I recant, mostly

Trying to knit my 2007 pics of Langdale fells, 350D+DPP editing, with 2008 pics taken in far worse light conditions but armed with D80 & capture NX, I have found the 2007 embarrassingly oversaturated and overdramatised.

The point of this thread is that I have found I cannot continue on conversions from CR2 done in DPP as they disintegrate and become a noisy mess under NX treatment.

However doing a minimum adjustment conversion from CR2 to tif using PSE4, I get a file on which I can do the more serious editing in NX with reasonable results. Still rapidly abandoned attempts to do the later editing in PSE. In NX one can work on the Luminance (in LCH) without resort to levels or curves and likewise do mild colour corrections using the Chroma part of LCH and/or a mild 'Colour balance'.

[Derekb]

Is there an English version?

[andy153]

Hi Chris - do you mean the old Canon shots are cr*p and the new Nikon ones superb?? Or have I missed something???

[John Hallas]

Well I read that twice and didn't understand what was being said and then saw Derek's response. Summed it up nicely

I was a strong advocate of DPP but now find PSE better for the RAW conversion stage.

I have always loathed PSE for editing, not because I can't/haven't tried. I used to think DPP was OK for editing too & advocated it until I came to difficult landscape shots.

The Canon 350D is a very good entry level camera; D80 better all round, but so it should be being a slimmed down D200, more equivalent of 30D.

I now use Nikon capture NX for all editing and am pleased to find that once one has converted CR2 into something nearly 'ex-camera' that NX can open, it works fine for old Canon shots too. As indeed it does for even older Pana FZ7 shots.

The NX jargon perhaps ought to be in the NX thread, but for anyone interested it provides ways of adjusting both contrast and colour NOT using levels or curves. The LCH>master lightness is like a curve that can adjust the contrast gradient at different rates for different tonal ranges within an image more precisely than PS/CS>highlights/midtones/shadows; and without danger of unbalancing the colour if using R/G/B separately. Also IMO lessening need for HDR solutions.

[andy153]

Hi Chris I get the PSE - Photoshop Elements - but what are DPP - CR2 and LCH?

DPP is Canon's own Digital Photo Professional which I had been persuaded must know more about Canon RAW/CR2 format than PSE; seems not so.

1st frame is of Langdale valley edited entirely in DPP and can't be shown along side this years output http://www.pbase.com/crisscross/langpavey
http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...1&d=1211628655
The next frame shows it 'ex-camera' in PSE RAW converter window

Further frames show take-up in Nikon Capture NX with annotations (the exposure compensation is about all that needs to be done in RAW section of D80 shots aswell; for D3/300 there are additional RAW editing features)
http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...1&d=1211628866
last one includes finished result which goes fine with current D80 output
In this case you might say PSE/CS>shadows/mid-tones/highlights would have done the same thing, but often several steps need to be put in the gradient and can always be precisely matched to the relevant part of the image

[andy153]

Thanks Chris - that explains a lot.