Its time to make my first attempt in post processing and I am looking for help... I want to tweak my fireworks shots so that I can post them and this is my first attempt at post processing so with th exception of photo shop what other tools, apps or filters would I need to be successful? Running a PC environment
you don't need any add-ons. ; just adjust so the image is level (straight), not over-exposed, and slightly boost the saturation.
Sean (or Karen) I have found that almost all my post processing needs can be met with Google's Picasa. ; Yes, I'm not trying to do anything hihgly fancy like Tim and others do with their post processing. ; My main goal is just to get everything looking properly exposed. ; You may find it just as useful ;
post-processing is a highly complex and subjective topic to try to discuss in one or twp posts. ; perhaps we should break this off into separate topics to cover saturation, raw conversion, sharpening, noise reduction, black/white conversion, software, etc. ; the important thing to remember is what one person likes, another may not and vice versa... such as selective color, or HDR. ;
as far as your original question about fireworks goes, you want to make sure that the horizon is level (not crooked) and the bursts have color and are not blown out. ; in photoshop, assuming you where shooting jpeg and not raw, you can find the exposure tool and the hue/saturation tools under the image->adjustments menu at the top, and the ruler tool (for straightening) using the keyboard shortcut "i". ; you then draw a line and then go up to image -> rotation -> arbitrary and it will give you the amount of rotation needed. ; crop out (shortcut "c") the wasted space then resize and post. you can resize for web which reduces the file size significantly by using the option in the file menu or shortcut crtl+alt+shft+s....
As a matter of fact, if anyone wants to write an article on their favorite post processing techniques, I would be most happy to post them as TMIP content on the main site.[nb]hint, hint[/nb]
