So following from this thread I thought I would share how I process my images and more of the technical side. I chose this image from Global Gathering last year which features Rita Ora

Here is the original




Heres the final result




Its not the best of images but shows what can be done under really difficult conditions.

K-5 mkii
DA* 16-50mm
43mm
ISO 1600
f/2.8
1/1250

This shoot was really tricky, lots of backlighting strobe lit
Rita is well known for running around the stage so high shutter speed was needed hence the under exposure
Also red light boo

In lightroom working through the develop module
in this order

Exposure +2
Contrast +57
Black -9
Clarity +5
Saturation -15
Color reduce red saturation -27
Sharpening
Amount 59 I usually go no more than 70
Radius 1.2
Detail 42
Masking I always apply a minimum of 85 I only want he edges to eb sharp this image had 88 applied
Noise reduction
Luminance 26
Detail 50
Contrast 12
Apply lens profile correction
Finally crop and export

Hmm I've never had a Pentax battery fail but had many third party ones that have stopped charging or holding charge, particularly the Chinese eBay batteries.

I would be happy to explain some of mine, nt sure which ones people find interesting though...

If you are going to sell prints people won't buy prints like this, men can be fickle about wives on show etc as can women, it's purely commercial reasons.

Technically nothing bad to comment on, what I would suggest however is if you shoot portraits professionally I can't stress enough you advise clients to wear plain single coloured shirts, tops, blouses. Striped and patterned tops are just so distracting and messy looking.

Image 7 has the lady laying down looking straight down her top, remember clients will most likely be hanging these portraits on their walls.

I think if you get the posing and clothing right you will be fine

My iphone is my most used camera it's with me everywhere and I can recommend the app 645pro which is just amazing. Gives you the option of imitating various 645 cameras and films.

I mistakenly installed 32 bit windows on my last windows machine which had 16 gb of memory and Lightroom was always running out of memory, went back to 64 bit and problem solved. PS and bridge and Lightroom love lots if memory.

Yes it was constantly drummed into is before a shoot what image so you want to capture, have vision achieve and then look at alternatives and it's how I work today. When shooting shows for example after a few seconds working out light positions I can see the shot I want and it's variants.

I know what you mean about painters lol but you knew what I really meant

This is correct, if you don't know the result how can you frame it. I am amazed sometimes at the amount of photographers who take a shot and then decide how it is going to look using PS or LR or other PP method. We where taught this at art college, shooting blindly can occasionally get you something but you need a vision to start with. Would a painter start throwing paint at a canvass randomly and step back and go hey thats good? Why should photography be any different?

Sounds like the reinstall has installed the 32bit of windows rather than the 64bit which limits the memory to 3 gb IIRC which is why you are running out of memory.