Just a plate I had at home but it gave me an idea which I thought would go well with this week's WA.

Happy shooting,
Yakim.

Really funny and creative shot, Yakim! I love it. My only critique might be that it is a bit drab looking. You might try to use Levels to brighten it up just a tad so it pops more. Excellent work!

All the best,

Endre

Hi Endre,

Thank you for your kind words.

Unfortunately I don't have PS. I only use DPP. Does it has this function in it? What exactly does it do?

Happy shooting,
Yakim.

Gosh, Yakim, I have no idear what DFP is. In PS, Levels or Curves would help you stretch out the brightness of the histogram so that the shot would look brighter. Too bad I can't help you more than that.

All the best,

Endre

DPP is Digital Photo Professional. This is Canon's software. It can't do much but I'm sure it still have features I need to learn. I tried PS about 2 years ago but didn't really liked it.

Happy shooting,
Yakim.

Great shot Yakim, I like how the lighting make the plate smile..Good Luck!!

Yakim:

I like the idea, but would echo Endre's comments about brightening it up.

You might consider Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop Elements if you weren't happy with Photoshop. IMO, the software you use is another tool, just like the camera. And if you're using a (presumably) limited tool like DPP, you may not be achieving your full potential. And if you think that adjusting levels in PS is somehow cheating, it's really no different than the old days when we did test strips in the darkroom to get the correct exposure for printing. The camera does make mistakes and a tool like PS is a handy way to correct them.

The fact that you have posted such good entries over the past while, without using a tool like PS, is a tribute to your talent.

Best of luck!

Rich

Great Eye there...

DPP is pretty functional for curves adjustments... just open the image and the tools palette (Ctrl + T). Under the RGB tab is the curves adjustment. Start playing around with the curves, and you just can't stop.

teglis wrote:
Yakim:

I like the idea, but would echo Endre's comments about brightening it up.

I'll try but the only way I know of doing this is via the slider in the upper part of the RAW tag in DPP, not via levels.

teglis wrote:
You might consider Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop Elements if you weren't happy with Photoshop. IMO, the software you use is another tool, just like the camera. And if you're using a (presumably) limited tool like DPP, you may not be achieving your full potential.

I know I must learn more about digital editing tools but my free time is extremely limited (Snowhite, 3 dwarfs, full time job, other hobbies). I keep telling myself that I need to find time for that but somehow it's never there….

teglis wrote:
And if you think that adjusting levels in PS is somehow cheating, it's really no different than the old days when we did test strips in the darkroom to get the correct exposure for printing. The camera does make mistakes and a tool like PS is a handy way to correct them.

I don't think that editing is cheating, at least not as long as you are not exaggerating. It's just the time issue.

teglis wrote:
The fact that you have posted such good entries over the past while, without using a tool like PS, is a tribute to your talent.

Now I'm blushing. Thanks for the complement.

DonCJohnson wrote:
Great Eye there...

Thanks. I'm glad you liked it.

DonCJohnson wrote:
DPP is pretty functional for curves adjustments... just open the image and the tools palette (Ctrl + T). Under the RGB tab is the curves adjustment. Start playing around with the curves, and you just can't stop.

I know that. I tried to play with it several times but each time I only messed things up. Everything I tried just made things worse. Thus, I stopped using it altogether.

Happy shooting,
Yakim.

. Nicely done

chromasia.com has a pretty thorough curves tutorial as their "freebie"... I found it very informative..

http://www.chromasia.com/tutorials/online/curves/

10X. I'll look at it.

Happy shooting,
Yakim.

If you're short on $ what do you all think about using Gimp?

It's free open-source and has a heck of a lot of features www.gimp.org

Regarding playing with levels, here is a nice little tutorial on doing levels to fix a pix in Gimp. Basic ideas would work in PS too.

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Haven/5179/

I use GIMP exclusively. There are two big problems I have with it and a smattering of smaller ones, but otherwise it's every bit as powerful as any other image editing suite. The first major issue is that there are no adjustment layers; the second, that the dodge and burn tools don't work very well. If you can work around those limitations, definitely check it out.

Hi Guys,

Thanks for your efforts.

It's not so much the money as it is the (lack of ) free time and the user friendliness of the software. I used PS in the past and also ACDSee but did not like them. DPP is the only software I find to be user friendly though I think it wouldn't hurt to try others.

I'm afraid I'm just an old dog who just recently joined the digital revolution and just having trouble learning new tricks.

Happy shooting,
Yakim.