Anna,

You make global changes in the RAW convertor first - white balance, exposure, curves etc. Get it as good as you can in the RAW convertor - it'll save you a heap of work in PS later (and gives you better quality).

Personally I export from Capture One to high quality JPG generally (it's good enough for 99% of my work) in the Adobe RGB colour space. If I am printing huge (bigger than 20x16") or doing a lot of PS work I'll use 16-bit TIFF.

Once exported, I bring it into PS and sharpen it up (with Mattmatic's Sharpen-O-Matic of course ), then apply any localised adjustments - dodging and burning, creative sharpening etc.

Hope that helps!
Matt

Insomnia... again

Not unusual at all This topic was covered a while back.

These threads may help:
https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=378

https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=360
https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=266
https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1081

I have a remote control, an *ist-D, and a Pocket PC - I could sample the IR for you if you let me know which remote software you're using...
Matt

Simon
Regarding filters, I use a UV0 to protect the lens, a circular polariser, and a pile of ND and ND grads. These definitely help - especially in landscape photography

Taking your comment about print quality... I've had great results from Photobox in the UK. However, having printed stuff to ProAM Imaging at 402dpi their output is positively stunning - absolutely no resolution problems at 16x20" from a straight 6mp image from the *ist-D. Looking at their output, I reckon I could go larger and still have no problems.

That said, optimising for output (especially sharpness) is another art form in itself... and if you find a good print service that does what you want - stick with it!

It is surprising what you can get out of a 6mp output, given a bit of care, practise, and time

Matt

It's an interesting subject - the B&W
Most of the problem is that the printing output is trying to get black and grey by combining CMYK or RGB and you often get colour shifts and metamerism etc.

However, I've often wondered about digitally printing a slide with www.micro-quiz.co.uk (very good price and from what I've heard, excellent quality - indistinguishable from a regular slide. They now do 8000dpi output!!), and then hand printing a B&W print. Obviously you can edit in PS in positive, then negative it for output to the slide. I'd love to know what the results would be like if anyone feels like experimenting

Matt

With Elements there are a couple of good ways of producing B&W:

First method:
1. Add a new Hue/Sat layer
2. Put the Sat to -100

Second method:
1. As above
2. Change the layer mode to "Color" - this produces a B&W similar to Photoshop's Lab mode, where different colours have different "grey weights". This is actually the luminosity mode contained in a JPG

Third method (the Russell Brown method):
1. Add a new Hue/Sat layer
2. Change layer mode to "Color"
3. Add a second Hue/Sat layer on top
4. Set Sat to -100

Now, in the middle layer (the one that's set to color mode), change the Hue and this produces the effect of filtering (as if you had put a filter on the camera).

You can get great results with those methods.

Finally, you can dodge and burn by:
1. Add a new blank layer
2. Change the layer blend mode to "Soft-Light" (or Overlay)
3. Paint with a very soft black or white brush. Set the opacity to 5% or 10% and build it up slowly. Paint black to burn (darken), and paint white to dodge (lighten).

Hope that helps

Matt

(There are some tutorials on my website: www.photon.me.uk, and in the tutorials section of www.ephotozine.com )

Well, I make very good use of Cokin P series filters - but only the following:
ND, ND grad, Circ Polariser. The ND grads are extremely useful in balancing the lighting out and capturing in one image - controlling the exposure, even for RAW.

I'm not sure I'd use any of the others (like Tobacco Grad, etc, etc) since most other things can be done in PS.

Matt

Liam
Brilliant website - thanks for the link
Matt

By a long way IMO
Matt

I've tried a few zooms, and have now settled on the Pentax SMC-FA 80-320.
Very cheap, second hand from Jessops in the UK. Not very bright wide open, but razor sharp and wonderful colour, especially on the *ist-D.

Matt