Quote:
Originally Posted by Gidders
There, I've given away my trade secrets 
Hope this makes sense - I would be surprised if NX gives this level of control, I may be wrong - because if it did it would become the industry standard. |
Oh well, a nice side effect of starting this thread, you guys now have a master-class in portrait editing
On the specific, as you know Clive the original was very soft, and the end position included some very hard textures. My request for a play was to see if, the hair especially, could be softened....and why not use a live example for the discussion.
On the general, PS/CS I would describe as having attained a near monopoly, an unhealthy situation and reminiscent of Autocad in architecture/engineering whence I have retired. No creative hands-on architect ever touched Autocad, it was, precisely, industrial. Microstation and one or two other strugglers were on the contrary design orientated; Architrion, the best, actually went to the wall (or French only).
PS/CS is different in that its cost is dropping and it can be used at simpler levels by beginners, but I have yet to meet anyone who took to it like a duck to water. Yes, it has myriad features that professional photographers need and it appears that most of the more advanced amateurs on WPF use sub-sets of it to a greater or lesser extent for special purposes. Yes, this includes users of NX beyond a particular stage of editing.
NX includes enough advanced colour and tonal editing features (and facility for processing different parts of an image differently) for most outdoor photography. It works in a more intuitive manner and, costing 1/5 of the price of CS, I am suggesting it is an alternative for those of us newer to SLR photography, keen to learn, who appear to form a large part of the forum.
I am not binning PSE(4) yet, as I know that it includes one or two features I may need and haven't got on my other mac sharewares. But, lacking curves (or, better, LCH in NX), I don't find it much use for landscape. I re-edit most images for which I originally used it, now using DPP or NX with significantly improved results. I also find the 'layers' operation a pain compared to the NX 'steps'....and, apart from comparison testing, have not used it since getting NX.
I have not tried Aperture as at £300 plus a newer computer, I would need a pretty hard sell on it Andy.