Bemused, bewildered, confused…
November 4, 2008
… and apparently losing my marbles. In fact, its probably about time I retired to some nice little cottage on the coast and spent my time sitting in a rocking chair knitting socks or something.
Here’s the sad tale of my evident decline into total senility…
Shortly after getting into this photography lark a mate of mine (the same mate that was responsible for me getting into it in the first place, damn his hide) recommended a particular bit of kit to me.
The “Lenspen” to be precise. A nifty little gadget shaped somewhat like one of those chunky felt tip pens. With a slidey-out brush at one end for flicking dust and other loose crap (fag ash springs to mind for some unaccountable reason) off the surface of lenses, and a little circular pad-type thingy at the other for the more stubborn smears. When not in use this pad thingy is covered by a cap on the inside of which resides a bit of sponge… that can be periodically moistened with a drop or two of lens cleaning solution I do believe.
Its a simple bit of kit, made of plastic. When I first bought one from my local Jessops it cost about seven quid… not really cheap, but not particularly exorbitant either.
And its proved to be almost indispensible. One of those sort of things that are so useful, and used so frequently, that one almost becomes unaware of using it. Until its not there of course!
And it had just about got to that stage (where it becomes indispensible) when I lost it!
I remember the occasion well. Way back in July it was. I’d gone on a little jaunt, to a stretch of Bedford’s river that I don’t normally visit, for one of my photo sessions.
Sat on the grass bank I decided to switch lenses for some long shots (which is why I remember the occasion so well, for changing lenses is something I try to avoid as much as possible) and, in a habit then well-established, reached for the Lenspen to clean the newly attached lens.
All well and good, and proceed with session.
Get back home, process the pics, and think no more about it.
Until I get ready for my next journey out. When (another habit I’ve developed) check all kit’s present and correct. Yep. It’s all there, all ready to go… apart from the Lenspen. Of which there’s no sign. So I try to recollect the last time I used it. Which of course was the session just related, remembered so vividly.
Dammit! I must have left it laying on the river bank, or perhaps it had fallen out onto the bank when I’d been packing the bag again.
Oh well. Just have to buy another one. Which in due course I did. And not a little miffed to discover the price had risen to nearly nine quid. “Hell, that’s a bit of a jump!” thinks I.
Anyway, brand new Lenspen so I’m back in fully operational mode again (surprising how lost I felt without it despite having all the normal lens cleaning stuff plus one of those little puffy brush things).
Another photo session a coupla months later (beginning of October to be precise), this one in the vicinity of Bedford town, to try out the newly-acquired Sigma lens.
Session completed, repair to my favourite haunt (The Bear pub) for some lunchtime refreshment.
Can’t be in The Bear of course without taking a few pics, so out comes the camera, off with the lens cap, out comes the Lenspen… or rather, not!
Its gone. Missing. Vanished. Bugger. Lost!
And I remembered when I’d last used it. Not 45 minutes previously. During the just-ended photo session in fact.
I also recollected that at the end of that session and before setting foot for The Bear I’d stopped to put my jacket in the rucksack, on account of getting a bit warm. And that I’d had a struggle getting it in.
So, I muse, after using it I must have put the Lenspen in a pocket of the jacket rather than returning it to its proper home in the camera bag (as I normally do) and, during the struggle to stuff the jacket into the rucksack it must have fallen out of the pocket.
Doubting myself somewhat, and disbelieving my bad luck, I thoroughly search all my pockets (including the jacket) and the camera bag. Yep. Lenspen gone.
But doubting also my ability to conduct any sort of proper search under such trying circumstances I get my mate at the pub to search my pockets and camera bag.
Yep. Lenspen definitely gone.
Oh damn and blast it. A quick toddle along to Jessops then for yet another Lenspen and another parting with a tenner (well, ok, a bit under).
Home that evening and transferring all my kit from the camera bag I’d used that day to another one, what do I discover in a twice-searched pocket of the bag? The “lost” Lenspen!
Ho hum. Well, at least now I’ve got a spare I s’pose.
Time passes.
