Photo processing question

[SirBC]

But the Photoshop Elements 10 display is not very good (small window). I can zoom in and out but that is quite tedious when processing. I usually do quite a bit of color adjustments when processing. I think the problem may be that I do not have my white-balance on the camera set correctly. I will have to play with that. And thanks for your assessment that my camera is OK, although I have to admit that my husband's I-Phone 12 takes better photos some times.

Assuming PSE has the same keyboard shortcuts, with PSE fully maximized so it takes up all of your monitor, hit 'z' to select the zoom tool, then right click on your photo and select '100%'. That will zoom into your photo to 100%. Then hit the tab key. That (at least in Photoshop) will make all of the PSE interface disappear so that only the photo is visible, so it should be the same size as viewing in a slide show. You may have to hit the tab key a couple of times as it progressively hides different Photoshop interface elements until there are none. Hit tab again to get them back.

If you shoot in RAW it doesn't matter what your white balance is set to in the camera as you can just drag the slider in PSE to taste. If you are shooting in jpeg it 100% matters.

Your camera is totally fine, I've seen very good landscape images from that line of camera.

I used to print my own images but dealing with clogged inkheads became to much of a bother. Now I send out all of my photos.

And thanks for your assessment that my camera is OK, although I have to admit that my husband's I-Phone 12 takes better photos some times.

When you take a photo with a cellphone (or if you shoot in jpeg), the 'RAW' image is automatically converted to a jpeg in the background without you even knowing it. However, you are then at the mercy of whatever team of engineers put together that conversion algorithm. With a RAW image, you have to take the place of the team of engineers. The upside is that you get to develop the image to your taste. The downside is the RAW image will look very flat until you process it. It will almost never look as good as the jpeg would have until you process it. So it is not surprising that your husbands iPhone images look better than your RAW images. But once you get your processing skills a little polished your finished images will look much better than the output of a phone/camera jpeg.

[bobby49]

I use exclusively Canon cameras (about four, at last count). Normally I shoot RAW files and process them with the Canon RAW converter utility. This way I get a clean conversion to TIF or to JPEG. Plus, of course, if I see that an exposure should be corrected, it is cleaner to do that in the utility. Small corrections slide in very easily. If a large correction (like 3-4 stops) is necessary, then the results are sometimes limited. My rule of thumb is that if I was off or the camera was off by more than 2 stops, then I will go ahead and process the RAW file, but I won't expect perfection.

Alternatively, I could be doing the conversion in Adobe RAW (it comes with Photoshop). However, who do I think has the best RAW converter for Canon files? Adobe or Canon?

[CAMERONM]

You will probably find that the jpegs spit out from a camera are pretty good; they do a lot of sensible correction but don't always hit everything just right, depending on the scene. Certainly for a person with limited experience, I would set the camera to auto-white balance. I don't bother with calibrating my so-so Dell monitor and do just fine, but I have many years of photo experience. I also rarely print, but when I do a do large scale print I do a test first.

[Wandering Daisy]

Well, one problem diagnosed: camera set on sRGB, Photoshop set on sRGB, but had my monitor on neither sRGB or RGB but a custom setting to knock down the red a bit. When I set the monitor back to sRGB, the photos get a subtle blue-green tint. If I use the "auto-smart-fix" it turns the photo to the blue-green (as viewed on my monitor). I read that Adobe RGB is used more for printing and sRGB is fine if just lookin on a monitor. Setting my camera on RGB is something to think about; sRGB is the default. I am not inclined to change all my old photos but will use this knowledge to do better in the future.

So thanks everyone for your advise. I have a lot to work on; something to keep me entertained in COVID times at home!

[SSSdave]

sRGB is all one needs except for specialized printing. I received the amazon ordered $15 DKG IT-8 color target today that contained 3 identical targets and really only need one so you are welcome to one of those. Although besides color elements, it also has resolution elements, the quality for the resolution elements is less than ideal for use with high end cameras because it uses a half tone lithographic printing process. Finest line elements are not tack sharp because of that. I have an old USAF 1951 target from Edmond Scientific that is ideal so that doesn't matter. Note the color elements are half tones too but from an adequate distance will serve its purpose.

[dapperdave]

Daisy,

Have you tried Darktable, a free open source alternative to Adobe Lightroom
https://www.darktable.org/
This also uses non-destructive editing, so your image quality doesn't degrade after multiple edits.
Your experience of RAW images looking initially worse than in Camera Jpegs is normal, RAWs require editing to look good, but they can be adjusted a lot further than Jpegs without looking overprocessed.

Dave