What software do you use for improving bird photos?

[rolf]

I have in my arsenal (sorry to any spurs supporters) :

Olympus Master, not a bad editor, good for adjusting brightness and colour balance, great for redeye in flash photography and can handle RAW format photos.

Photoshop, I think that most people know what Photoshop does, but it can be invaluable when a photo falls a little short on quality, or needs strategic adjustments.

NoiseNinja, I have it as standalone and as a Photoshop plugin, once the profiles for your particular camera are loaded, then you can single or batch process photos, decreasing the noise caused by low light or high ISO photography.

For resizing, I often use a nice little free tool called pix resizer, this will resize a whole file of photos into another file, ready for uploading, ideal if you want a series of photos of identical proportions.

For printing when required, I use an HP Deskjet 970Cxi and several photo quality papers.

I also have Google Picasa installed, this keeps track of all images on my computer, it can be quite easy to lose track of them and this updates automatically.

Below is an example of using NoiseNinja, the first being unfiltered, the second being filtered, see what you think about the difference.

[jimbo]

I use photoshop and sometimes ACDSee.

Might look at pix resizer as it sounds interesting.

I print on a couple of printers but the best is the HP Photosmart C5180. This has five separate colour carts and one black. The 6 x 4 slot is very useful. For photos it came out top in a study recently and last week at Costcos (with a voucher I had) it was on sale for £93 inc. VAT.

I also buy the Kirkland 6 x 4 (10.4 mil) glossy sheets at Costcos @ £10 for 300.

[rolf]

Yes Jimbo,there's no doubt that the HP printers are good, a little expensive on ink cartridges though, I get non-proprietry ones now, for less than half the price.

I regularly use Pixresizer now, particularly if I am doing a batch of photos for a website, best of all is that it is absolutely free.

[Chocky]

I use photoshop CS2. Well that is to say I have it on my PC but as I can't understand instructions it's a bit hit and miss.
No seriously I use it all the time but I have to work it out. I tried Paintshop Pro but can't get on with it so just use the animation secton.
I like CS2 .

Chocky

[rolf]

Yes, CS2 can do many things which are well beyond my understanding, I only use the basic functions. I now have a trial version of Adobe Lightroom to play with, looks very good for processing a large batch of photos, you can download the trial version from
http://www.adobe.com/go/trylightroom you just need to register as a member, takes a couple of minutes.

[Chocky]

I tried out the Adobe lightroom . Think I'll just stick to CS2.
Chocky

[Babs]

Well I have Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 and I can't get my head around it, but there again I haven't spent much time trying to learn it.

The only software I use is Picasa2, I have used it from day one as I find it very user friendly

[Chocky]

Quite a few peeps use it. I have Elements 2 and 4 Photo shop 6 and 7 and CS2
Greedy aren't I? you'd think I would know how to use by now.

[Babs]

I have had my elements 2 since late last year. Got our Karl to show me how to do layers this weekend so I am going to have a practice

[Chocky]

I don't know how to use any of them properly I just do this and do that until I like my photo. lol
BTW. I have been a Spurs supporter since I was 15 yrs old and Man united was my second fave' team. at that time they were both good and I went to see George best play against Chelsey. My Ex was furious because Man U beat Chelsey (his team) so I had to keep quiet about that match. Arsenal is my eldest son's team and Chelsy is my second son's team. My youngest son isn't too interested

[ladylouise62]

I have Photoshop 7... my other half got me a great instruction book which I started to look at and then gave up on!!! I have worked out a lot by trial and error which is more fun (with a little direction from the book as to where to look). I know that I could do more if I knew what there was there but I need to feel 'in the mood' before I get reading... the book is 2.5 inches deep!

Something i also like which helps to order stuff when you've been photographing in bulk is a free bulk re-namer, it's extremely useful -

http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Main_Intro.php


I support Arsenal because it's my other half's team (he grew up there), abut also my local team, Reading. I was SOOO hoping that Reading would beat Arsenal when they at last got into the Premiership. Oh well, maybe next year

[Chocky]

I work out nearly every thing by trial and error. I have to I can;t understand half of what i read.
Photo shop 7 is quite powerful

[Babs]

I have been kindly given Paint Shop Pro 7, which I am getting to grips with very very slowly

[Chocky]

Just remembered I also have Neat image. Totally beyond me

[digidark]

Just started using Neat Image and happy with the results.Looked at Noise Ninja and although the reviews suggested this was the slightly better program,I found the documentation was much better with Neat Image and seeing how I didnt have a clue how to use it,this made my choice for me.

[rolf]

Strangely enough, I downloaded both Neat Image and Noise Ninja, but Noise Ninja came with a quick start tutorial and I found some uploadable profiles for my camera, so was up and running within minutes, must confess to having never read the instructions.

