Straight out of the camera.

[bobedwards]

Hi Tim and Hi BobEdwards.
Here's my 2 cents, LOL. If I'm just taking snapshots I usually use my camera phone and I will post those photos straight from my phone. If I'm being serious and wanting to take nice photos then I use one of my DSLR cameras and shoot in raw or maybe even high quality jpg, I prefer raw for the flexibility.

I have limited software editing skills and little patience for editing but I'm currently taking a course from Mike Browne to get a good grasp and foundation in Adobe Lightroom. The course is great by the way and Lightroom is amazing software for organizing and finding your photos, not to mention editing them but that refers to the class Bob posted a link for. This is the class I'm currently taking and it deals with learning your way around Lightroom and the things it can help you do. https://www.photographycourses.biz/cour ... m-workflow

I'm of the mind that I like to try to take the best picture possible in camera and only do minimal editing if necessary. But, like a lot of things, there is usually room for improvement. I do edits like straighten horizons, brighten or darken a photo, remove rubbish, increase or decrease saturation and that's about it. Just to clean things up a little when needed. I have also been playing around in Adobe Photoshop and like that software as well. But there are a lot of great software options out there and like you said, some are free.

Don't forget about the lightroom and photoshop tutorials on the ClickASnap blog that Tom mentioned.

Hi Laura, glad you are enjoying Lightroom I've been using it since version 3 and I love it.

The reason I shoot RAW is because of the amount of data the files contain which makes editing so much easier, I often shoot for clients who demand high quality images and there is no way I could shoot jpeg and allow the camera to produce a final image which would have limited data for editing. As an example I recently did a shoot for a hotel and they wanted photographs of the bedrooms to include the view from the windows, which was mainly the waterfront in Liverpool. Shooting RAW meant that I could be confident that even if the interior was slightly under exposed or the exterior slightly over exposed, I would almost certainly have enough data to produce an image the client would be happy with. I have attached an example photograph produced from a RAW file. https://www.clickasnap.com/i/cb1w59bbvbbnn1p4

Under normal circumstances though I agree with you Laura, shooting high quality jpeg would probably leave you with an image you are happy with.

[lauracaptain]

Hi Bob.
Yes, I prefer raw too. I went and looked at your hotel shot, it's very nice. Great job. Can't wait to post some of my photos soon. I'm trying to get them organized and edited.

[lauracaptain]

Hey Tim.
I know what you mean about pain and setting at a computer for long periods. I have neck problems and I have to watch my posture, keep my monitor at a certain height and take periodic breaks.

You can use other software besides Lightroom, some is free, for editing raw files. The easiest thing is to use the software your camera manufacturer provides for editing their particular raw files.

Go for it and get the new, lighter camera. They can get heavy after several hours of lugging them around. I don't have experience with Canon or Fuji, I use Nikon and Olympus. I figure if the camera works and I'm able to make the photos I want with it, then I'm happy. My camera's are several years old but I don't care, they still work. LOL.

Thank you Laura, maybe I need to be a little braver and shoot some Raw, after maybe acquiring lightroom.
But I still need to keep my PC time down to a minimum because of some pain issues I have.
It is nice at my age though to keep learning new things.
I am thinking now I have sold my Canon gear, I may get a Fujifilm XT 20 etc.
It's a nice camera and so much lighter!!
Tim

[bobedwards]

Hi Bob.
Yes, I prefer raw too. I went and looked at your hotel shot, it's very nice. Great job. Can't wait to post some of my photos soon. I'm trying to get them organized and edited.

Looking forward to seeing your photographs Laura.