November 2012 - Digital Group - Topaz, Elements+, Lightroom

Meeting Notes March 2009 to 2018.
Post Reply
spb
Posts: 146
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2008 7:04 pm

November 2012 - Digital Group - Topaz, Elements+, Lightroom

Post by spb » Wed Nov 07, 2012 6:41 pm

NEWS
Although I don't usually talk about cameras or lenses, a recent review of an 18-300mm Nikkor lens on dpReview reminded me of the worst lens I ever owned; an 18-200mm Nikkor. Although the convenience of a do-it-all lens is tempting, there are too many optical and physical compromises to make it a viable choice for me. Maybe you'd get a better one than I did.

It would appear that Google+ is becoming a favourite hangout for photographers and exiles from Flickr. Read the article here.

Following from Diana Goss's fascinating talk on night photography and painting with light, I was reminded of the remarkable video Light Warfare and the associated Behind the Scenes video.This is Painting with Light taken to extremes!

APS FORUM
I have been delinquent in monitoring the APS Forum for new posts but have now registered to receive email prompts. If you have any comments or additions to any Digital Group topics, don't hesitate to add them below. I would also encourage members to add questions to the How Do I? topic and I will attempt to answer your questions promptly.

APS PROJECTION ISSUES
Despite our best efforts to calibrate the club projector and laptop, there remain some problems in the darkest and brightest tones. After some recent testing I have quantified these. Given the 256 available tones, the projector is currently incapable of distinguishing the darkest 10 and the lightest 5 tones (at least).

Projected competition images that rely upon detail in the shadows and highlights may therefore benefit from a little tweaking. This can be achieved in Photoshop/Photoshop Elements by using Levels. The Output Levels sliders can be set to 10 and 250 respectively. After choosing OK and re-opening Levels it can be seen that the histogram has been pushed in at both extremes to both lighten the shadows and darken the highlights to bring them both into the range that can be displayed by the projector.

Take care to ensure that you disable this adjustment before printing or your image will suffer!

TOPAZ LABS
Although I have received requests to cover Topaz Adjust and the Topaz Labs suite of filters, I recall that I only did this in March 2012. The notes are here.

I don't have much to add to the earlier coverage other than to say that my filters are in constant use particularly Topaz Adjust and InFocus which is becoming my sharpening tool of choice. Discounts always seem to be available and you should be able to get at least 15% with a variety of discount codes. I have just used clivehaynes to get 15% on B&W Effects but it should work on any filter or the entire set. There can be even better deals at certain times such as seasonal holidays or at shows.

ELEMENTS+
As we all know, Photoshop Elements is a cut-down version of Photoshop CS. This does not necessarily make it a lesser program because the remaining tools are exactly the ones that we need and the terminology and presentation have been improved. I continue to strongly recommend Photoshop Elements as the photo editor of choice for new users.

Nevertheless, wouldn't it be great to be able to add back the features that have been removed? And you can - with a program called Elements+ which miraculously adds back a huge list of features for the grand total of £7.50p! And it's all perfectly legal.

I have tested the free demo which adds a fully featured Curves tool and a Channel Mixer (plus other stuff you probably wouldn't need). It works well and the paid-for version promises such capabilities as; Colour Balance, Selective Colour, Vibrance, Soft Proofing, Channels, Quick Masks, Smart Filters etc etc. The list seems endless. There are versions for every release of Elements from 1 to 11.

So what's the catch? Well, I haven't found a catch but I do have some reservations;
- some of the tools are not available as adjustment layers
- some that are available as adjustment layers can't be subsequently adjusted (!) although their opacity and masks can be altered
- access to the tools is via the effects palette rather than the menus or toolbar

My feeling is that beginners just starting out, have all of the tools and capabilities that they will ever need already built into Photoshop Elements. The one group of users who would really benefit from Elements+ are those migrating down from Photoshop CS to Elements for economic reasons and who may miss a particular tool that they have become totally reliant upon. In which case this product is a bargain.

ADOBE LIGHTROOM - LIBRARY MODULE
Continuing our exploration of Adobe Lightroom, we looked at the Library Module. This brilliantly achieves the organising, sorting, rating, keywording, comparing, selecting renaming and collecting of images from a large set. The interface is a model of clarity once you have 'gotten' your head around the basic principles.

To this end, I mentioned a couple of sets of excellent tutorial videos;

From Adobe TV comes the series Getting Started with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 which are hosted by Julieanne Kost. These are free to view on the web and the set of 11 fairly short videos comprehensively introduce every major feature of the entire program. They are a model of clarity albeit slightly corporate and without a hint of objectivity. The library module is covered by the first two in the set and total about three quarters of an hour.

An alternative set of videos on Lightroom 3 are highly recommended by APS member Bill Liversidge. These originate from Luminous Landscape and are hosted by professional photographers Michael Reichmann and Jeff Schewe. They total 9 hours and comprise over 52 videos (!). Whilst they can be a bit rambling at times, they are more objective, and Bill has found that they get to the heart of Lightroom's benefits to real photographers. Because of the arrival of Lightroom 4, the entire set are currently on sale for £20.

Cheers, Steve Brabner.

Post Reply