Photoscape & post processing.

With continued use I am finding that Photoscape is a very useful tool. When film is developed and processed at a commercial lab sophisticated machinery makes all the choices as to color tone, contrast etc. What you get is prints that are as a rule normally very good. I have had few failures with film in this regard and any that tended to be over or underexposed were more likely to be because I made a mistake.

With digital prints however we have the luxury (or onerous task) of processing the images ourselves as they come from the camera.
I have all the commercial photo lab software you could want. Photoshop CS5, Lightroom 3, ACR 6. Most of these commercial packages are very expensive. If you are a professional photographer you may have need of these tools.

For those of us who have limited resources there are some very good alternatives. Plus I am a fan of freeware, as some of it is quite innovative.

So what options are there. Well for me at least I have settled on a number of free programs listed below.

• 1. Picasa - for quick edits and fast uploads to my albums. This program is very good at that. It has some editing tools but they aren't as good as I would like. Use Google to install this.
• 2. Microsoft Office Picture Manager. Good for doing quick crops and rudimentary tone and contrast changes. Its free and downloadable here http://www.brothersoft.com/microsoft-office-picture-manager-171868.html
• 3 Photoscape Vs 3.5 - This is a multi talented piece of software that includes a raw converter. The converter doesn't work with some of the Fuji cameras but does for most mainstream cameras. I use Photoscape as my primary image editor.
• 4 The Gimp - Free to download from anywhere just Google it. The learning curve is high though, but if you know how to use Photoshop this should be easy to use.

All these programs are free and have there uses. You may find there are others as well that better suit what you do. At this point in time however this is more than enough.

So why use Photoscape and not the commercial packages? Simple really, I am a photographer not a graphic artist, therefore for me learning to use Photoshop is not that important. What is, is the ability to quickly and accurately retouch photos as and when they require it. I also need a fast upload to my albums. This is where Picasa comes in. For fast batch processing of images ( resizing before or after PP'ing ) is the job of Office Picture Manager. Its very adept at batch process. For the artistic side of things I have the Gimp. Which like Photoshop I rarely use. I have stopped using Lightroom for most images as it seems a little restrictive after using Photoscape. Purely a personal preference and I do use Lightroom for certain images that need a little extra to get them right, call it my secondary tool.

Below are two examples of before and after work using Photoscape. The original image is straight out of the camera. The second is the finished item. Exif data is also available. Just save the image and it should be able to be displayed.

Exif: 

ISO :400

Focal Length: 13.3mm

F-Number: f/10

Exposure: Time 1/1000

Metering Mode: Spot

Exposure Compensation: 0

Camera Model: Fujifilm Finepix HS10

Final

This photo was reasonably good right from the camera. A setting of 4 for sharpening was used. Followed by Noise reduction setting at low. This was followed by selecting the deepen middle option and brighten high to finish. Saved as a jpeg with full detail and no compression.

The changes to this image are subtle. Sky color  and cloud was enhanced, definition in the shadows was increased, sharpness was increased, and a little contrast to finish.

In the next image the look is a little washed out and the background (reeds and grasses) appear ill defined and chaotic. Detail on the bird is also not well defined. The job here is to lift the overall light level, define the bird detail and improve background depth and focus.

Exif: 

ISO :400

Focal Length: 25.9mm

F-Number: f/10

Exposure: Time 1/320

Metering Mode: Spot

Exposure Compensation: 0

Camera Model: Fujifilm Finepix HS10

Final

To achieve this I find did a mid level sharpen at level 6. This was followed by deepening the mid tone depth. This improved contrast and color after sharpening. To bring up the fine detail in the background I used the brighten option and brought up the low level light. Finally I selected from the sharpness options a mid level contrast increase followed by low noise reduction.

Saved using the same settings as above. In this image it is easier to see the overall differences made. It takes a bland photo and changes it to how it actually looked when I took the photos.

A note about sharpening levels in Photoscape. When the sharpen button is pressed it brings up a selection box with 2 sliders. I have preset this at 1.2 for radius and no more than 80 percent for the amount. This generally gives a good mid level sharpen. For these images I used a lower level of sharpening by using the sharpening tool toggle, and selecting a number from the list. This works on a percentage of what you have set the sliders at. Change around and experiment with this. I settled on these as a good option. I think from memory they may have also been the default option when I installed the program.

Download Photoscape here.

http://www.photoscape.org/ps/main/download.php

The main thing is to have fun and take lots of photos.
Happy Snappin'