production:

People learn in different ways, so here are a couple of suggestions.

If you have a local camera club or photographic society, join and connect with those who have experience with post-processing.  Most people will be happy to share their knowledge, and many clubs provide access to courses on products like Photoshop (which I see you own) and Lightroom (probably the two most dominant products)

If you have a membership to your local libary see if they have an item listed for lynda.com.  If so, it means you have free access to a huge library of well-produced videos and tutorials on a host of phtographic topics, including post processing.

Second Image Sharing

One question will be what kind of output you are considering.  If you intend to produce prints, then you will need to make sure that you have all the correct software for you post-processing to work with the printer, these are usually in the form of "plug-ins" that are downloadable from Photoshop or via the printer site.

If you intend to share the images for digital viewing then the challenge is that every screen produces a different range of colours and tones.  Almost all screens will render a reasonable semblence of what you produce, but if you want a really accurate rendition, then the best you can do is have your screen configured to a standard - that said there is no guarantee that the viewer's screen will be set up the same way.

This standardization is usually done with a device that sits on the screen and reconfigures (via a software app) your screen driver to make it produce a standard configuration. You could configure both your screen and the recipients' ones with the same device.  One example (among several) is a Spyder from a company called Datacolor - it's somewhere to start.  All of this is very dependent on how serious you are about sharing images that are precisely aligned.

I hope this will help - do let us know if one or both of these work for you.

[Ray-uk]

Making them look good to you is the answer but you do need to make sure that your PC monitor screen is correctly adjusted first, there's no point in making them look good on your monitor if they are going to look wrong on everyone elses.

To wok with raw files DPP will satisfy pretty much all of your needs and if you download the DPP user manual you will find a wealth of information, you may sometimes need to do the preliminary work in DPP and then pass it to Paintshop Pro or Photoshop for more advanced working. But if you can get accustomed to using DPP first then that will give you a good base to start from.

Sadly there is no easy route but the more you process the better you will get. Don't get talked into buying more software, that would just confuse things, you already have everything you need.

[ebiggs1]

It looks like to me you already know what to do. The shots look fine for entry level gear.  Matter of fact pretty darn good!

You said you have CS2?  That is probably all you need to do your edits.  I would forget the rest of your softwares and concentrate on learning it.  Not a good idea to try and learn several editors that all do the same basic thing.  However, CS2 does do more!

Adobe was giving CS2 away for free.  They might be giving CS3 away now. You might check.

[Livewire18]

The best answer I can give, is YouTube. I have learned more in the last year watching YouTube videos about lightroom and Photoshop then I have learned in 15 years shooting.

Two suggestions (I am not affiliated with either in any way) are Phlearn and PixImperfect. They are both amazing teachers.

[coachboz68]

As someone else said, learning style really matters.  For me, I like to read manuals first.  Most don't.  Then I like to see it in action from others, and for that, youtube is invaluable.  There are so many great tutorials out there.  Here's a tip... in your YouTube player, you can control the playback speed.  I usually watch at 1.5 to 2.0x playback because people tend to talk and move SLOW when doing tutorials.  When I get to a spot that catches my interest, I play back in regular speed.  At the faster speeds, you can generally take in everything, believe it or not.  anyway, it's just a time saver.  And nice pics for a self-proclaimed newbie! 

[mangurian]

Thanks for all the good advice. I watched some YOUTUBE videos and have found I get good results using first DPP4 and then feeding those results into PaintShop Pro. In PSP some of the plugins produce good results. I especially like tweaking in the PERFECTLY CLEAR plugin.

[Ray-uk · Accepted solution]

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@mangurian wrote:
 I get good results using first DPP4 and then feeding those results into PaintShop Pro. In PSP

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That's exactly the procedure I have been using for a few years now, it works for me.