Photos from Aug 4-11 trip. 36 total in the set

[cicopo]

For those with either Photoshop or Lightroom but who feel lost working with it (applies to Elements too) relative to RAW files I highly recommend paying for 1 month of on line lessons at Lynda.com. I think it's still $25 a month & the lessons are all very easy to understand & short so you don't go into information overload. You can also check out a few free demo lessons there to see how they teach. Re keeping the crap files I do the same & have often needed a few later for different reasons. I have a lot of big hard drives filled with Radio Control event photos. When I die they can be thrown away but not till then.

 

[charlesml3]

All of these were edited with Lightroom. That said, Lightroom and Photoshop are very different tools. Lightroom is primarily a photo organization tool. It's great for "show me all the Christmas photos taken with the 5D." It makes sorting through hundreds of images looking for the very best ones quite easy. In addition, it has some photo editing built in. It doesn't do layers. The cloning is rather basic. But it will do the usual stuff. Crop, rotate, WB, exposure, contrast, and a lot of others.

Photoshop has NO photo organizational component at all. It won't help with that. But it's an outstanding photo editor.

I use both. Lightroom does all of the organizing and most of the editing. When I need more that Lightroom can do, I simply Right-click the photo and select "edit in Photoshop." Lightroom makes it very easy.

-Charles

 

[dflaher]

Nice work & thanks for sharing, Charles. I like the juvie trunk...the dice fish!

 

[MMM]

Wow! I have a long way to go to match these for colour and clarity!

 

[cvchief]

For those with either Photoshop or Lightroom but who feel lost working with it (applies to Elements too) relative to RAW files I highly recommend paying for 1 month of on line lessons at Lynda.com. I think it's still $25 a month & the lessons are all very easy to understand & short so you don't go into information overload. You can also check out a few free demo lessons there to see how they teach. Re keeping the crap files I do the same & have often needed a few later for different reasons. I have a lot of big hard drives filled with Radio Control event photos. When I die they can be thrown away but not till then.

Take a CLASS? Next you will want me to read the instructions or ask for directions or sit down to pee!! Clicking!! That is the answer, more clicking!!!

All of these were edited with Lightroom. That said, Lightroom and Photoshop are very different tools. Lightroom is primarily a photo organization tool. It's great for "show me all the Christmas photos taken with the 5D." It makes sorting through hundreds of images looking for the very best ones quite easy. In addition, it has some photo editing built in. It doesn't do layers. The cloning is rather basic. But it will do the usual stuff. Crop, rotate, WB, exposure, contrast, and a lot of others.

Photoshop has NO photo organizational component at all. It won't help with that. But it's an outstanding photo editor.

I use both. Lightroom does all of the organizing and most of the editing. When I need more that Lightroom can do, I simply Right-click the photo and select "edit in Photoshop." Lightroom makes it very easy.

-Charles

Light room can organize??? Why have you wanted SO LONG to tell me. I might have to unwrap it. I can't tell you how TIRED I am off the photo post game. I have slacked off. It take SO long to wander through all those photos looking for pics to post. The missus is SICK of me saying, 'hey remember the one good pic of a (insert thread theme)? Which time was that?"

I only got light room cuz some one said it was easy to correct the blue with it.

I *might* have to take a class or something on Photoshop. Every time I tried to de-blue a picture, I ended up with an Andy Warhol print.....

 

[Mossman]

I only got light room cuz some one said it was easy to correct the blue with it.

I *might* have to take a class or something on Photoshop. Every time I tried to de-blue a picture, I ended up with an Andy Warhol print.....

I've used Lightroom since it first came out and haven't used Photoshop since. Successive versions have added more features. It does everything I need and I only use a fraction of the features. It organizes my photos by date, which is good enough for me, though there's plenty more it can do if you let it.

Manipulating white balance, exposure, color saturation, etc. etc. is done through simple slider controls. Slide back and forth until you like the results. Multiple levels of undo if you screw it up. Easy cropping. And a backscatter removal tool and another one that will straighten out crooked shots. Not at all useful if you want to put a mermaid in your shot, but if you just want to enhance/fix what's already there, it's easy enough to learn without taking a class (someone showed me the basics in about 5 minutes, which did help a bit), and basic fixes to your shots can be done in minutes or less so it's easy to have your pics ready to show to others on the same day you shot them.

---------- Post added August 23rd, 2013 at 08:04 AM ----------

When it comes to underwater photos it's really all about the editing. Start by shooting in RAW & then correct the white balance in post & you're off to a big improvement over a jpg in just one or two clicks of a mouse. After that it's up to the photographer how much more they want to tweak their files but considering the money spent to get the photos the editing time is a worthy investment.

Have to disagree with you to some extent. There's plenty that a photographer can do to make the shot work straight out of "the box". I admit to editing probably 95% of what I shoot, but occasionally snap some that wouldn't benefit from any post production.

 

[charlesml3]

Thank you everybody for the words of encouragement and the help with some of the identifications. I had a few wrong and were missing a few. I always like to get that right if I can.

Cozumel feels like a 2nd home for me. I've been diving there for nearly 20 years now.

Admittedly, I've been looking at housings for my DSLR again... I don't know. It would mean a completely separate Pelican case to check through and I have to admit I grin quite a bit when someone says "You got THAT shot with a little Powershot G12?"

Thanks again!

-Charles

 

[Cozdreamer]

Stunning beauty! Rock on with your photography showing Cozumel's gems
Thanks for posting.