Nikon D70 - Do pictures require Photoshop fixing?
 

Dear all,

I am about to take the leap to digital and have been looking at the
current range of post =A31000/$1000 DLSRs and am opting for the D70.
However I have read in magasines that the pictures taken by the D70
very often need to have levels/contrast fixed in Photoshop. Is this
your experience?

I am likely to edit my best shots in PS anyway, but if I am away on
vacation, I want to be able to shoot 200 pictures in JPG and get them
printed with minimum of fuss - am I looking at the wrong camera?

Last point, if the answer is "yes you have to fix all your pictures",
can I just set up a "Auto Levels/Auto Colors" action in PS, and
automate the lot? This would be an acceptable solution for me.
Your thoughts are appreciated.

Tim (UK)

"Tim" wrote in message
oups.com...
Dear all,

I am about to take the leap to digital and have been looking at the
current range of post £1000/$1000 DLSRs and am opting for the D70.
However I have read in magasines that the pictures taken by the D70
very often need to have levels/contrast fixed in Photoshop. Is this
your experience?

I am likely to edit my best shots in PS anyway, but if I am away on
vacation, I want to be able to shoot 200 pictures in JPG and get them
printed with minimum of fuss - am I looking at the wrong camera?

Last point, if the answer is "yes you have to fix all your pictures",
can I just set up a "Auto Levels/Auto Colors" action in PS, and
automate the lot? This would be an acceptable solution for me.
Your thoughts are appreciated.

Tim (UK)

hello tim

the d70 is a superb camera for the price you pay. i keep hearing that its
pictures need especially much post processing and have to say that this is
bull. most dslr's are alike in this point. if you take the pictures with the
right settings pre-set then you can minimize your photoshop wok - however -
it is somewhat equivalent to what you can do in the dark room with analog
cameras. one thing why photoshop is named a lot in connection with the d7-
simply is the fact that the raw format allows you additional functionality
in post processing, which is a good thing and pointed out in most reviews.

there is no problem with setting up an action like you suggested, however,
the auto-functions in photoshop are good, but they are not perfect, so you
might actually make some images look worse than the original versions, or
give away some of the potential you could get out of a shot by manually
tweaking the settings. i would compare it to having your analog pictures
developed by a big lab, which automatiacally tweaks pictures's levels,
compared to having it done in a pro lab or yourself in a dark room, where yo
u can evaluate each image on its own.

i hope i could help
sid

Perhaps Tim is asking if D70 photos taken straight out of the camera will be
"inferior" to
those from a good point-and-shooter in terms of colou saturation, sharpness,
contrast...etc.




"sid derra" wrote in message
...
"Tim" wrote in message
oups.com...
Dear all,

I am about to take the leap to digital and have been looking at the
current range of post £1000/$1000 DLSRs and am opting for the D70.
However I have read in magasines that the pictures taken by the D70
very often need to have levels/contrast fixed in Photoshop. Is this
your experience?

I am likely to edit my best shots in PS anyway, but if I am away on
vacation, I want to be able to shoot 200 pictures in JPG and get them
printed with minimum of fuss - am I looking at the wrong camera?

Last point, if the answer is "yes you have to fix all your pictures",
can I just set up a "Auto Levels/Auto Colors" action in PS, and
automate the lot? This would be an acceptable solution for me.
Your thoughts are appreciated.

Tim (UK)

hello tim

the d70 is a superb camera for the price you pay. i keep hearing that its
pictures need especially much post processing and have to say that this is
bull. most dslr's are alike in this point. if you take the pictures with
the
right settings pre-set then you can minimize your photoshop wok -
however -
it is somewhat equivalent to what you can do in the dark room with analog
cameras. one thing why photoshop is named a lot in connection with the d7-
simply is the fact that the raw format allows you additional functionality
in post processing, which is a good thing and pointed out in most reviews.

there is no problem with setting up an action like you suggested, however,
the auto-functions in photoshop are good, but they are not perfect, so you
might actually make some images look worse than the original versions, or
give away some of the potential you could get out of a shot by manually
tweaking the settings. i would compare it to having your analog pictures
developed by a big lab, which automatiacally tweaks pictures's levels,
compared to having it done in a pro lab or yourself in a dark room, where
yo
u can evaluate each image on its own.

i hope i could help
sid

"Tim" wrote in message
oups.com...
Dear all,

I am about to take the leap to digital and have been looking at the
current range of post £1000/$1000 DLSRs and am opting for the D70.
However I have read in magasines that the pictures taken by the D70
very often need to have levels/contrast fixed in Photoshop. Is this
your experience?

------------------------------------

Using the default settings and shooting RAW files, yes. Nikon's engineers in
general seem to prefer a slightly underexposed, desaturated look with a
slightly soft focus. This ensures that the most detail is captured and makes
the picture great to work with in Photoshop, but the unprocessed pictures
are a little muddy. OTOH, many photographers prefer this look and despise
what they regard as the over-saturated, over-exposed trash with jaggy edges
created by the popular consumer cameras.

However, you can adjust all that in the menus and take very printable JPEGs
straight out of the camera with just the look you want.

On 28 Jan 2005 01:46:08 -0800, "Tim" wrote:

Dear all,

I am about to take the leap to digital and have been looking at the
current range of post £1000/$1000 DLSRs and am opting for the D70.
However I have read in magasines that the pictures taken by the D70
very often need to have levels/contrast fixed in Photoshop. Is this
your experience?

