The Photographers' Corner - 2021 to ?

[Ronstar]

Taking a rest in the front yard

[Qs Laptop]

The detail and the color contrast in that shot is amazing!

[donheff]

With Halloween coming up, I decided the Ghost Nebula would be my next deep space object. This is a faint star forming reflection nebula, 1470 light years away in the constellation Cepheus. A PITA to process.

[Walt34]

Neat stuff!

[Ronstar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Walt34 Neat stuff!

+1. Very cool. Combines two hobbies too- photography and astronomy.

[pacergal]

Cute fawn.

Cool nebula shot

[walkinwood]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuckanut I am planning on selling some photo gear that I no longer use. This includes tripods, a few long lenses, and assorted filters and such. Many items will simply be given away to others or donated to charities such as Goodwill. All the stuff while used is in good very good shape. But, there are a few lenses and some very nice tripods that I would like to sell and use the cash to purchase a smaller lighter camera. And to also buy more ink and quality paper for my printers. Any suggestions on how to sell such gear locally would be appreciated. Has anybody used a good service or neighborhood type group to sell photo gear? Any luck?

I didn't see a response to this.
I used keh.com to sell my gear recently and it was a painless process. Fill an online form to tell them what you have to sell and the condition. They'll send you a fedex shipping label. Put it all in a box and ship it to them. They evaluate & give you a final price. I found the price to be very fair. They give you a choice of a credit at their used camera store, paypal or a check.



There's also mpb.com, but their estimate was less than keh, so I didn't use them.


I've sold more expensive gear on ebay.com. I've not had any issues doing that. Take a lot of pictures of your gear especially any dents/scrapes etc. Do a bit of research to see what similar gear is selling for. Figure out shipping costs though I think ebay will help with that. I haven't used ebay for a couple of years.

[Some_Other_Guy]

Hi folks,

Not sure if this is the right thread for questions but I wanted to take a chance...

What post-processing application(s) do you all use? Photoshop, being subscription-based can get expensive to the point where it becomes its own line item in the annual budget, but if it's worth it I guess paying for the best becomes its own value added?

Any recommendations or ideas? Thanks!

[folivier]

I use ON1, they do have a stand alone version and a subscription version.
It will do most of what Photoshop will do but much cheaper.

[donheff]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Some_Other_Guy Hi folks, Not sure if this is the right thread for questions but I wanted to take a chance... What post-processing application(s) do you all use? Photoshop, being subscription-based can get expensive to the point where it becomes its own line item in the annual budget, but if it's worth it I guess paying for the best becomes its own value added? Any recommendations or ideas? Thanks!

I long used an old copy of Photoshop because I liked their shadows/highlights feature. I used Gimp which is very good and open source, but it was always a bit of a PITA. I got Affinity, which a lot of people rave about, and found that to be another form of PITA.

Recently, I got into deep space astrophotography and the whole issue got amplified. There are a lot of very good specialized apps I use for that, but final touchup does require a tool like Gimp, Photoshop, or Affinity. For the first few months Gimp served well but I finally caved and got a Photoshop license (which I added as a line item in my budget). I am learning to make use of AI assisted tools like "remove" to fix artifacts that arise during processing. Frankly, almost everything else is available in Gimp.

[street]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ronstar Taking a rest in the front yard

Beautiful picture!!!

[street]

Quote:

Originally Posted by donheff With Halloween coming up, I decided the Ghost Nebula would be my next deep space object. This is a faint star forming reflection nebula, 1470 light years away in the constellation Cepheus. A PITA to process.

Man, those are interesting captures!! Thanks for sharing those rare type photos..

[donheff]

Quote:

Originally Posted by street Man, those are interesting captures!! Thanks for sharing those rare type photos..

Thanks, I will keep them coming. But there are actually a lot of people doing this these days. The equipment to track the objects and capture long exposures is in reach for hobbyists. And the software to stack and process the images is powerful, if a bit complicated. There are Facebook groups with thousands of members dedicated to aspects of this pursuit.

[street]

Quote:

Originally Posted by donheff Thanks, I will keep them coming. But there are actually a lot of people doing this these days. The equipment to track the objects and capture long exposures is in reach for hobbyists. And the software to stack and process the images is powerful, if a bit complicated. There are Facebook groups with thousands of members dedicated to aspects of this pursuit.

What a great hobby. I will be looking forward to more of your photos. Again, thank you for sharing those.

[Walt34]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Some_Other_Guy What post-processing application(s) do you all use? Photoshop, being subscription-based can get expensive to the point where it becomes its own line item in the annual budget, but if it's worth it I guess paying for the best becomes its own value added? Any recommendations or ideas? Thanks!

This is exactly the correct thread for your question.

I (very reluctantly) succumbed to the subscription for Photoshop/Lightroom. Both have a steep learning curve (for me anyway) and since both are pretty much industry standards there is more aftermarket support in the form of books and online videos than for any other software. I particularly learn better from books, with the book in one hand and the keyboard in the other, so to speak. I find videos to be tedious and the vast majority take way too long to get to the point. With books I can more quickly zero in on what tidbit of information I'm looking for.

But all of this is highly personal and what works for me doesn't necessarily work for you or anyone else. But I find it easier to find what I'm looking for with those two software packages than anything else.

[Ronstar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Some_Other_Guy Hi folks, Not sure if this is the right thread for questions but I wanted to take a chance... What post-processing application(s) do you all use? Photoshop, being subscription-based can get expensive to the point where it becomes its own line item in the annual budget, but if it's worth it I guess paying for the best becomes its own value added? Any recommendations or ideas? Thanks!

I have the Photoshop and Lightroom subscription. Yes it's expensive, but I couldn't find a reasonable alternative.

[explanade]

So the one thing that Adobe is going to be pushing a lot is AI tools for PhotoShop.

Earlier this year, they released AI de-noise for LightRoom, which is pretty effective.

Now they're pushing AI masking, which I haven't tried yet.

But I think the things they will really hype are the AI-driven content features, like content fill or removing things, do it in a more automated way.

[Qs Laptop]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Some_Other_Guy Hi folks, Not sure if this is the right thread for questions but I wanted to take a chance... What post-processing application(s) do you all use? Photoshop, being subscription-based can get expensive to the point where it becomes its own line item in the annual budget, but if it's worth it I guess paying for the best becomes its own value added? Any recommendations or ideas? Thanks!

I use Photoshop Elements. This is a stripped down version of Photoshop. It does most of the same things that Photoshop does but it's a buy once and you own it. No subscription. There are probably sophisticated techniques that are not available in Elements that are in Photoshop, but so far I haven't come across anything that it couldn't do for my needs.

I can be had on sale for $69 or $79 numerous times during the year. I bought the combo pack of Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements (the video editing software) on sale for $99 back during Covid.

[Rustic23]

I use Affinity Photo. I do most of my editing on an Ipad. Affinity for the ipad is $20. There is a Mac, and PC version. I don't think there is a subscription version, but there is a trial version. It too, like Photoshop, has a steep learning curve. However, there are lots of youtube videos, ant Affinity has good tutorials.

https://www.youtube.com/@CreativeGoodman

I found this one ok for a start.

[Ronstar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by explanade So the one thing that Adobe is going to be pushing a lot is AI tools for PhotoShop. Earlier this year, they released AI de-noise for LightRoom, which is pretty effective. Now they're pushing AI masking, which I haven't tried yet. But I think the things they will really hype are the AI-driven content features, like content fill or removing things, do it in a more automated way.

I haven't tried the Lightroom denoise. I've been using Topaz denoise for the past few years on wildlife shots using my 150/600 mm lens. Really clears up the noise well.