The Photo Thread: Week of 2022-03-20

@lylegogh 's new job prompted a new weekly topic :slightly_smiling_face: Some more Nikon pics this week. Ordered a new Windows laptop now as my main photo machine. Will be interesting to see how it handles my software.

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Iā€™d check my settings (on your monitor or camera depending on your work flow) and your histogram. These 4 pics seem a little too bright to me, and I donā€™t know if thatā€™s your preference or me being fussy :wink:

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:+1:t2: This is a new workflow for me, Nikon RAW into Luminar Neo and I let Neo decide how to ā€˜developā€™ them. Was very bright, mid-afternoon so kinda how it was. Bleached colours. No histogram in Neo yet, but gotta cut them some slack at the mo :ukraine:

I do have questions though @ant_pruitt Are RAW camera profiles important, and should I look into a custom one for my Nikon D7500?

-1 exposure and a bit more contrast on the first oneā€¦

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Yes I think I like the adjusted photo better. These things are personal taste, as ever, though, so make sure YOU like your results :slight_smile:

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Yeah if your software has a profile for your camera, youā€™ll get better performance in the final processing. This is why capture one is so popular with Fujifilm users as their algorithm handles the files much better than Lightroom. Itā€™s almost night and day for that format.

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Thanks, Ant. Just taken a look in the Skylum and Nikon forums. A few suggestions there. If Adobeā€™s DNW Convertor is installed, their generic Adobe ones will show up in Luminar.

But some folks say just add another step and use Nikonā€™s own RAW processing first in NX Studio, then move to your software.

Editā€¦ just seen the latest HOP title. Good timing :+1:t2:

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Can you explain to me why this would be a beneficial process? I use a piece of software for editing, Pixelmator Pro. Im relatively new to this so not sure why people would choose to use two software packages on one photo.

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I guess it depends on what you want out of your photos. If you like what comes directly off your camera, then you may not need to any post-processing. On the other hand, if you want to ā€œmessā€ with your photos to try different looks, etc, then you may be interested in post processing tools.

If I asked you why you would use different tools to build a dog house, would that make sense? Some times different tools are better or specialized at different things. In particular Skylumā€™s Luminar is all about making ā€œAIā€ based edits, like replacing the sky. Itā€™s also known for different ā€œcolour paletteā€ effectsā€¦ like making a photo look ā€œoldā€ (sepia) or like it was taken with a specific type of film, etc.

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What people are doing is cherry-picking features from multiple apps.

So in my example, Iā€™m finding the Nikon software better for triage and initial RAW adjustments as it is quicker and also lets me see much more camera-specific metadata (focus points, camera modes/settings etc.)

But then I might want to use some of the portrait AI features in Luminar, or Aurora if Iā€™m working with HDR and so on.

Down on the River Thames again. NX Studio + Luminar Neo.

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Thanks for your explanation. On a side note, this was a nice post to look at every week. It has dwindled regarding the amount of participants. You have posted some nice pics in the past.

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No worries. Iā€™ve noticed this weekly thread has gone a bit quiet recently. Is everyone now on Discord?! :slightly_smiling_face:

The eye of Sauron!!!

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Just no time or not seeing anything worth photographing at the moment.

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Yeah, Iā€™ve been holed up most of winter and not taking many photos other than the kids.

3 posts were split to a new topic: The Photo Thread: Week of 2022-03-27