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went down to the beach today to try and learn how to use my D200
this is my first time using raw so this may be a bit over processed

D200, tamron 28-75mm 2.8 @32mm, f16, ISO 200, .625"

Nice piece of beach keith. My eyes keep getting drawn to the greenery on the cliff. Maybe it is a little oversaturated. Not sure. Nice sharp image though

Has some good potential but think would have been better to be just a bit earlier?

That beach has some potential with the foreground rock, the clouds usually help too.

How are you finding your D200? Lot's of fun

Keith - when was the last time you saw poo-brown sand in Australia?
I like the composition and crop but the haze looks funny (maybe a CPL would have helped) and the WB is out.

Seems to have a green cast to me... maybe retry the PP again... ???

You weren't by any chance down at Bradley's Head late this afternoon were you?
I saw another Nikon user down there but didn't want to disturb him as he had company with him.
Here's some of my images from today, I forgot to turn the ISO back from last night so there all shot in ISO 500

Keith

There are a few problems with this image, but not really a lot have anything to do with the fact you shoot in RAW. In fact it's easier to fix the problems BECAUSE you shot in RAW. So here's some comments and suggestions.

• This definitely has a decidedly green colour cast (especially the sky and the shadows on the rocks) so it looks like your White Balnce is out as already said. If it doesn't look like that to you then your monitor probably needs colour calibration (search the forum for spyder and you'll get info). If it DOES look like that to you then you need to reduce the green and probably also increase the yellow (to make the sand look less like the poo brown colour Paul refers too) in your PP program.
• The shadows lack contrast (they are kinda green/grey) rather than sharp black. This is usually a symptom of too high a value in either Shadows/Highlights adjustment in Photoshop or in D-Lighting in Nikon Capture. Just dial down the value a bit.
• The image could have a little more pop by playing with brightness and contrast to make the blacks blacker, but be careful you don't blow the white highlight in the clouds

Having said all that, the image itself is a good one - you just need to revisit the PP. Don't get disheartened though RAW is the way to go. PS Having seen your first D200 shot it looked fine so I'm guessing your monitor is probably OK I'm just trying to cover all bases.

I'm actually impressed that you've managed to find a beach at Baulkham Hills.

In all seriousness, Peter has pretty much nailed the comments.

You've shot in raw, and so many of the adjustments that need to be done are able to be performed in a non-destructive way.

First of all, do make sure that your monitor is calibrated. Unless and until it is, you're not looking at anything that can be easily referred to by yourself, or others.

Then check your wb, remembering that early morning (and late afternoon) shots will generally appear to have a warmer cast to them if you're shooting daylight. If you're shooting with auto-wb, then you need to understand that all of the auto settings, while very good, can be easily fooled.

I never shoot auto WB for one very simple reason:
When I go to post processing I like to have a constant white balance (ie rules which govern the way the RGandB channels are mixed) so when I get the adjustment right for one pic I can apply the settings to the whole shoot

Auto white balance changes the setting each time...

Of course if you disregard the WB when converting then this is all meaningless but I like to use the WB data as a first guess

Hi Keith
I, too, agree with Stubbsy's comments.

Are you able to share with us what steps you took in PP ? This may give everyone a better indication on what you can do to enhance the photo - from it's RAW state.

Nice take Firsty. Don't worry about the WB you'll get used to it! That's half the point of shooting RAW - if something goes wrong, you can often rescue it without any hassles and without further degradation of the image. That's an awesome beach we'll have to do it again and bring some friends from here next time. PS: Paul the sand was slightly more brown than I'm used to on Aussie beaches, but still probably a little out on the WB.

thanks for all the info guys
when I shot this photo I under exposed it so as not to burn out the bright spots in the clouds that kept coming through
the shot was taken very early and it was still semi dark
here is the jpeg as recorded and the raw convert as made by Adobe camera raw with the auto settings


I wanted the details in the rocks but that washed out the clouds and having not use Adobe camera raw I just started playing with every thing and was amazed at the info I could get out of the raw file and got carried away playing and I realized it was way over saturated and had a green hue to it
but as it was my first raw convert I posted it

thanks for the feedback

Hi Keith
I personally find that ACR does a reasonably good job, but tends to brighten the image too much, more often than not. I usually use ACR, but play with the Exposure Comp & the Brightness slider, to make sure the image is not over-exposed. I always try to get the image close to how I want it (in terms of exposure), before I apply the ACR & convert the NEF.

From there, you can play with levels, curves, contrast etc. to fine tune the image to how you want it to look.

If you look in the tips & tricks section on the forum, there are plenty of links to websites with Photoshop tutorials and explanations....

Hope this is of some help....

hey keith.. very nice photo.. I see you are getting in some good use of your new camera.
I will have to get to some other beaches than Umina

Keith that's a decided improvment, although it still looks a little brown for the sand to me. Try lightening it a touch.