I am likely to edit my best shots in PS anyway, but if I am away on
vacation, I want to be able to shoot 200 pictures in JPG and get them
printed with minimum of fuss - am I looking at the wrong camera?

Last point, if the answer is "yes you have to fix all your pictures",
can I just set up a "Auto Levels/Auto Colors" action in PS, and
automate the lot? This would be an acceptable solution for me.
Your thoughts are appreciated.

It has program modes that lets you use it as a snapshot camera with
output at a choice of JPEG levels.



Rodney Myrvaagnes NYC J36 Gjo/a


"Biologists think they are chemists, chemists think they are phycisists,
physicists think they are gods, and God thinks He is a mathematician." Anon

The default settings look pretty bland but you can increase the contrast
saturation & sharpening. I haven't yet figured out how to batch RAW
files but you can shoot RAW+basic JPEG & simply store the RAW for in
case some day on CD or even delete them (except the one prize winning
pic you get lucky with.

The other issue with a DSLR is you'll need to spend a lot of money on
lenses to get the same function as a high end P&S. Better quality but
bigger & more expensive & more hassle switching lenses.


Tim wrote:

Dear all,

I am about to take the leap to digital and have been looking at the
current range of post £1000/$1000 DLSRs and am opting for the D70.
However I have read in magasines that the pictures taken by the D70
very often need to have levels/contrast fixed in Photoshop. Is this
your experience?

I am likely to edit my best shots in PS anyway, but if I am away on
vacation, I want to be able to shoot 200 pictures in JPG and get them
printed with minimum of fuss - am I looking at the wrong camera?

Last point, if the answer is "yes you have to fix all your pictures",
can I just set up a "Auto Levels/Auto Colors" action in PS, and
automate the lot? This would be an acceptable solution for me.
Your thoughts are appreciated.

Tim (UK)

On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 07:03:19 -0800, "C J Campbell"
wrote:


"Tim" wrote in message
roups.com...
Dear all,

I am about to take the leap to digital and have been looking at the
current range of post £1000/$1000 DLSRs and am opting for the D70.
However I have read in magasines that the pictures taken by the D70
very often need to have levels/contrast fixed in Photoshop. Is this
your experience?

Using the default settings and shooting RAW files, yes. Nikon's engineers in
general seem to prefer a slightly underexposed, desaturated look with a
slightly soft focus. This ensures that the most detail is captured and makes
the picture great to work with in Photoshop, but the unprocessed pictures
are a little muddy. OTOH, many photographers prefer this look and despise
what they regard as the over-saturated, over-exposed trash with jaggy edges
created by the popular consumer cameras.

However, you can adjust all that in the menus and take very printable JPEGs
straight out of the camera with just the look you want.

I agree with everything C J C says here.

In an attempt to give you some idea of the amount of adjustment
needed, I work in RAW with color settings at camera factory defaults,
and usually no EV compensation. So, in RAW, and it's not so apparent
if you shoot JPEG, the vast majority of images tend to need:

1/2 to 1 stop increase in exposure.
7-10% boost in saturation. Less for portraits (which means it's a
taste thing).

In addition to these, I do a whole slew of minor mods. Auto color
balance however, is usually very good. And unsharp mask is always used
at the very last step of processing (it's *pointless* doing this
in-camera like so many do).

If you shoot lots of similar images (like for a model shoot for
example), then RAW adjustments can easily be set correctly on the
first frame, and then bulk-applied to the other pictures in the shoot.
Thus manual adjustments to render extremely high quality images
doesn't need to take a long time.

--
Owamanga!

"Tim" wrote in message
oups.com...
Dear all,

I am about to take the leap to digital and have been looking at the
current range of post £1000/$1000 DLSRs and am opting for the D70.
However I have read in magasines that the pictures taken by the D70
very often need to have levels/contrast fixed in Photoshop. Is this
your experience?


Sometimes they need a level adjustment (when I didn't pay enough attention
to the histogram). They may need sharpening, but you could do that in the
D70.
Jim

I've taken pictures using the default (auto) settings and printed them with
my dye sub printer and they look good. It's a lot about personal opinion
really. Anyway, I believe there are settings you can set prior to taking
pics. I haven't gotten that far yet.

"Tim" wrote in message
oups.com...
Dear all,

I am about to take the leap to digital and have been looking at the
current range of post £1000/$1000 DLSRs and am opting for the D70.
However I have read in magasines that the pictures taken by the D70
very often need to have levels/contrast fixed in Photoshop. Is this
your experience?

I am likely to edit my best shots in PS anyway, but if I am away on
vacation, I want to be able to shoot 200 pictures in JPG and get them
printed with minimum of fuss - am I looking at the wrong camera?

Last point, if the answer is "yes you have to fix all your pictures",
can I just set up a "Auto Levels/Auto Colors" action in PS, and
automate the lot? This would be an acceptable solution for me.
Your thoughts are appreciated.

Tim (UK)

If you primarily want a good jpeg shooter you should not get the D70.
You will bet better jpeg results from upper level P&S or electronic view
finder cameras.
I have a D70, a Sony 828 and several P&S digital cameras. I think it is
insane to get a D70 or any digital SLR if your primary interest is jpeg
shooting.