A couple swan pics

[DMN]

Here are a couple swan pics both taken at 400 mm f8 AV mode partial metering.

I am not sure when to use the different metering systems exactly.

I have started shooting raw, but get quite lost when I open them in Elements 5 and try to sharpen and such.

C and C welcome.

Thanks

DMN

[yakfisher]

In Elements, once you've made the exposure and other adjustments before you open the picture, you can click on the details tab and adjust the sharpness. Or after you open the picture you can adjust the sharpness from the enhance menu.

I would have to say though the second picture looks pretty sharp to me. The first one might be a little soft, but I'm not in a good enough light for my small monitor to really make that call.

[mmeyer]

Those are nice shots. I think that first one may be a little soft but like Yakfisher said, that 2nd shot is nice and sharp.

Thanks for sharing

[Dbl]

These look pretty good DMN. For almost all of my shooting I use Evaluative metering. That mode trys to make the whole picture properly exposed. Center-weighted will tend to make things toward the center of the frame properly exposed. Spot metering exposes for just the area you have picked.

That is a simplified version of metering but should give you an idea of how the different modes work.

[MN Shutterbug]

 Originally Posted By: yakfisher

In Elements, once you've made the exposure and other adjustments before you open the picture, you can click on the details tab and adjust the sharpness. Or after you open the picture you can adjust the sharpness from the enhance menu.

I'm really a newbie when it comes to shooting raw. How can you make adjustments to a photo before you open the photo? With the very few shots that I've taken in raw, I open them and adjust the white balance. White balance adjustment is the main reason I started to shoot raw. I then save it as a jpeg and make the rest of my adjustments, such as USM, levels and saturation there. I then save it as a tiff. I would imagine I should be doing things different, but in what way and why?

BTW, the exposure on the swans look dead on. Nice shots.

[Dbl]

Hey X what program are you using again for processing and RAW? If it is Elements when you open a RAW file you will be able to apply some sharpening, saturation, etc to the file there. You can click on the Details tab and sharpening can be applied there as well as noise reduction and smoothing. When you have made the changes you want click on the "Open" tab instead of "Save" and it will now open in Elements where you can further refine, levels, etc. Then while you are in Elements you can chose to "save as" under the file menu to save it as JPEG, TIFF, psd whatever format you are using.

That saves an interim step and if using a JPEG you are saving it once, not saving and opening in Elements.

[DMN]

Yakfisher,

The first shot I didn't do sharpening in raw and waited until in Elements and then did a highpass filter sort of sharpening I read about.

The second shot I did aharpening in Raw and I may have had better luck with it.

I would be interested in hereing some sugestions on peoples settings as I don't want to overdo the tweaking.

Thanks

DMN

[DMN]

DBL,

I will try evaluative metering again, I see loking at some of my earlier shots last summer I was using it.

On these shots I was just coming from trying to get a shot of an uncooperative turkey, that was getting out of Dodge, and I Blew the snow all out, so I thought I would try setting to partial.

DMN

[yakfisher]

 Originally Posted By: X-tackleman

I'm really a newbie when it comes to shooting raw. How can you make adjustments to a photo before you open the photo? With the very few shots that I've taken in raw, I open them and adjust the white balance. White balance adjustment is the main reason I started to shoot raw. I then save it as a jpeg and make the rest of my adjustments, such as USM, levels and saturation there. I then save it as a tiff. I would imagine I should be doing things different, but in what way and why?

BTW, the exposure on the swans look dead on. Nice shots.

X-

Like Dan said opening a RAW file in Elements 5.0 is a two part process. The first step allows you to make the exposure and temperature adjustments and several other tweaks. Once you have the file set where you like it you click open and then you can use elements to make all the other adjustments just like if you were to open a JPEG file.

DMN-

I think the second photo may have been a little sharper to begin with. I took some photos back in the fall and a lot of them were soft. I didn't see it until Steve and Dan pointed it out. I sharpened some of them, but they never quite looked as good as the images that were sharp to begin with. I also had to sharpen several of my eclipse photos because my shutter speed was too slow, I never had the level of detail that I had with the images that were sharp to begin with. That is definitely something I still struggle with, getting it sharp in the first place. I know the advice we receive here is very helpful in learning how to make that sharpness happen.

[DMN]

I think you are right on the original sharpness of the second shot, I will work on trying to get sharper shots.

I rethought about what I posted about blowing the snow out in the evaluative metering turkey shot earlier and that makes no scence, evaluative should expose the snow and under expose the turkey. I must have been as excited as the turkey and looked in the wrong end of the lens!!!

Thanks all

DMN

[yakfisher]

 Originally Posted By: DMN

I think you are right on the original sharpness of the second shot, I will work on trying to get sharper shots.

I rethought about what I posted about blowing the snow out in the evaluative metering turkey shot earlier and that makes no scence, evaluative should expose the snow and under expose the turkey. I must have been as excited as the turkey and looked in the wrong end of the lens!!!

Thanks all

DMN

If you shot it in RAW there might be something there that can be saved. It might not be a great shot but there might be something there to look at.

[perch_destroyer]

Very Nice shots!! the Perch