Meanwhile, mate from the Bear, having been persuaded by me of the usefulness of Lenspens, and in anticipation of the arrival of his new camera, sets about searching on the Web for such a gadget in the hope of finding one cheaper than Jessops flog ‘em. And he does! A pair in fact. And cheaper than the price of one at Jessops.
Quick conference with me to find out if I’d like to go halves with him on the cost and have one of the pens as a spare. Of course I would! After all, a spare lenspen’s got to be useful in case I should lose the two I’ve now got (with me, anything’s possible).
More time passes.
Sat at the desk and need to plug in a bit of computer kit. Rummage around under the desk for the extension power block which, over time, has managed to get itself kicked under there, and what’s this I find nestling alongside it? A felt tip pen? No. Bringing it out into the cold light of day it reveals itself to be… a Lenspen! And, by a simple process of elimination, not just any Lenspen but the very first one I’d lost on the river bank. Couldn’t be any of the others cos they’re all present and accounted for.
Well, clearly I hadn’t actually lost it on the river bank; clearly, cos its here, in my grubby little paw.
So it must have quietly fallen out of my bag when I’d got back home and was checking my kit, and equally as quietly rolled under the desk.
Either that or my desk and its immediate surroundings are the equivalent of “the Luggage” in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels. I say that cos I’m reminded uncomfortably of the episode with the batteries.
So I’m now, and quite inadvertently, the proud possessor of not one, not two, not even three, but four lenspens! Almost enough to keep one permanently in every camera bag I’ve got!
Playing catch-up
October 16, 2008
No posts for the past few days cos I’ve been out and away “doing stuff”… about which I shall no doubt post in due course.
But before departing for points southward I did manage to upload a few more pics to Flickr, which session probably merits a few words.
This totally unanticipated session happened cos I went into town on Monday to collect a Skylight filter (for the new Sigma lens… see this post) that my mate had bought for me from a source significantly cheaper than my local camera supplies shop (like two-thirds cheaper!). And I really did want that filter before setting off on my imminent adventure.
And was greeted with some exciting news… yep, I was almost as excited as he!
Apparently he’d been woken real early in the morning by someone hammering on his front door. Seems a brand new camera he’d ordered had arrived!
A Pentax K200D, baby brother to the K20D which is of course the Pentax version of my own Samsung GX20.
Lovely camera it is too… I particularly like the “scenes mode” feature.
Of course, mate could hardly wait to get out there and have a play with it, and I’m always up for an impromptu photo session (naturally I had my own kit with me).
So, once he’d finished work off we scurry down to the river where he promptly started putting his new toy through its paces. Expect to see the results on his Flickr photostream at any moment! In fact, I’m surprised they’re not already up there. Hmm.
And I set about compiling a sort of mini “Autumn Collection”.
Samsung GX20 update
October 9, 2008
Regular visitors here may recollect the travails I had with my newest camera, the Samsung GX20 (latest dSLR addition to their line, and their “flagship” camera so to speak).
Said regular visitors may also have noted how strangely quiet I’ve been on this topic of late.
Couple of reasons for this.
Firstly, the file sizes (in RAW format) produced by the camera are quite… er… “substantial” and the computer I use for processing pics found itself being taxed to the limit in handling them. RAM upgrade called for, and until such time as I organise that I’ve been a bit reluctant to use the camera, preferring to revert to its less highly spec’d brother the GX10.
And secondly, in my exploring those “travails” to the fullest I’d begun to develop certain suspicions regarding the primary cause of the perceived colour balance problem.
Suspicions that I was a bit wary about articulating until I’d done some rather more exhaustive testing, particularly given that my experience in these matters is somewhat… um… “limited” shall we say.
Well, I’ve now done some more testing of the sort I had in mind. Not exhaustive admittedly. I have still to try the “test setup” out under a more extensive range of lighting conditions for absolute confirmation, but initial results seem to be confirming what I’d begun to suspect.
Tuesday last I attached the brand new Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4.5 DC Macro lens (this post refers) to the GX20 and had a session under rather dismal lighting conditions.
