processing yous photos?

:
I use Silkypix and Photoshop a lot...

Prieni

Everyone has their way, I use Lightroom for the basic stuff and archiving.
Everything I make public or get printed does go through Photoshop though, just to make it perfect or be creative.

I'm also thinking of trying Phaseone for a change, just to see how it works.

What are the advantages of using lightroom i've not used it before stefan

The great thing I found about Silky is that it gives good results very quickly and easily allowing you explore effects without a truly huge learning curve.

The lady asked for simple advice and a free copy of Silky and time is pretty simple stuff I'd say!

Mike

to save spoilt pictures, to make "art" from sm pic, to make collages - yes to all that !
Excellent. And I try to do that.

(I use gimp btw.
Maybe it is not so comfy, but it works...
True, I feel not ready for raw yet)

But I have the feeling, that there is no pic at all, that can be left as it was born.
That's what makes me feel somewhat sad.
I miss the feeling of having done everything right - so that I need not to do any repairing work.

Anyway, thanks for your comments.

Actually I would like to see more pics compared to the original. Just to understand, what is going on. I look at the posted pics and try to guess how did it look like originally.....

I wonder if people would be interested in a competition of pic-processing ?
One posts a pic and others try to make sth of it.
It could be a way to learn a lot.
???

Is it too wierd thought?

No, that's a great idea! It would be best with RAW or TIFF images, but also possible with full-size JPEGs.

As for getting no pics that can be left as it was born [I love that phrase], you should get SOME at least, if your subject and photography is good enough. Keep practising and keep trying hard to use the camera settings as best as possible. Alternatively, try to enjoy post processing more. The choice is yours!

Two completely different GUI's on one side, while LR and PS work together seamlessly. That could be the major reason.(it is for me at least)
I have a paid version of SPDS.I often give it a try again, and again and........
I just can't get used to that horrible interface, and naming of some functions.

Now....I am pretty sure if Mattmatic reads this he will say:
I'll rather have the great quality SP does on raw conversion, and therefore take the lousy interface for granted.
But looking at my own work, I don't think I miss out on the quality part(raw conversion wise) when using LR or Bibble (depending on which OS I am running)

Martin.

I had the good feeling with Zenit - once upon a time. Much more time as well

Inferfaces are very much a matter of personal preference. One main reason I like Silkypix DS is because I like its interface!

The naming of some of the functions is strange indeed (lost in translation from the Japanese), but no problem once you realise what they do.

My teacher at the photo-club said the same thing, he also wants the original so that he can compare them, it would be a good idea to do that.

Every photo need some fine-tuning, even if they look great straight out of the camera you can always do something to make it look better and you need to do that I believe.
It's a totally different aspect from photographing but one which you need to get comfort with to create some better result.

Gimp isn't really designed to handel photos, it's better to use the programs you have from Pentax. Those are designed purely to polish your photos so use them are get silkypix or the likes. When you have used those programs a couple of times you see the benefits of shooting in RAW and you will get the hang of it as well.

It's basicly adobe raw, you have the same settings and namings but besides that you have a few extra's, like archiving, importing, exporting, slideshows, etc.
And with a press of a button it opens the image I worked at in Lightroom into Photoshop, just splendid if you ask me.

Martin, you can download a trial version of lightroom, if you like it give me a PM okay


PS. good idea about the photoshoping contest, DNG or tiff would be the best file format then.
If you wanna start I've some failed infrared photos that needs some heavy photoshopping

Will give it a look stefan

Sorry Stefan, but I thing you are a bit : kort door de bocht with a few statements.

Wrong,
It is designed to handle photo's as a pixel editor. And it just needs a plug-in to handle raw files as well. The only disadvantage is the fact it won't work in 16 bit.(yet) You can of course have your questions about quality, but for a lot of people it provides a very good alternative(free) for PS.

Wrong again, or at least very incomplete. ACR is just the raw converter used in LR, PS, and Elements.
All with slight variations and possibility's, depending of the program used.

The idea behind LR is to provide a Database driven Raw processor optimized for digital photographers with a large work flow.
It can do everything within it's own environment a Photog needs to be done. From input till output for print, web or slide show usage.
There are a few things left to desire like soft proofing, but that is why PS is so easily implemented within LR.
And because it is data base driven it let's you work on and copy files as much as you like, without creating new files. All the changes you make are just referred to the original Raw file, and there fore takes very little strain on your hard disk space.

LR will also to that in conjunction with: Gimp, Noise Ninja, Elements, Picassa ,PSP or whatever pixel editor you have in mind. It's not limited to Photoshop.

And to end on a very personal note:
Bad idea. When this happens the thin line between photography and digital imaging is going to blur even further. And besides that, IMO at least, there are enough competitions going on, at the moment. So count me out.

Martin.

Ehm, as far as I understand Gimp was developed especially to handle photos. That's probably also the reason why they called it the GNU Image Manipulation Program. On their WEB site it says "GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring."

The software that came with my K20 I haven't even unpacked. But I doubt that it is as good for image manipulation as GIMP (which I haven't used either).

Prieni

okay sorry about gimp
I'm not throwing mud at it, it's just differend.
It's like comparing photoshop with silkypix, it simply isn't the same.
As far as I know the programs shipped with the camera is based on silkypix so why not used that? We aren't talking about image manupulation but polishing your photo you made, those are two differend things in my book. Tools against chromatic aberrations or white balance for example, those aren't normally found in such image programs but they are standard in any photo program so far as I know. True you can do those things inside an image program by certain ways but not like a photo program.
It's like racing in a standard car, good you go around the track but if you had a race car you might be faster and better.

Martin, yes you're right it was kort door de bocht mostly.
The basics are there and written from out my own experience, I basicly only half use lightroom.
I import and convert the photos from the SD-card to my harddisk, go through and polish the photos in the Development tab and that's it.
Everything else is done through Photoshop because I do some image manipulations that aren't possible in lightroom.

You're right about that it's database driven but it didn't occur to me that I should explain that, sorry. It is an important feature which is very handy. It trully aren't just a few extra's, it was an understatement of my part.

About the contest. Most or maybe even everyone do some PP before we submit the photo so in a way it's already in the competition. A wonderfull photo destroyed by bad PP will never win I believe.
It's just interesting to see how someone will handell a certain photo and to what kind of result he/she comes.

edit: typo