Filters - Which ones, Why and When?

[Bill M]

Interesting subject here. I'll be watching this one as these types of filters are new to me. I tend to shoot RAW+Jpeg myself.

[AtTheWall]

Good stuff WyoBull!

[AtTheWall]

Here's some software post processing examples that mimic some of what filters do, which is part of the reason why I shoot literally all of my shots straight glass, no filters.

Everything I shoot is strictly JPEG. I lean on Picasa 3.0 for software post processing work (free and simple from Google). I'm picking up a copy of Lightroom 2.0 probably this week....and maybe long term, CS4. Just depends on what Lightroom does for me.

Picasa is a very simple and a very basic app that pales in ability to Photoshop (CS1 - CS4) and or Lightroom. I downloaded it during the 1.0 days and found it covered some basic photo editing stuff without any learning curve to do so.

Picasa provides some basic photo editing features:
FILL LIGHT
HIGH LIGHT
SHADOWS
COLOR TEMPERATURE
SHARPENING

There are a few other features that are Effects Based, click and then apply at what ever flavor you want (Black & White, Sephia, Fuzzy stuff....the typical cartoon stuff a lot of cheap photo editing suites provide). It also has a "click-once" setting that does it all based on some internal algorithm the developers coded in to further simplify photo adjustments.

It's all I've used for a bulk of what I've shot through the last couple of years. Here's some examples using the same photo.

Camera Canon 350D, lens 75-300mm F 4.5 IS (my backup camera). I run with a custom configuration setting on this particular camera, maximum sharpness and maximum saturation, auto white balance and then fly manual mode from there.

Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture: f/11.0
Focal Length: 170 mm
ISO Speed: 400


Straight JPEG from the camera



Picasa's "I'm Feeling Lucky" setting. Basically you click this and Picasa's algorithm does what it thinks needs to be done, brainless "one-click" output.



Picasa's AUTOCOLOR button only..the brainless "one-click" output.



Sharpness bump via Picasa with a Maximum COLOR TEMPERATURE bump via PICASA (the 81A Warming filter done via software). This is my PRESET used on literally all of my shots...very much as Shane mentioned in his application of Photoshop/Lightroom.



And here's Picasa with a full blown SHARPNESS bump and wide open SATURATION bump. As you can see....you can over cook Saturation easily.

[WyoBull]

AtTheWall - Thanks for the information. I also have only shot JPG's but would like to get into the post processing a little deeper. The software I use is the Nikon Picture Project which comes free with the cameras. It too does some of the same things you are talking about.
Interesting that your custom settings on your camera are very similar to what I use - Auto WB, Vivid or Vivid+ Saturation and Sharpening. I usually use Aperture Priority so I can control the depth of field.
I am going to be talking to Shane in more depth about post processing and see which direction I want to go with it. I want to get more into it but not to the level where I am spending more time on the computer than I am out shooting!
Thanks for your post showing some of the differences in the post processing you are doing.