Simon Lewin Posted January 11, 2007 Share #1 Â Posted January 11, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) Hi there, Â Getting to grips with my fantastic new D-Lux 3! Â But... Â I am getting a bit confused about the best way to shoot and work with images. Â I'm running Photoshop CS (not 2 or 3) on my Mac. Â I've been shooting RAW images. Â I'm not a professional, so ultimately I'll be shooting for my own pleasure BUT I do like the idea of getting the very best quality that I can - so I keep thinking I should at least be shooting in RAW - even if a lot of the time I'm downgrading to JPG for use on websites etc. Â So I'm just a bit confused about the workflow. Â I'm running a fairly recent Mac (2.1GHz G5 iMac running 10.4.8) so perhaps I need to update software? Â I'm really enjoying the forums - but I am getting a bit confused about all the different options out there. Â Any tips would be really appreciated! Â Best wishes, Â Simon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted January 11, 2007 Posted January 11, 2007 Hi Simon Lewin, Take a look here D-Lux 3 / Mac / Raw images ??. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
johnjs Posted January 11, 2007 Share #2 Â Posted January 11, 2007 Hi Simon, I've been using Adobe Lightroom (apparently now Adobe Photoshop Lightroom) beta for awhile and I like it alot. It's dedicated to a digital photography workflow similar to Apple's Aperture software, which I'm not familiar with but have read good things about. Lightroom gives you a tremendous amount of latitude in processing your images. Both programs are memory and processor intensive. I'm not sure if either application supports the RAW files from the D-Lux 3 yet, but you could always convert the RAW's to DNG files with the Adobe RAW-DNG converter (if the camera is supported there). Here's the link to the Lightroom site where you can read about it and see if it's what you're looking for -Adobe Labs - Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Best, John Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Django Posted January 11, 2007 Share #3  Posted January 11, 2007 Hi Simon,  congratulations to your new D-Lux 3. I just got mine a week ago and am thrilled. Currently, I'm also using Adobe Lightroom beta for the raw files I shoot with my Leica.  What also works for me (using Photoshop CS 2 thouhg) is to install an update. Here's how to: http://www.leica-camera.us/assets/file/download.php?filename=file_1317.pdf  here is the dng converter download and the required plugin: Adobe DNG Converter & Camera Raw 3.6 – Mac OS X – VersionTracker  It allows me to open the Leica files in Photoshop CS 2 - might work vers. 1 as well.  For the Mac there are also a few other applications that allow raw converison, e.g. Silkypix, Bibble, Capture on Pro.  Right now I prefer Lightroom but wish Apple's Aperture would support Leica D-Lux 3 and M 8 raw files. Sadly, these are currently not supported by Aperture / OS x. Guess I'm not the only one here waiting for that update  Regards Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
macgarvin Posted January 11, 2007 Share #4  Posted January 11, 2007 Hi there, Getting to grips with my fantastic new D-Lux 3!  I'm running Photoshop CS (not 2 or 3) on my Mac.  Simon  Well, you are in luck Simon if you are using CS1. I found the techniques and tutorials on Luminous Landscape http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/ invaluable when I was learning - unfortunately they are getting a little dated, because many of them were written at the time of CS1. But in your case that's really good. There may be better or at least alternative ways of doing things with more recent version (personally I regard most of the changes as pretty incrimental with the exception of Camera Raw which I think is significantly better than that on with CS1, but you can do that stage with the free Photoshop Elements package that comes with the Leica D-Lux3 or for the time being free with Lightroom. So you don't need too much envy of those with later versons!  For example, try the simple cookery lesson on local contrast enhancement for an immediate wow factor with making photos look better http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/contrast-enhancement.shtml  I then bought a pdf copy of the manual on workflow from the Digital Outback website, called 'DOP 2000 Digital Photography Workflow Handbook: Using Photoshop CS and Raw Converters for the Digital Photography Workflow'. You will see it about 2/3 of the way down on http://www.outbackphoto.com/booklets/booklets.html Again that is dated in that it deals with CS1, DO also has a large number of 'how to' tutorials on line http://www.outbackphoto.com/workflow/index.html  Not saying that these are the best, but they are what I discovered and they worked for me (and I also use a mac) I also use Photokit Sharpener on just about any image that I process, Noise Ninja for noisy images and a series of plug-ins developed by Power Retouche notably for b/w convesions and perspective distortions and Color Mechanic Pro for occasional shots with troublesome colour balance that I can't get right any other way. Unfortunately you would need to pay for these , but Noise Ninja comes in handy with the D-Lux 3, and I have already put up on this site a series of NN profiles for the D-Lux  Have fun Malcolm Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Lewin Posted January 12, 2007 Author Share #5 Â Posted January 12, 2007 Just to say thanks to everyone for the input so far - it's really appreciated. Â Best wishes, Â Simon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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