In fact it starts earlier. There are four steps involved in the creation of a classic photograph. Concept, exposure, processing/interpretation and presentation. The goal in the exposure is to gather the best possible raw material. One uses all the strengths of the camera. In the case of digital, the data of the histogram should be such that there are no significant highlights blown out, and plenty of shadow detail. White balance should be as accurate as is practical to get on location, and that which should be in focus is in focus. Shutter speed should be such to stop motion that should be stopped, or slow to blur backgrounds to indicate motion while keeping the subject sharp.
Processing is where you recreate the feeling you had for the subject when you conceived of the photograph. As Ansel Adams said in musical terms, the exposure is the score but the processing is the performance. If my pictures move the viewers, it is through the introspection that goes on while interpreting and fine tuning the material capured by the exposure.
That which can not be done best with the camera is done during processing. Sharpening is one of these things, along with fine tuning colour balance in the shadows, mid-tones and highlights, since the camera can only give an overall balance. Digital cameras have settings for contrast, but I find it a bit intrusive on location. In processing, I decide just where I want shadow detail to disappear into blackness, and where I want the white of highlights to begin to make the image sparkle. On location, I live by the histogram for exposure, and in the digital darkroom, I live with the histogram in Levels to recreate what I felt.
In my case this happens in Photoshop. However, Photoshop is very expensive. If you are not quite ready to take the full plunge, I would suggest Photoshop Elements as a start. It is a subset of Photoshop tools and aimed at digital photographers who are entering the pursuit. Moving from Elements to the full Photoshop is direct. No time is lost along the learning curve and the interface and number of features is less intimidating. It was bundled both with my CP5000 and again with an Epson 4870 scanner I just purchased.
When you are feeling cr&ed by Elements, then it is time to upgrade, and Adobe often has deals that mean little or no monitary loss in doing so. On the other hand, there is no hype about Photoshop. It has earned its solitary place on the mountain-top.
Just as I would not do without Photoshop, I would also be lost without Paint Shop Pro. It has a set of distortion and perspective correction tools that are full worth the cost of the whole program. I also love the way it handles type. If I am doing titles for a slide show or multi-media, I naturally reach for PSP. Generally, if I just feel like playing with image processing PSP is where the most fun is.
However, as I find Photoshop awkward for doing graphics, I find PSP awkward for doing fundamental image processing. Both are generally open all the time on my content creation machine.
Two more that I consider essential are IrfanView which is freeware. Some church should make Irfan a saint. The other is ACDSee, a lovely and versatile program for media management. On the drives of the big machine, I would guess there must be a good 50,000 images. With ACDSee, I can find any of them in an instant, without doing any clerical work - all drag and drop. A single key combination sends the selected image to the editor of choice. It is a veritable swiss army knife of media handling utilities.
All of these fully compliment each other.
larry!
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