Image Editing (Special Interest Group)

Contact: Gary Ford

Sign up for this SIG

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Photo Editing
"when you alter an image file in any way after it has come from your camera that either represents what you actually saw in the scene being photographed, or to achieve a final image that represents your own artistic intentions."

In this special interest group, hosted by Gary Ford, members come together to share and build their image editing skills. 

The meeting is open to photographers of all skill levels. It runs the last Wednesday of the month, September through May. The host will make his best efforts to help Beginners learn the basics so they can join in the three components of each meeting; and he will challenge those with intermediate and advanced skills to enhance their own knowledge and share what they know with others.

​Why Edit Your Photos? 
​You will achieve a final image that either represents what you actually saw in the scene being photographed, or to achieve a final image that represents your own artistic intentions. Your edits can range from simply adding contrast to a flat RAW file, cropping, removing noise, adding sharpness, or changing file size for printing; to removing unwanted elements of an image, adding special effects, or creating a composite of multiple images to get a desired effect. See the example edits on the right.

​Meeting Format
Meeting are conducted digitally via Zoom. To participate you will need a computer with a microphone and camera, or a smart tablet. You must pre-register to receive the link to the Zoom meetings.

What to expect

​The meetings will have three components:
Brief Demonstrations – the host and other volunteer group members will demonstrate how to use editing software such as Camera RAW and Photoshop, Lightroom Classic, Topaz Studio 2, NIK software, and Boris Optics.

Sharing Before/After images – group members will be invited to submit up to two original images that they have edited along with the edited version. We will view these images and discuss what the editor did to achieve a final result.

Sharing of images in a My Picture, Your Edit exercise – a selection of six RAW images will be collected from the members of our group and circulated to all group members who will be invited to edit none or up to all six images in whatever way they think will enhance the image – either with the intention of being true to the original photographer’s vision when taking the image, or to be as creative as possible to arrive at a sample of photo art. The images will be shown and the editor will describe what he or she did to get the final result.

meeting times

We meet the last Wednesday of the month at 7:00 p.m., for approximately 75-90 minutes.* There may be additional meetings June through August if some of the group members wish to meet.

•  Sep 28, 2022
  
•  Oct 26, 2022
• Nov 30, 2022
• Dec 28, 2022 (A special demo event)
• Jan 25, 2023
• Feb 22, 2023
• Mar 29, 2023
• Apr 26, 2023 
  
• May 31, 2023 

​See recordings of 2022-2023 meetings (members only)

past meetings: Sep 2021 to Jun 2022

• August 25, 2021: recording (members only)
• July 28, 2021: recording (members only)
• September 29, 2021 - Basic Concepts – why edit your images, editing of JPGs vs RAW files, a quick look at the interface of each of the editing programs.
  • recording (members only)
• October 27, 2021 – Basic Workflow – temperature adjustments, recovering details in the highlights and shadows, setting white and black points, cropping images, correcting horizon line issues, saturation adjustments.
  • recording (members only)
• November 24, 2021 – Removing unwanted elements, patching image blemishes, adding contrast to an image, setting image size, noise reduction, sharpening, and printing.
• December 29, 2021 – Special Demo event
  • recording (members only)
• January 26, 2022 – Local adjustments, selection tools, layer masking, adjustment layers
  • recording (members only)
• February 23, 2022 – Conversion to Black and White, pre-sets, filters, special and artistic effects.
  • recording (members only)
• March 30, 2022 – Composite images, sky replacement, content aware fill
  • ​​recording (members only)
• April 27, 2022 – Colour management
• May 25, 2022 – Profiles
  • ​recording (members only)

Original photo (@ Wendy Royer) with sample edits below.