Raw pics or Editing?

[brinneydee]

When you post your pictures, how much editing do you do to them? Do you prefer to post "raw pictures" (strictly cropping and possibly adjusting the lighting), or do you edit them to do things like color/light correction, cropping, etc.?
I ask this because there seems to be a big divide between people who prefer "natural" shots to edited ones... Me, personally, I'm a big believer in enhancing a picture's natural beauty so a lot of times I like to play with the exposure, contrast, and color in Photoshop. What about you?

 

[ukcatfan]

Unless it is being submitted for something where there are rules that it cannot be edited (i.e. a contest, newspaper, etc.) then it is all up to your taste. Who cares what others think if you like it.

 

[Gianna'sPapa]

My opinion only, I like for my images to take me back to the time and place I took it. Therefore, I want the image to be as natural as possible. That, many times, takes PP. I like to start with the best image possible and go from there. I normally like them to be bright and sharp. My camera tends to underexpose and has good DR at 100 ISO. If I can shoot at that ISO, I tend to get a finished product I am satisfied with. That is not always possible so then that requires some noise reduction, color/light adjustment, etc. That doesn't mean that from time to time I will not play with lighting, etc. to obtain a certain look or effect. There are many who believe the real work is done on the computer/dark room (film days). There are many who like HDR. I have seen this topic polarize the thread posters as to who is right. IMHO this is totally individual to the photographer.

 

[ssanders79]

When you post your pictures, how much editing do you do to them? Do you prefer to post "raw pictures" (strictly cropping and possibly adjusting the lighting), or do you edit them to do things like color/light correction, cropping, etc.?
I ask this because there seems to be a big divide between people who prefer "natural" shots to edited ones... Me, personally, I'm a big believer in enhancing a picture's natural beauty so a lot of times I like to play with the exposure, contrast, and color in Photoshop. What about you?

What is your definition of Raw pic? Are you referring to an image shot in RAW with no post processing other than converting to jpeg with default settings or an untouched jpeg straight from your camera.

 

[zackiedawg]

My personal taste is to capture a scene as I see it live with my eyes - meaning 'natural' but in the way that I saw it...that means sometimes the way my mind perceived it, or with the power that it transmitted to me - so sometimes I may want it to have dramatic contrast or saturated color because it was both how my eye saw it as well as what it looked like in my mind's eye. It captures that moment in time for me, and lets me share that vision with others the way I saw it.

My personal preference for achieving that vision is to manipulate the shutter, aperture, ISO, white balance, color, sharpness, saturation, contrast, EV, dynamic range, HDR, under- or over-exposure, composition, flare, fringe, depth of field, background blur, palette, shadow detail, highlight detail, etc - as much as I can possibly manipulate and alter to make that image EXACTLY what I feel it should be...but to do all of that in-camera. I love pre-processing, and processing, but don't enjoy POST-processing very much. I'm a camera guy - a photographer at heart. So whatever I can do with the camera, on scene, is where I'm having the most fun. As soon as the camera part of digital photography is over, and it now transfers to the computer portion of digital photography, I'm very quickly bored, restless, and not having much fun. The idea of sitting in front of a computer screen for hours, manipulating and tweaking photos, just doesn't appeal highly to me. So it inspires me to do all of that processing by manipulating the camera's controls, rather than the computer's controls. I can happily shoot JPG because I know I've made that JPG what it is, not the camera - there is hardly a single control I haven't tuned to my personal taste, rather than leaving in 'default' mode, so I haven't just let the camera do the processing choices for me.

That doesn't mean I never post-process, or never shoot RAW - I do - I have photoshop, and many years of skill working with it - I can do anything I want or need in post, and have on occasion really gotten in and manipulated some photos - some to fix when I didn't get it right in camera, and some just to learn the system and see what I could do. And I do shoot RAW+JPG at times, especially when I'm shooting photos that are for a client, and want the insurance of being able to maintain maximum latitude for alteration, recovery, or manipulation to make them happy. If I nail it, I can use the JPG - if not, I have the RAW.

That's my personal style and taste. It's not better or worse than anyone elses, nor right or wrong...just what I prefer. I take the out-of-camera results, go for 'natural' but with my vision and inspiration attached to it, and work to manipulate and control the camera to deliver precisely what I want so I don't have to do anything with the computer.

 

[ukcatfan]

What is your definition of Raw pic? Are you referring to an image shot in RAW with no post processing other than converting to jpeg with default settings or an untouched jpeg straight from your camera.

I did not read it as a RAW format picture myself, because you have to do more than crop to process RAW or it will look very flat and drab.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

I'm on the same wavelength as zackiedawg but I haven't mastered the pre-processing yet.

I think the OP is using the term RAW to mean pictures minimally edited by the photographer.

OP, a RAW image, technically speaking, is one that has not been compressed by the camera.

 

[photo_chick]

I edit how ever much I feel like the image needs to be edited. Some it's almost nothing, others it's a lot.