15 replies to this topic

[Stas]

Hi. I have a question for you. What is the main in creation of picture: shooting or post-processing? How many photos did you post on web without post-processing? As I know almost all great photos that are made nowadays are the result of post-processing. What do you think about  it?

[scoobymax]

Hi Stas, I personally try not to process any of my everyday images such as portraits, wildlife or landscapes too much. I might tweak exposure or saturation etc in RAW to iron out any imperfections but apart from that I leave them as per shot. The only time I use heavy processing would be for photo manipulation. At the end of the day if you take the time to pose or frame the shot and the camera settings are good you shouldn't really have to process it too much, but that's only my opinion, others may be different?! It would also depend on who you where trying to sell you pictures to, for example if you worked on magazine shoots then you find you have edit them to make them look perfect( hide blemishes, moles etc) but I don't like that in my eyes it's not a natural look, it's too fake!

[Afterimage]

I'm with Scoobymax, I post process as little as possible.. when possible. A little White Balance correction, tweak the contrast, that sort of thing. That said I honestly believe what you do after the shot is just as important as setting the shot up right in camera. Learn to use a good program... get good at using it.... just don't over use it.

[Davem45]

not that much the art of photography is in the picture taking not by altering the image

[Richard Poulin]

not that much the art of photography is in the picture taking not by altering the image

 

Don't actual digital camera already doing 'internal sensor processing' before delivering the picture in RAW 

(i know that in JPG they do process a lot)

[Stas]

And how many photos you published (per 10 of your photos for example) without ANY postprocessing?

[Afterimage]

Don't actual digital camera already doing 'internal sensor processing' before delivering the picture in RAW 

(i know that in JPG they do process a lot)

I think RAW delivers the images as the camera saw it without any internal post processing

 

And how many photos you published (per 10 of your photos for example) without ANY postprocessing?

Now that I have the D7100, more than I used too 

[Stas]

Can I see your photos without postprocessing?

 

And what about raw me too I think so. Raw is the format is the image without internal postprocessing, this format save as many information on your photo, as your camera can see.

[Richard Poulin]

Some ggod info about raw i have read:

http://www.luminous-...raw-files.shtml

[funny peculiar]

I am an intermediate amateur at best and struggle to fit photography in around normal commitments. So post processing is a pain and I think the goal should always be to try to get the shot as good as possible straight out of the camera. I think the perceived wisdom is that any post processing should be done on the PC or Mac, not in camera. I tend to do a bit of a boost in vibrancy and maybe some cropping. More than this and it all gets a bit boring. I use Aperture which allows quite a degree of control but, to be honest, I particularly like it for the library organisation side of things. Also, unless shooting sport, I tend to use one card slot for Raw and the other for jpeg basic - so the latter shot can more easily be uploaded to the Internet or emailed if no editing needed. I am sure I am very different to many photographers but if editing took up more that 15% of my time I'd give up.

[Thumper]

I don't do much, if anything, more in post processing digital than I used to do in the darkroom processing prints.

[scoobymax]

I believe RAW images are completely unprocessed images of exactly what the camera sees before the shot is taken, so in theory shooting JPEG means that instead of what the camera sees it's what the camera thinks it should be seeing. Its all done by the processor built into the camera, so it is a processed image the only difference being instead of you doing the processing the camera does it for you. Therefore it doesn't matter how you may frame the shot, if you shoot JPEG it is automatically processed! This is why I shoot only in RAW because sometimes the camera has a different idea of what I want the image to look like., especially when it comes to shooting things like snow, most cameras will over process a JPEG because of the lack of contrast between the snow and other objects in the frame. So for those who shoot in JPEG and say they don't believe in post processing that's because they are not....but the camera is!

[BonOlgirl]

Over the past 10 years in my job, I have post-processed a huge number of photos. Some photos start out bad and ended up better after processing. The best photos I have seen don't need hardly any post-processing.

 

When shooting my own photos, I always shoot in RAW format, and I try to set up the camera settings properly (THIS skill I am still learning!) so that my photo turns out beautiful and sharp without having to make hardly any post-processing adjustments. 

 

The more an image is worked on, the more "muddy" it can get.

[K-9]

Mostly all my RAW processing is done in Lightroom

White balance - tweaked a tiny bit if needed

Color saturation - usually enhanced slightly; I feel doing this is just the equivalent of simply buying higher saturated color film in the film days; it wasn't cheating then! I may also tweak the color if I don't think it quite matched the true color of the scene I shot.

Sharpness - I barely tweak it; I know a lot of people do, but I often wonder if they're just not using sharp lenses or focusing correctly, because I usually find my pics sharp enough and don't need any more.

Exposure - only tweaked slightly if needed; I firmly believe that meters on film cameras were better than DSLR meters. I could spot meter off a gray card with a film SLR, take 200 slides, and have 198 of them come out perfectly exposed. I'd say the number of perfectly exposed digital shots if I did the same is less, more like 178 out of 200.

Cropping - this is probably my most used post processing tool. Probably a lot has to do with my D700 not showing 100% field of view in the viewfinder. Helps a lot when needing to straighten a horizon or other objects in the scene.

Iris enhancing, teeth whitening, and skin softening I do use on occasion for my best portraits. Spot correction also for small edits. Nothing overboard that would become evident in the final shot.

I rarely use Photoshop or cloning or background changes, or anything major like that.

[Outdadarwin]

The main reason I shoot RAW is for the flexibility it allows in Photoshop.

But I won't attempt to turn a bad picture into a good one.

The best results are always achieved if you start with a nice sharp, and reasonably exposed image.

My basic adjustments would be White Balance, and Cropping,.

Then I re-size for the net, adjust Levels, Unsharp Mask, add a watermark, then save as JPEG.

The whole process takes between 10 - 30 minutes.

[IanB]

As just a photo hobbiest i try and not post process too much other than what most are saying above, white balance tweeks etc.  But, i do love mucking about with photos as well, changing colours etc just to see if i can get something a bit un-natural but pleasing to the eye.  To me my Elements 11 is a toy that like all toys, needs played with