I bought a Nikon D7000 in 2020 and have been using it on and off since then. It wasn't until I started editing my RAW photos a few weeks ago did I realize how important composition and lighting are. I've taken hundreds of photos, and I was lucky to capture more than a few that just happened to be of good composition and lighting, and I'm observing now how much easier it is to edit those photos than their opposite. I think the point I'm making is that I've gradually learned that the photo-editing process is supposed to bring the "goodness" out of good photos but is not a miracle worker for bad ones. Your channel is one out of three I have learned from, and I appreciate all of the work you put into your videos! They are informative and to the point. You are a fantastic photographer and editor, and you're an even better educator. Thanks again, Travis
Thanks, that's very kind. It's a truism that generally, the better you get at taking photos, the less you actually take them. I went from taking my camera everywhere to now only taking it on dedicated, mostly well planned trips to locations where I know I'll be able to get some good compositions, and with some luck, good light. It is definitely the case that processing is better seen as enhancing something already there rather than trying to make something from nothing. I try and use the term "processing" rather than "editing", at least in the context of processing raws, because it's not "changing" things for the most part (although you might do a little bit of retouching to remove things). It's processing an unfinished product into a finished one, just like processing film. No one calls it "editing" when they develop film! Hopefully that unfinished product is well composed and well lit, otherwise the finished product probably won't be!
You do these lovely videos with lots of analysis and local edits...any thought about using the waveform scope to highlight your edits and analysis..The histogram is binned pixel data but yhe waveform provides so much more information....
The honest answer is that I'm not all that confident in using it, so I'm not confident in showing others. But I will definitely look into it and incorporate it into future videos when I feel like I know what I'm talking about a little more.
@@DarktableLandscapes Ha...good answer...Really I was initially the same. When you look at image data as a histogram for so long you get "conditioned" When I started to use the waveform I was also hesitant but really its just a 2d version of the image data rather than the 1D binned data in the histogram...So for example in any area of your image you see the values for all the channels...if you have a dark area in some part of the image it will show as such...if you couple that with sampling and restricting the waveform to the selection you can really see the color channel breakdown for that area and it makes tweaking it so easy...so basically it give you spatial color information whereas the histogram only bins the data so you can see the image max and min and the relative distrubution of the values between that you don't get any idea about that data in a particular part of the image which the waveform gives you...the vectorscope is also really nice for color...again when you sample and then you can visualize and/or confirm how your edit is impacting hue and saturation of that area.... for me the waveform and vectorscope tools have completely replaced the histogram....
Yes, that's its main drawback. But it's not impenetrable with a little practice (and the occasional helpful video), just like any software. And of course, it's totally free, and there's no suggestion of using your (or your clients') data for training AI!
@@DarktableLandscapesone month after I learned about DT and after practicing on few raw files, I don’t find anymore the interface so complicated. Actually now it makes more sense and I understand why it was conceived like that
I bought a Nikon D7000 in 2020 and have been using it on and off since then. It wasn't until I started editing my RAW photos a few weeks ago did I realize how important composition and lighting are. I've taken hundreds of photos, and I was lucky to capture more than a few that just happened to be of good composition and lighting, and I'm observing now how much easier it is to edit those photos than their opposite.
I think the point I'm making is that I've gradually learned that the photo-editing process is supposed to bring the "goodness" out of good photos but is not a miracle worker for bad ones.
Your channel is one out of three I have learned from, and I appreciate all of the work you put into your videos! They are informative and to the point. You are a fantastic photographer and editor, and you're an even better educator.
Thanks again,
Travis
Thanks, that's very kind. It's a truism that generally, the better you get at taking photos, the less you actually take them. I went from taking my camera everywhere to now only taking it on dedicated, mostly well planned trips to locations where I know I'll be able to get some good compositions, and with some luck, good light.
It is definitely the case that processing is better seen as enhancing something already there rather than trying to make something from nothing. I try and use the term "processing" rather than "editing", at least in the context of processing raws, because it's not "changing" things for the most part (although you might do a little bit of retouching to remove things). It's processing an unfinished product into a finished one, just like processing film. No one calls it "editing" when they develop film! Hopefully that unfinished product is well composed and well lit, otherwise the finished product probably won't be!
Great tutorial, really appreciate these!
Excellent demo of parametric mask to isolate the mid tones. Also great tips on sharpening. Thanks.
great video! thank you very much!
A well explained edit - thanks
Nice result.
Good title! Appreciate the darktable theme is different and the text is much easier to read.
You do these lovely videos with lots of analysis and local edits...any thought about using the waveform scope to highlight your edits and analysis..The histogram is binned pixel data but yhe waveform provides so much more information....
The honest answer is that I'm not all that confident in using it, so I'm not confident in showing others. But I will definitely look into it and incorporate it into future videos when I feel like I know what I'm talking about a little more.
@@DarktableLandscapes Ha...good answer...Really I was initially the same. When you look at image data as a histogram for so long you get "conditioned" When I started to use the waveform I was also hesitant but really its just a 2d version of the image data rather than the 1D binned data in the histogram...So for example in any area of your image you see the values for all the channels...if you have a dark area in some part of the image it will show as such...if you couple that with sampling and restricting the waveform to the selection you can really see the color channel breakdown for that area and it makes tweaking it so easy...so basically it give you spatial color information whereas the histogram only bins the data so you can see the image max and min and the relative distrubution of the values between that you don't get any idea about that data in a particular part of the image which the waveform gives you...the vectorscope is also really nice for color...again when you sample and then you can visualize and/or confirm how your edit is impacting hue and saturation of that area.... for me the waveform and vectorscope tools have completely replaced the histogram....
Seems very powerful but not very intuitive interface
Yes, that's its main drawback. But it's not impenetrable with a little practice (and the occasional helpful video), just like any software. And of course, it's totally free, and there's no suggestion of using your (or your clients') data for training AI!
@@DarktableLandscapesone month after I learned about DT and after practicing on few raw files, I don’t find anymore the interface so complicated. Actually now it makes more sense and I understand why it was conceived like that