Importing the resulting RAW files into Adobe Lightroom (Lightoom be it noted, not the RAW converter app that came with the camera) and using the bog-standard ACR 4.4 option that comes with version 1.4.1 of Lightroom (rather than the “embed” in the RAW file itself) I processed them into JPEGs… in some instances I tweaked the exposure, saturation, sharpness etc but in no single case did I have to significantly manipulate the colour or white balance.
Yet, looking at the resulting pics on three different machines, and in both Lightroom and after uploaded to Flickr, I can find little evidence of the huge colour imbalance (with a strong bias toward the magenta) that seemed to afflict earlier shots taken with the camera. That’s not to say there isn’t still a colour cast… there is, but nowhere near to the same degree.
And such a result does indeed point to my slowly dawning suspicion having some merit. Which was that whilst the app-dependent rendering of the RAW file may have been somewhat a culprit, as too may the newly-developed joint Samsung/Pentax sensor have been in part responsible, the principal culprit is the kit lens that came with the camera.
Bizarre maybe, but all the indications are pointing in that direction!
So watch this space!
Knackered!
October 3, 2008
Busy day Thursday… up all night Wednesday then catch the 0720 bus into town Thursday morning.
There was of course a reason for this (to be revealed shortly) but suffice to say for the mo’ that I’d plotted the day out in advance and, unusually, everthing went pretty much according to plan. Amazing!
First task… mate and I (mate from The Bear pub that is) had spent a little time a coupla weeks or so ago taking some pics in an area of Bedford known locally as Russell Park (see this post).
It had worked out ok but the thing we both failed to do (pressures of time and so forth) was to get any pics of the actual Park the area’s named after.
So I’d had it in mind to remedy this oversight soon as pos’. Which, Thursday morning, I did. The light was a bit curious, bright and sunny one moment and overcast the next and of course it was early in the morning. So I kept tinkering with the white balance… bit of a bad move I suspect (with the benefit of hindsight!).
However, objective achieved and I now feel my Russell Park set on Flickr has been suitably completed.
On to the next task then… and the very reason why I’d wanted to get into town instead of just grabbing some sleep after a night spent staring at computer screens.
Ages ago (or so it seems) I’d ordered a new lens from my local friendly Jessops.
Well, time went by. Then more time went by. Then I started getting emails and text messages from them on practically a weekly basis letting me know that the lens still hadn’t arrived.
Then a week or so passed with no word at all… until Wednesday. Get both a text and an email (about half-eleven in the morning) that the lens has arrived! Yippee!
Problem was though, couldn’t get into town Wednesday. Hence, taking on board the eagerness to get my hands on a new bit of kit, the incredibly stupid plan to get into town first thing the following morning, despite the fact I already knew I’d be up all Wednesday night.
“Yeah, I can do that” I thought. “Easy”. Yeah. Right.
So. The lens.
Well, its a Sigma… their 17-70mm f/2.8-4.5 DC “Macro” as they call it. Not a proper macro in the strictest sense (its a 1:2.3)… that’s still on my shopping list. But hopefully a bit better for close-ups than my existing Samsung kit lenses.
And that’s the point.
To replace the kit lenses that came with the Samsungs (fortunately both the GX10 and GX20 lenses - Pentax fitting - are interchangeable).
Ok, theoretically its not a huge improvement cos, let’s face it, the lens is at the lower end of Sigma’s range but I have no doubt whatsoever it is an improvement. In fact, on the basis of the first session I had with it, quite a significant improvement… but more of that anon.
So essentially I’m gaining one extra stop, and its a 17-70mm as opposed to the kit lenses that are 18-55mm.
It also feels a lot more substantial. And its a whopping 72mm diameter at the front! The UV/Skylight filter for that’s gonna cost an arm and a leg (relative to the other filters I’ve got that is… none of which come anywhere near that size). Dammit.
As a general purpose walkabout lens I’m well satisfied… so far. But time will tell of course.
Ok. Having got the Russell Park shots out the way and collected the new lens I was of course eager to try it out.
But needed somewhere to have a play with it first… check everything’s present and correct, make sure I’ve been supplied with the right fitting, and so on. Bit too early for The Bear (about 0930 now)… but hey, its breakfast time!
