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      10-25-2011, 04:43 PM   #1779
dcstep
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chewy734 View Post
I know... it's insane how good those photos are. That being said, I think it would be cool if the owners of 500px would make a 500rawpx site. I'd like to see how great the raw photos actually are.

How much of it is post-processing, and how much of it is actual photography expertise? Because my raw photos rarely come out as spectacular, colorful, vibrant, etc.
My RAW images almost always look washed out before conversion. That's because I "expose right" to the right of the histogram. Digital sensors have more dynamic range the hotter the images is, so long as you don't blow out the highlights. My objective is to preserve as much data and dynamic range as possible and then pull the brightness level down, at contrast and make a very slight adjustment to the RGB curve. (I pull down slightly in the middle, which saturates the colors slightly). Depending on the subject, I might or might not add a positive film preset, like Fuji Velvia 50, using DxO's Film Pack 3.0, film emulation software.

Back in the film days, film manufacturers, particularly for positive films, made our color and saturation choices for us. It's actually much easier to make a "realistic" image in digital than on film. However, the RAW file is no different than Ansel Adam's negative. He exposed in a pariticular way, knowing that he'd make certain choices in printing to make it more "dramatic".

Here's one where I applied my Velvia 50 preset:

White-tail buck about to dissappear into the wood by dcstep, on Flickr

And here's one where I only adjusted levels and pulled the RGB curve down in the middle:


Nice white-tail buck by dcstep, on Flickr

No one would like the RAW files.
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