I would think with at great photo editor like PhotoPaint there would be more 'Photo' chatter.
Hi Phil,
I've played a ilttle with the colour / tonal tools in the Adjust menu of PP which look impressive against X3 (is this your color lab mode?) For all my image processing though, ACDSee Pro 3 impresses me the most by far, but for additonal creative effects I'll start playing with PP over X3 to compare and get a much better feel.
To be honest Phil, I'm actually reading through a multitude of PS magazines and tutorial sites applying/practising their tutorials in PS CS5 and PSP X3. I'm trying to find the key differences, limitations & strenghts bewteen the two programs. Although my comparisons are very early stage, X3 seems much better value for money over CS5 in what most people would use in their image editing. I know CS5 is the inudstry standard and ducks-nuts for image editing, but unless you're a high-end designer and advertising professional, it's really not needed (that I can see so far). My jouney will be fun though to continue comparing the two.
Boy, I use everything at different times when adjusting my images: curves, light and colour equalizers (in ACDSee), exposure, temperature, sharpening etc. The menus and slider controls in ACDSee and supurb, real time. All my RAW shots though are processed in ACDSee and then creatively enhanced in X3. ACDSee has fantastic border/edge and vignetting tools (easy and fast) while X3 is great with all else. Bouncing between the two is a snap.
Am always happy to post shots up for discussion and criticism. In fact I have a recent wedding shot with two girls looking at the camera. One of the girtl's eyes are quite piercing I think and I really struggled to bring that focal point that out in the shot. I mucked around with all sorts of vignetting and cropping effects but still I'm not hppy with the variations I came up with. I'm always looking to improve my knowledge and tecniques though so I'm always happy to post some shots up for criticism. Some of the effects out there are just tremendous. One shot on Rikk's home page of a swimmer is just terrific.
I've also put my travel shots together at www.myshot.myphotoalbum.com Everything there was taken with a Canon 350D and a Tamron 18-200 zoom. Yes, very low-end gear but by Christmas time I'll be upgrading to a D300 with a Nikor 18-200mm, Sigma 10-20mm and 120-400mm. Weight and size are important when you're traveling, phil, let me tell you. I'm heading back to Nikon as all my other full frame lenses are from my old F90X film camera.
Phil, I'll head on across too to the X2 forums later to read across in the posts there. Cheers, mate.
Phil, thanks for those tips, I appreciate that. I'll track those books down. I've just finished processing a wedding I shot so I'll have free time this weekend to get into X5 and PP to learn and start playing with. I've received X5 unleashed so I'll start looking at that Friday night. I noticed on the surface too that PP doesn't appear to support layers. I could be wrong but I'll look more into that on the weekend. I'll also take a much closer look at the color Lab and curves from the menu path you've listed. Thanks, phil.
I poked my head too into the illustration & design forum last night, so i'll post up that wedding shot of the girls I mentioned above for any ideas and will do the same in the X3 forum for some feedback.
Those pics above too are a great job showing the colour variations of the jacket. Great job, Phil. Very impressive.
Will post again Sunday night after I've played a good deal more with X5 and PP. My mate is designing a product brochure too and has asked me to design a background with heraldry-like designs. I'm thinking of using a standard clip art image then changing the colour scheme and tiling it to make the background. I might also put this up for discussion in the illustration and design forum. Cheers, Phil.