Find a suitable establishment, attend to the needs of the inner man, then open the box. Instruction leaflet/guarantee? Yep. And quickly discarded with little more than a cursory glance. Lens hood? Yep. Apparently Sigma include them with practically all their lenses. Top marks Sigma. Right fitting? Yes!
All that remains is attach it to camera (the trusty old GX10) and start using it for real.
Onto stage three of my pre-planned day then.
For some time I’ve had in mind to take the camera to a part of Bedford known as Ampthill Road. Its actually a bit of the A6 that takes traffic coming from Luton through the town centre then on out northward to Rushden (or vice versa of course).
Some years ago (and for quite a long time) it was a thriving manufacturing area of the town providing significant employment for local people. Most of that’s now gone. There were a couple of petrol stations along the road (the section I’m talking about, from off the town centre southwards for about a half-mile) that have been closed down for a while. Large blocks of office accommodation stand vacant and up to let, and quite a few small retailers have closed up shop too.
Despite the construction of a few new apartment blocks the whole area now has a somewhat depressed feel (shame really, cos there’s some very nioe, and old, houses along there) and I’d thought it would provide opportunities for some interesting shots.
That was the plan then and, though I didn’t exactly set about it with gusto (cos by this time I was feeling a tad weary) it all worked out reasonably well.
Hmm. Now lunchtime, head back to The Bear. And of course I couldn’t really regard the session with the new lens fully over ’til I’d grabbed at least a few shots from there, now could I?
So, loiter round there until mate finishes work then wander over to the supermarket for my weekly shopping (all part of my carefully constructed plan… “In town Thursday? May as well do the shopping then”.) Which meant I didn’t manage to get back home until early evening.
Of course, throughout all my ever-so-careful pre-planning I’d overlooked one small but quite important situation.
Having been out a significant portion of the day taking snaps I’d now got a good 160+ of the damn things on my memory card. And they had to be edited (down to a sensible number at least), processed, uploaded etc.
And I’d still not had any sleep!
Ho hum. “In for a penny, in for a pound” as they say. Just plough on regardless then.
In between dozing off over the keyboard a coupla times finally managed to get everything done by about 6.30 Friday morning… and at last I could get to remind myself what my bed looks like.
All in all though a reasonably satisfactory session. But never again!
Ok, so I’m an idiot
July 28, 2008
…so what’s new?
Regular visitors to this blog (all three or four of them) will be somewhat aware of the tussles I’ve been having with the Samsung GX20 dSLR that’s recently come into my possession.
More particularly, with the colour balance of the pics that are the product thereof.
More particularly still, with the way that Adobe Lightroom appears to render the RAW files… leading to said “defective” colour balance.
Well, y’know how it is… you have a tooth that isn’t quite aching, but is on the verge. So you just can’t resist probing it with your tongue… constantly. Until it actually does ache of course.
Or the itch that you just can’t resist scratching.
Or the niggly little problem that seems to defy all resolution. So try as you may to cast it from your mind, your thoughts just seem to keep returning to it.
That’s how its been with me and the GX20’s “colour issue”.
I’ve fiddled with it, abandoned it, returned to it, tweaked it, got close to getting it right but not quite, and become thoroughly frustrated and bored (in equal measure) by the whole affair.
Yet could I leave it alone? Could I buggery!
The more kindly mates of mine (um… mate as in singular) have charitably remarked upon my “tenacity”.
Tenacity nothing. Sheer pig-headed obstinacy more like.
And in this sheer pig-headed obstinacy I decided to do a bit more research. On matters such as RAW conversion, camera profiles (with particular regard to Lightroom) and the like.
You wouldn’t believe how much highly technical and completely incomprehensible information I’ve forced my poor brain (er… that alcohol-sodden mess of completely scrambled tissue that’s my excuse for a brain) to suck up.
Yet out of all of that emerged a pointer that seemed worth investigating…
A nifty little feature in Lightroom (one that I’d typically paid absolutely no attention to before) named “Camera Calibration”.
And right at the head of it there’s a function called “Profile”… with a little drop-down box to it offering two options: “ACR 4.4″ and “Embedded”.
