Just a warning, I am a complete noob when it comes to pictures and stuff.
While I know PawPedia do say what the different things in Rawtherapee does, I have problems understanding it in a way I can use it to do what I want with my photos.
I have tried to just try different sliders to see what happens, I might get a result that is sort of what I want ,but it isnt quite what I want, it does help with knowing somewhat different things do, but not well enough by any means to get what I want without luck.
So my question, is there another way people recommend? another site? some videos?
The short answer to your question is Of course there is https://paulsphotopalace.wordpress.com/ for instance. Botanize among Paul’s menus and you will get many ideas.
Also: search for workflow here at pixls.us. You can learn very much from the advice given in this forum.
Yes, videos would be helpful.
But how much I would learn does depend on how they are, but it isnt that hard to be more understandable for me than the wiki, because it is a video.
but do not do it if I am the only one that push you over the line to do it or not to do it.
do not use time on just one person.
I would most certainly be doing it for everyone, not just you
Free Software gets spread one person at a time. I help you see that the software is good and useful, you tell another person and help that person, and so on. This is how it works in the absence of a large marketing budget.
This is really the crux of the problem, isn’t it? What exactly is it you want to do with your photos?
If you have a clear idea of what you’d like to accomplish, it’s way easier to demonstrate a possible means for achieving it. Did you happen to have a look at the Getting Started portion of RawPedia? It covers a basic approach to some beginning editing. Otherwise I’d take up @paperdigits on his offer for some video curation (if only so we can start a reference page of some sort with them…).
If you can describe more precisely what you would like to accomplish, or at the very least some concrete examples, then we can hopefully help you out with some better advice!
For what it’s worth: basically, your first work is to get the pixel tones spread out between min black and max white. After that, depends on the image…
RawPedia explains things specific to RawTherapee. For general concepts, like “what is white balance and how do I use it” or “how do curves work”, refer to YouTube.
Or I dont know exactly how I want the picture to be when I finish it, but I often know what I want to do to make it better.
I will possibly ask when I come to that point next time I try to use RT. (I am not doing it every day, I do it kind of when I feel like it)
and yes, I have looked at the getting started Rawpedia, but It isnt what I want.
And I have a question, does everything work the same in RawTherapee as in Lightroom, because when I search youtube, I cant really find a lot of RawTherapee videos when I search.
The principle of curves is generally the same in all programs, but the math can differ leading to slightly different results. Same for levels. You can watch a video for a different program - the details will differ, but the principles will be the same.
I have a question, why is there sometimes coming pink lines around things? have have seen it on two pictures I did take that has green trees and a very white sky (clouds).
Is it the lens that does it? (canon 18-55 kit lens)
It is called chromatic aberration, CA. There are two types of it: lateral and longitudinal.
Lateral CA is the one seen usually near the edges of the frame. You can remove usually at least most of it with chromatic aberration correction found in Raw-tab. All you need to do is just to check the box. See Rawpedia for more: Chromatic Aberration - RawPedia
Longitudinal CA is the harder one to remove and this one you will see on out focus areas. You can use defringe tool to remove it and remaining lateral CA. Choose proper colors and play with two sliders. With this one you can get not-so-pretty results, because afaik it just desaturates the fringes. Rawpedia: Defringe - RawPedia
I don’t know much about technical term so I don’t know how much it can help.
But what I know is when you taking photos, you can slightly change the angle to avoid that situation–if you taking a lot of photos and see the raw file from the computer, you will learn what situation that makes severe, I think,
or stop down the aperture–something like this: if you set aperture to 3.5, you should go to 4+, if you set aperture to 5.6, should set to 6.3 or 7.1,
or use good lens–I’d like to suggest prime lens (I don’t know the Canon lens but Nikon 50mm f/1.8 lens was good example) because it was inexpensive and I think it won’t be much problem with CA.
So you will not have much problem in first place–of course, you can’t completely avoid though, I think.
It was based on my experience–and I use prime lens only.
@Mihle I am working on a project called CustomCHROME (http://stefanchirila.com/customCHROME/) which involves presets for RawTherapee along with tutorials that explain what the presets do and how they make images look good. I have a few preset sets up already, not much in terms of tutorials though.
What exactly is it you want to do with your photos?