Like most of these programs, they can produce excellent results on certain types of picture, but don't always work well, I also have Focus Magic which is great in certain circumstances.

[digidark]

I started to use Neat Image because of the noise problem on the FZ50.Its a brilliant camera and the 35 to 420 zoom coupled with a leica lens is great,providing you keep the ISO at 200 and below.Have found with the noise reduction prog can squeeze higher ISO's albeit with slightly softer images but I suppose in general thats how noise progs work.

[Chocky]

Hmmmm. I now have the tutorials or profile ever so will look into reading them (what a bore) and learning how to use the program.

[digidark]

Have noticed that when I use Neat Image on a pic taken with the FZ50 (as mentioned sometimes has a noise problem) it takes 3 or 4 times longer to discobknockerate than one taken on my hacked Canon 300D.Which probably proves that the FZ50 produces a lot more noise at a given ISO than the Canon.

[Chocky]

Have just down loaded Ninjanoise and it's instructions . Will have abash at it later .
I also have an Epsonstylus R300. An Epson DX3850 al-lin-one and an HP 1310 all-in-one. I like ths R300 foe photo printing. I get dicount on all my inks so don't bother with the wait and the postage. (also have an Epson /Jetteck chip setter)

[Chocky]

Ha. Just down loaded Ninja but it made a complete mess of my photo.
I didn't keep it.
Haven't a clue. I did down load another package with it may be if I unzip it it might be able to HELP

[rolf]

You need to download the profiles for your camera, then it will work better, it of course doesn't work well with all photos.

[Chocky]

I down loaded a zip file I suppose that mean opening up my c drive and finding the prog and copying the profiles into it does it?

[rolf]

Yes, will have to look up how I did it.

[Chocky]

I have the Nkon D50 profiles but this time it unzipped all over the desk top. Lol
I have goatherd them op (all 4 of them ) and file them fo th moment. I still think CS2 will do it. I haven't tried neat image yet.
I can see me doing a complete reformat to get rid of all the junk in my PC

[rolf]

It definitely isn't junk, I've been through a few old photos and improved them no end with Noise Ninja.

[Chocky]

I was joking.
I have the profiles and I went into my program files but I can't find noise ninja and I have it installed

[Chocky]

I have done the deed. I opened Noise ninja prog and looked around and it had a pull down saying install profiles so I did.
Thanks for you help .
I had originally down loaded the wrong Zip pkg any how, I don't know what it was now .Lol but it turned out to be for mac.

PS. I have just read . I have to purchases a license.
Nooooooooooo way. I'll make do with the freebies.
I have CS2, Neat image, and fireworks 8 from the macromedia studio 8
That really should be enough.
Thank you any how

[Spooks]

Mainly I use Lightroom for photography shots, but also use PS CS2 for more major work, especially for image manipulation etc. Also use NeatImage, cracking little program.

[Chocky]

Yes I quite like that but you have to buy that too. mine ran out of it's thingy

[rolf]

Unfortunately most of the good image manipulation programs are not free, apart from The Gimp, haven't played with it too much, but it seems pretty good.

[Chocky]

Yes so I think for now I will stick with CS 2 I just get a watermark on nija that is why I thought it had made a mess of my photo. I also have PSP some where but I could never get on with it.

[Daveart]

Hi I use pureimage, it works great not with all like most image software, it learns and remembers settings, so you dont have to medle to much. I also use photoshop elements 5, and the new raw plugin which works quite well, with cleaning a bad image up if you make a mess of a photo, like under exposure it does bring up detail that you would think is not their.

[Chocky]

Personally I think if you look around in CS2 you will find it has every thing you need . There are a lot of facilities under filter drop down where you can control noise very nicely and unsharp mask I think it has every thing.

[digidark]

I have CS2 and it is great for doing just about anything. I use it mainly if there is manipulation beyond the basics to do. For everything else I use Lightroom (including printing)

[rolf]

I tried Lightroom, but couldn't see any real advantages to using it, I don't use the Olympus Master software now, as I use Adobe Bridge as my photo browser and that will open Photoshop if a photo is double clicked.

[digidark]

Lightrooms is a good for doing adjustment to light temperature, exposure,contrast etc.I can nick 3 stops in either direction when shooting in RAW should I need to, without it causing nasties to appear and then open directly into Photoshop

[Goldfynche]

I acquired Adobe Photoshop Elements 8, when I bought my 21.5" iMac. Although, I prefer Paintshop Pro for removing things from pictures. Which, unfortunately, isn't available on the iMac. I do have a backup PC laptop.