“Well”, thinks I, “this looks interesting”.
So I do something virtually unprecedented… resort to the Lightroom helpfile. Which turns out to be a whole set of pages on the Web. Providing answers to all the problems that seemed insoluble when I first started using the program. Really wish I could get my head around the bizarre notion that help files are there to help. Ho hum.
Some more reading and, if I’m understanding it correctly, the “Embedded” option only appears in the Camera Calibration feature if the imported file contains its own camera profile differing from the default ACR (Adobe Camera Raw presumably) profile included in Lightroom.
The temptation to play is just too irresistable. So I re-import a RAW file from one of the first “colour test” shots I did with the GX20, and tentatively apply the “Embedded” profile option.
And don’t do very much else. A tad of sharpening. A slight lightening of the shadows. And that’s it.
And voila! It appears that the colour problem I’d been encountering has been virtually resolved… to my eyes anyway, and peering at the resulting JPEG suspiciously on a couple of different monitors (one colour calibrated, the other… um… not).
If this truly is the solution to the so-called “problem”, resolved simply by recognising that the RAW files produced by the GX20 each contain their own unique “profile” (which may well go some way toward explaining their massive size), then I have once again cause to berate myself for being such an idiot in not having realised this earlier.
And for not noticing that Lightroom (lovely program that it is… drool simper drool) enables the reading of such embedded profiles!
As it happens I did in fact remark, in a comment to an earlier post on this topic, that “I’m not yet totally convinced that the fault isn’t with me. Maybe I’m just doing something incredibly stupid…” Which is pretty much the same as stupidly not doing something I should be doing.
More to the point, I curse all my mates who’re Lightroom afficionados (yep, all one of them… and you know who you are) for not having mentioned this incredibly useful function to me, knowing that I was struggling with what seemed an almost insurmountable problem. (Mind you, such recalcitrance is I suppose excusable on the basis that its merely a reciprocation of my own sense of humour that compels me to stand by and watch unhelpfully whilst my mates struggle with problems for which I know the easy answers. Hmm. Chickens coming home to roost and all that.)
So I take back all that I may have rather unkindly said about the GX20. If the colour issue’s sorted this easily and I can use Lightroom to process the pics, then it is indeed a truly super camera.
For which no doubt my regular visitors (few though they may be, and likely to get much fewer if I keep on posting about this particular topic) will breathe somewhat more easily, in the comforting thought that they won’t have to suffer any more of my whining about this matter. Heavens be praised! (Gotta admit, I was beginning to get bored with it myself too.)
But at least in this tediously long iteration of my woes and travails re the GX20’s colour balance there exists a compelling testament to my idiocy, unfolding before your very eyes… virtually in real-time. Validation indeed of why I originally titled this blog “Adventures of an Idiot“! Laid bare for the whole world to see and gloat over. (Or shall I just delete all the pertinent posts? Hmm.)
One of the originally offending images
As an aside to this whole affair, in the course of my fairly extended reading of all those incomprehensible white papers and stuff I absorbed the rather useful tidbit that in fact, certainly in photography and more specifically digital photography, there’s actually no such thing as accurate colour rendition. In any objective sense. Essentially it all comes down to what the “creator” (the photographer) sees as the most visually pleasing rendition. So there!
Just not gonna give in
July 26, 2008
The tussle with the GX20 continues! (See immediately previous posts)
Or rather, with its colour balance.
Or rather, with the apparent inability of Adobe Lightroom to render an accurate colour balance from RAW files produced by the GX20.
Well, I’m not having any of it!
Having begun to suspect some fundamental flaw in the way the Samsung GX20 was processing shots in-camera, I’m now beginning to backtrack from that a little bit.
Even using the software that’s supplied with the camera (Samsung RAW Converter 2.0) some tweaking appeared to be necessary to mitigate the effects of what appears to be a bias in favour of the red/magenta/purple spectrum in the darker (shadow) areas. And, almost without exception, the shots seem to be over-saturated. (Compensating for this is still causing me a few problems… but I’m getting there, slowly… largely by trial and error!)
