Fine Tune Your Images Using Photoscape 3.6

Part 2 .. Selecting the image & identifying faults.
Part 3 .. Using Photoscape
Part 4 .. Image Processing
Part 5 .. The Finishing Touches

Part 1...Photoscape




This tutorial is for those that shoot Jpeg or who shoot RAW and then convert the image to Jpeg or a Tiff  file. 
The first part of this tutorial will cover some of the reasons why I personally use this editor as my preferred tool. Bear in mind that I don't as a rule intend to process my work into objects of art as some people do. Thats a separate talent and process in its own right. I'm more interested in taking the image that I have shot and finishing it in a way that  demonstrates how I saw or envisioned the final image to be.


A note here about file types:
Photoscape can convert a number of RAW formats but sadly Fuji RAW File format isn't one of them. I use Silkypix and convert to Jpeg or Tiff and then process in Photoscape.
Make sure that you set your Silkypix settings to zero as the default import/open settings. That way you don't get the automatic settings being applied to your images in SilkyPix. I currently use the latest version of SILKYPIX Developer Studio Pro English if I'm converting RAW files.


How I want the image to look in its final rendition relates directly to how the image was shot. I always review the shots in camera to see if the result is close to what I had in mind when looking at the subject prior to taking a photo. For our purposes here I will use one of the many shots I have taken recently of insects on roadside flowers.

Photoscape Front Screen

The conditions for doing this are not always kind. Sometimes there is too much light, sometimes too little. Then there's the subjects activity to take into account as well as environmental factors such as dust and wind to contend with. I subject my Fuji HS20 to a great deal of environmental abuse, as it travels on the front seat of the truck, in very hot sunshine, lots of dust, and is often bumped and knocked in the process of getting "The Shot". Its a pretty harsh environment generally and the HS20 has never missed a beat or shown any sign of being anything other than reliable. If you were worried about Fuji's build quality with the HS series camera, don't be they will stand up to the punishment without trouble, even when you drop it as I did recently.


Now with all that in mind, why use Photoscape? Its really quite simple, for me its the best Free photo editor bar none. Its powerful and comes with a large suite of tools as well. Such as screen capture,batch editor, raw converter,image splitter ( a rather interesting tool)  plus a host of other handy tools as well as a very good photo editor.
There really isn't a lot that's missing from this editor and I find that there is very little that I need to do in Lightroom 3.4 that I cant do in Photoscape. Add to this regular updates and bug fixes and you have a tool that has good support and a reasonable online help file/tutorial.


Part 2....Starting the processing