Photo Editing: Getting The Best From Your Camera Sony RX100 III

My dad recently bought the Sony RX100 III professional point and shoot camera. Recently, I had done a review of the Sony RX100 II and found it was an excellent camera, so I recommended it. We met up recently and I gave him some photo pointers and told him about my W.I.S.E. settings: (White Balance, ISO, Scene Selection, Exposure Compensation) to help him remember what settings to look after. Even though we got some pretty nice shots with the camera in scene mode I was trying to tell him that its not the end result. If you want the most out of your photos, you will need to edit them in Lightroom, Photoshop, or iPhoto, which ever you want to learn to create better photos.

As  professional shooters, we sometimes fool amateurs into thinking that what they see in a our photos is exactly what we captured or we were at the right place at the right time to capture such magic. The truth is, and what I tried to explain to my dad, is that the photo process doesn't just end after the click of the shutter, there is still work to do to create that magic. The problem is, unless you take the time to create custom shooting settings to render your photos (basically Photoshop within your camera) then you have to post process. Most (ALL) cameras shoot flat. Meaning: no contrast (and other things). Even though you capture a great shot, and you say wow, you can make shots look even better.

Here are some before and after examples from the Sony RX100 III:

Before: Shot with normal program mode no flash. Point and Shoot

After: With Photoshop color correction and enhancing.

Before: Shot using Landscape Mode for complete depth of field.

After: Cropped and converted into Black & White in Photoshop

One thing I have noticed with Sony is that when you shoot around greenery the color cast in the photo gets really green. I've seen this in portraits as well. I don't see that too much in my Nikon, It's not necessarily a bad thing it just needs to be corrected. In the above photos I did basic contrast and color correcting.

Looking at this scene above with the old architecture and clouds would make a great black & white.

Before

After

To make the above photo a bit more creepy I performed the basic corrections but also added a neat filter from the google nik plugins.

Before

After

In this set of photos you can really see the flatness of the photo in the original. Adding correct contrast, color saturation and sharpness it really pops the image and creates a little more drama.

So just remember, with any camera: what you see is not always what you can get. Polish off your photos with a little post processing and make that snapshot a finished masterpiece.