In the course of trying to tackle this issue I’ve received suggestions from a number of people, quite a few of which have referred to various camera settings. But, being a bit of a Doubting Thomas by nature these suggestions have done little other than cause me to do a bit more in-depth reading about RAW files themselves.
Out of which emerged the fact that most of the camera settings (white balance, saturation, contrast, sharpness etc., and more especially the range of “digital colour filters”) only really have an impact on JPEGs; if one’s shooting exclusively in RAW (as I now do by default) they make no difference whatsoever. For all intents and purposes the only settings that impact RAW files are ISO, shutter speed, and aperture.
(This pdf from Adobe makes quite an interesting, and sufficiently short/non-technical, read!)
Thus, theoretically, any RAW converter app worth its salt should be able to satisfactorily process files from the camera… assuming it supports the DNG format that is.
Which Adobe Lightroom does! And given that Lightroom is my app of choice (for all sorts of reasons, not least of which is familiarity with the interface, and a few extra features that other RAW converters don’t seem to possess) I’m buggered if I’m going to be forced into using Samsung’s own RAW converter if I can possibly avoid it.
So, adopting “persistence” as my middle name, I repaired to my favourite watering hole (where, as frequenters of this blog and my Flickr photostream will already know, lighting conditions are somewhat “curious”) and fired off another batch of test shots.
Which I then processed entirely using Adobe Lightroom and utilising an import preset I’d configured to compensate for the apparent under-exposure and over-saturation that had seemed to be the hallmark of GX20 shots. And, I have to say, I’m not entirely dissatisfied with the results.
Whether this will be equally successful under other lighting conditions remains to be seen, but I’m not prepared to give in just yet!
Oh, perhaps I should also mention that this batch of shots were intended purely for me to play with exposure/colour/saturation… in terms of composition and focus (indoors, variable lighting, hand-held) well, basically they’re crap. So bear that in mind!
What makes this whole issue incredibly irritating, aside from the fact that I’m actually having to work at producing even half-way decent pics (which seriously goes against my nature) is that the price-bracket of this camera (in the UK at least) suggests its not aimed at the dSLR entry-level market but at the “serious” enthusiast, with aspirations to targetting the semi-pro market also.
In consequence of which I really did expect a somewhat better performance.
GX20… the continuing story
July 20, 2008
And now for the next enthralling episode about the breaking-in of the GX20.
Breaking in, smashing up… they’re only separated by the extent of my patience.
For the story so far read this.
So, to continue…
Well, now I come to think about it there’s not really a lot to add. I’ve confirmed, and indeed re-confirmed, that the Samsung GX20’s RAW files are rendered quite nicely with the supplied software (Samsung RAW Converter 2.0). But with my second testing of this I took it a stage further and developed a JPEG from the RAW file (full size, 100% quality) then inspected the resulting image not in my normal “quick and dirty” image browser (XNView - which actually doesn’t do any favours to pictures whatsoever) or even in Lightroom, but with Samsung’s own Samsung Master (their JPEG-editing app).
Yep. It’ll do for me. I have still to do some extensive testing under a variety of more rigorous lighting conditions of course, but I don’t really anticipate any major problems at all now.
Checking for a second opinion with the oracle whom I’d consulted previously, he suspected (though was by no means certain) there is still a hint of a magenta boost, but nothing especially significant.
By now feeling a bit more positive and adventurous, thought I’d try something else (being careful not to get too carried away of course).
As the Samsung RAW Converter has virtually sorted out the colour problem with the GX20, what about the GX10 I wondered?
Possibly having mentioned it once or twice here on the blog, but definitely having referred to it a few times on my Flickr photostream, shots from the GX10 have nearly always seemed to exhibit a somewhat blueish tone. Although I’ve been aware of it, and have occasionally sought to minimise it, the imbalance has never really bothered me as it tends (in my opinion anyway) to give the pics a rather “clean” attractive quality. But its niggled away in the back of my mind that its not quite as accurate a rendition as I’d like.
Thus, call up a few RAWs from the GX10 in the converter and, whaddya know? The blue’s gone! Sorted!
But this is where I start getting a bit silly.
