Is the forum dying?

[Mike P]

Yes. Interestingly the CPS is also now discussing the level of usage on its forum.

[Patrick]

Clearly the way to bring a forum to life is to ask if it's dying

[Mike P]

Always the way. Worked for R6….

[Herts Mike]

Worked for me..,,

[jadegarden]

Earlier on, I would post in this forum when I had questions. I have less questions now that I have been growing for longer and have learned a lot over the years. Otherwise, I read what others post to gather what might be of interest to me.

Being in a quite different climate and time zone impacts the extent of my active interaction, but I (think I) try to share when what my plants are doing seem to be interesting. If I just want to show ten different asterias flowers then I do that on FB or IG. I find it easier to upload to those platforms straight from the phone than to the forum - for which I have to be at my computer to deal with photos effectively.

I figured that the low activity was the time of year with winter dormancy (something I don't experience) so didn't feel to me to be an issue.

Janine

[Herts Mike]

I upload all my photos from my phone on here. They seem to be ok.

[jadegarden]

My challenge with photos is probably the size and the memory on the phone. Usually I get messages that say I don't have enough space to carry out this operation.

[DaveW]

I'm not a frequent smartphone user, but maybe Mike could describe his method?

Janine raises the reason people Post Process on computers. Conventional cameras, let alone much more compact smartphones, don't have the same memory capacity to include the same advanced Post Procesing programs as a computer does. Nobody yet has been able to incorporate something the size and complexity of say Photoshop into a smartphone or camera since it just does not have the processing power.

You generally have two types of photographers, those who post photos directly as taken, letting their camera or phone automatically process the images, or those who Post Process, often shooting RAW so allowing them to totally process the image themselves rather than in camera. The problem with smartphones is because of size limitations on lenses they often have to use internal processing trickery in order to reproduces images similar to conventional cameras using the correct focal length lenses. Digital zoom is merely cropping part of the image on the sensor and never as good as optical zoom completely filling the sensor.

An interesting take on smartphone images and reality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ8giCWDcyE

I always prefer to sharpen my images in post processing rather than let the camera do it though I gather it can be done on some smartphones?

Generally speaking the ladies have a better eye for getting colours correct than we men do. I have seen some diabolical colour renderings "gilding the lily" in photo club competitions, the image bearing little resemblance to reality.

[el48tel]

Going to have to disagree with you DaveW.
PhotoShop Express is what I use on my cellphone.
Two versions. Free Basic one does pretty much everything to make basic adjustments and all you need to do is to register with Adobe. The advanced one costs a few pounds per month and does the things that the PC version will.
Read my short piece in CW!
Yes I do post process. Yes I do have Photoshop. No I don't always use it for processing. There are other packages. Just use the appropriate tool for the job.

A Photoshop Express free version processed image

[DaveW]

I looked up Photoshop Express for the differences to see if the all the editing is done using your devices memory or using their computers on the Cloud but was not successful?

As far as I am aware todays cameras or smartphones would not have enough resources to install and use Photoshop or even the cut down Photoshop Elements which I use that was intended for amateur photographers. There is quite a lot of free manipulative software on the web anyway for basic editing. However I guess most smartphone and tablet users never edit their pictures anyway, relying on the internal pre-sets of the device to do it for them? Mind you that applies to most camera users too and if you like the image created straight from the camera why bother anyway?

To quote from the following link:-

"Photoshop Express is available on smartphones and tablets. You can download the app on iPhone, iPad, and Android, but it isn’t available on the web."

https://www.makeuseof.com/adobe-photosh ... ifference/

I presume that means you cannot install it on your computer for editing?

As to processing power versus computer.

"Most mobile devices still have less computing power when compared to computers that are specifically designed for image and video processing. They are also battery-powered, and the limited energy contained in the battery has to be conserved for the primary function of the device (in case of a mobile phone, connectivity, and communication)."

https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 21-02200-8

Also presumably storing too many pictures on a smartphone without downloading the excess to computer ties up memory. But then it is always far easier to show people pictures on your phone or tablet than stored on computer?

We are told for photography that our computer screens need occasionally calibrating for editing images to a set standard that few computers comply to "straight out of the box" being set up for easy reading text. I use an Eye-One Display LT occasionally rather than a Spyder on my computer. However I wondered if anybody ever calibrates their smartphone or tablets for photo editing, so I searched and found this:-

https://theappwhisperer.com/2014/05/pho ... e-screens/