So if the Samsung converter works pretty well with the Samsung files (no… I don’t, repeat don’t, want to hear anyone mutter “Well, that’s obvious isn’t it, you plonker!” Remember, I’m a self-confessed idiot) then how would the Canon converter (Digital Photo Professional) work with files from the 400D?
Would it, for example, eliminate that irritating yellowish tint that seems to bedevil a lot of the shots from the camera?
Clearly I was riding the crest of a wave here for the answer, in short, is yes it does!
(Oh… and somewhere along the way I had to make sure that all the relevant apps were reading the right colour profile for my machine. Not the default one but the one generated by my colour calibration thingy.)
However, all of these really great, really positive developments have created something of a dilemma for me. Moreover, a dilemma that I find curiously depressing. Not suicidally depressing admittedly (not yet, anyway), but a sort of “oh bugger” type depressing.
At the very heart of my methodology in dealing with pics (from camera right through processing to uploading to the web, and indeed archiving etc) is the rather delightful Adobe Lightroom.
All the fault of my mate of course. He’d sung its praises as a super general-purpose workhorse for dealing with RAW files.
Er… wait a mo’ though. This was the same “mate” that finally persuaded me to try working in RAW instead of JPEG in the first place. Dammit! That should have been warning enough for me. I dunno, some people just never learn.
Anyway, Adobe Lightroom. It is a super app. The first problem I had with it (and the one that delayed my embracing it fully for a good coupla months) was the interface. Its a bit complex. Not to put too fine a point on it, I couldn’t get my head around it at all. Nothing was where I expected it to be (in fact, I’m still discovering features I never knew it had!), and what I could see in terms of controls and suchlike often didn’t do what I thought they would, but something else entirely. Disconcerting, to say the least!
Naturally I rarely read any help files or manuals. That’s far too much like hard work for me. If the hands-on approach don’t crack it then it ain’t worth bothering with… that’s my philosophy.
I vividly remember my first try-out of it (and this was even before I’d started properly working in RAW (tried it thanks to mate’s badgering, too intimidating, gave up), so was simply doing an edit of a JPEG). Having made the desired changes to the pic, the next obvious step was to do a “Save as”… cos obviously I didn’t want to overwrite the original.
So I looked for the “Save as” button, or link, or something. And looked. And looked.
Weird. There isn’t one. Yet my mate had clearly said (frequently, in a boringly repetitive way) that one of Lightroom’s strong points was its non-destructive editing feature. So it has to offer some sort of a “Save as” option, surely? Perhaps, thinks I, I need to close the program and it’ll pop up a little dialog asking me if I want to save the work, and if so, what as.
So I close the program. No, it doesn’t. And bang goes a fair bit of work. Sod it! That took me back to my very early days in computing when 20Mb (yes, that’s megabytes!) was considered a huge hard drive, and I… no… that’s a story for another day.
(That’s not strictly true actually. The “bang goes a fair bit of work” statement, that is. For I subsequently discovered that Lightroom edits “persist” until one selects the “reset” option for the relevant image/s.)
Anyway, after the obligatory wailing, gnashing of teeth and beating of breast (cos I didn’t know about the “persistence” feature at the time), some head-scratching. Then open the program again and hunt for the “Save as” control. Don’t find it. Sit back, have a think. Then another hunt. Then close the program in disgust. Leave it for a coupla weeks whilst I have a good old sulk.
But eventually irritation gets the better of me. At computers (damn stupid things); at Lightroom (damn stupid program); at my mate (damn stupid… well, perhaps not); at Life in general. So I fire off a quick (and, now I come to think of it, rather pleading) email to him, suggesting that a little bit of guidance in the highly complex task of saving an edit wouldn’t go amiss.
So he, ever patient (knows me too well, obviously), explains.
That button, that big one, the second of those two big buttons down on the left-hand side, the first clearly marked “Import”, the second clearly marked “Export”. Well, try clicking the Export button.
Oh yes. Of course. Blindingly obvious, isn’t it? Duh.
What made the entire episode even more infuriating is that in my saner moments (rare though they may be) I like to consider myself something of a computer geek. I play with them. I work with them. And when I’ve finished working with them, I play with them again. Have done for years. And years. And years.
But see a big button with “Export” marked on it and interpret that as being a “Save as” option? Not a chance. Think I should just pack in all this computer lark here and now.
Having overcome that first major hurdle I began to take to Lightroom like a duck to water.
Twiddle this, slide that, click something or other else. The features are marvellous (and I still haven’t sussed, and probably even discovered, all of them), plus some real snazzy ones that I’ve been unable to find on any other photo-editing prog.
I like the way it works. I like the subtlety and quality of the changes you can make with it. I even like (once I got used to it) the interface! Then I started working with RAW files and wow! The program really comes into its own. Such that its become my photo-editing program of choice. In fact, the only one I ever use… until now, that is.
Criticisms? Yeah, two (until just recently I only had one of course).
First, its use of system resources. Adobe recommends a minimum 1Gb RAM. And the machine I do my photo work on only has 512Mb! Ok, Lightroom runs, and if working with JPEGs there’s no real problem. But RAW files can be another matter entirely.
When working with those from the Canon it wasn’t too bad (though I had to slow down my workflow just a little bit). The GX10 presented somewhat more of a problem with its larger file sizes, and many was the time the machine would just drag its heels or the program would freeze on me until I learned a coupla tricks to overcome the bottlenecks. But files from the GX20? Well, the only way to return to comfortable working would be to increase the RAM. That’s if I continue to use Lightroom of course.
Now in fairness I can’t really say that’s a criticism of the program per se. After all, resource-hungriness isn’t unique to that app… most notable offender being Microsucks themselves of course.
And the second criticism is this most recent discovery… that Lightroom doesn’t support all RAW files equally!
Adobe themselves say…
“The camera raw functionality in Adobe® Photoshop® software provides fast and easy access within Photoshop to the “raw” image formats produced by many leading professional and midrange digital cameras. By working with these “digital negatives,” you can achieve the results you want with greater artistic control and flexibility while still maintaining the original “raw” files.”
They go on to say…
“The Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in (2.3 or higher) now also supports raw files in the DNG format. Find out more about the benefits of the Digital Negative, a publicly documented raw file format recently announced by Adobe.”
At this point I should perhaps explain that Samsung’s RAW files are in the DNG format.
For anyone unfamiliar with this, here (again) is what Adobe themselves (who came up with the format!) have to say about it…
“Raw file formats are becoming extremely popular in digital photography workflows because they offer creative professionals greater creative control. However, cameras can use many different raw formats — the specifications for which are not publicly available — which means that not every raw file can be read by a variety of software applications. As a result, the use of these proprietary raw files as a long-term archival solution carries risk, and sharing these files across complex workflows is even more challenging.
The solution to this growing problem? The Digital Negative (DNG), a publicly available archival format for the raw files generated by digital cameras. By addressing the lack of an open standard for the raw files created by individual camera models, DNG helps ensure that photographers will be able to access their files in the future.”
And finally Adobe, on their own website, specifically list the RAW files produced by both the Samsung GX10 and the GX20 as being supported by Lightroom!
(Quotes from the Adobe Lightroom website apart from the latter which is quoted from www.adobe.com/products/dng/)
I suppose in fairness I have to acknowledge that Lightroom does support the Samsung files, but only in the sense that it will actually read them and translate the data into recognisably an image. But as for rendering it correctly, well, forget it.
Which means I’ve now, finally, come to the source of my “oh bugger” type depression.
For what all this means is that there’s now a high probability that in future I shall have to change my working methodology insofar as using each manufacturer’s proprietary apps for processing pics from both the Samsungs and the Canon.
Doesn’t mean that I shall abandon Lightroom entirely of course. Oh no. I like it far too much for that. It’ll always come in handy as a prog for emergency fixes, or for working with JPEGs, or possibly even (as my mate suggested) working with tiffs (but only when I’ve upgraded the RAM, cos tiff files are bloody huge!).
Well, I think that’s about it for the mo’. And for someone who started off with having “not really a lot to add” I think I’ve probably excelled myself!
