post processing

[Sleepyluke]

Just out of curiosity, with all of the improvements (subjective, I know) that can and are made to photos, how many of you folks process all of your pics, even a little, or do you tend to take the best and mess with them?

I have become a more is better when shooting here lately, but even the other evening out taking shots of deer, I took over 200. Probably 100-150 are worth keeping, but how many would at least run through processing?

I am finding that the time to go shoot then the equal or more time to process like I want them tends to add up to more time than I have available....

Or do you leave them natural more often than not?

 

[zackiedawg]

I'm generally a no-process guy - I absolutely love the act of shooting and capturing photography, but am very quickly tired and bored sitting on front of the computer processing photos. So my modus operandi has always been to do all the work I can to set up my camera's processing (remember that in-camera JPGs can actually be 'processed' before you even shoot them - all cameras allow for adjustments and tweaks so the output is the way you liike it), then to work on getting the exposure and framing of the capture right, so that I can avoid any post-processing.

I do *some* post processing - of course, to post photos online I have to resize them, and I'll occasionally crop. On very rare occasion, I might even clone out something like the corner of a leaf intruding into the upper right of the frame. If I shoot high ISO shots, I'll run some noise reduction. I'd probably guess I post-process in the vicinity of 10% of my shots.

I weighed the use of my time, and what made me the most happy, and being out shooting always gave me much more pleasure than being inside processing, so I planned my shooting style around what worked best for me and my happiness. If you like post-processing and computers, then there's nothing wrong with devoting a large chunk of your time to that creative process...it's all about photography being enjoyable, whether it's the taking or the processing or both!

 

[SrisonS]

I tend to only process the shots i post online, or send to family. And since i get picky on what I like to show, it doesn't end up being a whole lot. If anything, if I'm unsure on a certain picture, I can just add a quick Preset Adjust to it, to get a feel on how it could turn out with a little more work.

And on that note of Presets, they can be a complete time saver if you want to even just touch-up a lot of pictures at once.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

All pictures are heavily post processed. The original "picture" is just a bunch of brightness values for green, red, and blue dots. They need to be processed so that the dots are full colored. They get sharpened. They get noise reduction. The contrast is adjusted. The white balance is set.

I don't think the appropriate question is whether your pictures are post processed. I think it is how much do you control the post processing.

I do almost all of my shooting in RAW, so that I have the most flexibility and control over the look of my pictures. When I load them into my photo catalog, I apply some presets to do basic processing. In my case, I use Adobe Lightroom as my catalogue and processor. I have some default selections that get applied on import. From memory, those are:

• Camera style set to neutral
• Lens Correction on
• Clarity at 20
• Vibrance at 20

Once I import them, I make a quick pass through to pic which pictures I want to consider keeping. Once I've done that, I decide if I want to much around with the white balance. I find that auto white balance does a resonable job in some cases and lousy in others. When it doesn't, I get the white balance I want for one picture and then copy that to other pictures taken in the same light. I also make some other adjustments that I copy to most or all pictures in a group - changes in clarity, vibrance, noise reduction, sharpness. I sometimes make global tone adjustments like increasing exposure or brightness.

Once I'm done with the global work, I go back through picture by picture and tweak those that need tweaking. Tweaks almost always include tone adjustments (exposure, black levels, brightness, etc). I also do some cleanup (cloning out dust spots, blemishes, etc). Sometimes it also includes applying gradiant or painted on exposure adjustments. I also cut down on how many pictures I want to keep. If I've taken a lot of people shots, I sometimes run them through Portrait Professional for quick touchups. For most shoots, I leave it at that.

If there are some special pictures, particularly those that I want to print, I spend more time and energy on those shots. I usually do detail work in Photoshop rather than Lightroom. Detailed work usually involves things like curves adjustments to tweak the tonal range, targeted sharpening or noise reduction, and special touch-up work for people's faces and bodies. If I'm going to make a print, I'll resize for the printer and then make a global sharpening adjustment to optimize for the printer.

 

[Sam241]

I never spend more then 2-3mins per photo, I believe the shot itself is what's important not the effects that can be applied to the shot. In the end it's all about what you are trying to express in the photo, there is no right or wrong way to do it. Just different styles and different artistic vision and how each person choose to express those.

 

[eblong]

...I do almost all of my shooting in RAW, so that I have the most flexibility and control over the look of my pictures. When I load them into my photo catalog, I apply some presets to do basic processing. In my case, I use Adobe Lightroom as my catalogue and processor....

Thanks for your fine note. As I learn to use RAW with Lightroom, I now know how to aply develop settings in a preset. Of prime importance is the application of Lens Profile. Thanks for the incentive - it gave me what I needed to explore how to create my own preset to apply during loading.

 

[pointandshoot]

I only process the few I like from a shoot. I will delete many. Sometimes, I learn a new approach and go back to shots that I did not like and take it in a different direction.

The amount of time varies. On average, about 10 minutes. Adjustments for white balance, exposure, lens corrections, etc. in raw. Contrast, saturation, sharpen in CS5. Shots like soccer or hockey that I have processed a ton of images, I know what I need to do and can finish quickly.

If it is going to print or a portrait, I will invest more time. If I have to stare at it in a frame, I want it perfect.

I will not process most of what I keep. It is a pool of images that I selectively decide to process what I feel like playing with.

Chuck

 

[boBQuincy]

It is a rare image that can't be improved by post processing. I don't believe I have any of those images nor have I seen any come out of anyone else's camera. Here is a good essay on the subject of processing:

http://luminous-landscape.com/columns/just-say-yes.shtml

I may spend a few minutes working on an image for casual use or hours working on one for printing and display. And when asked if I altered the images I just say "yes".

 

[photo_chick]

I only shoot RAW so if I want an image I can use I have to get my hands dirty. I only process the keepers. If I'm shooting a party, vacation or something my keepers are a good 90% or more these days. Lately I've been shooting more sparingly and with a lot more consideration for each frame so my total number of images has gone way down. If I'm working on a project my keepers are more like 5% because I'll be bracketing a lot, trying some different angles to get things just so.. things like that.

Now, leaving them natural.... to me that implies that film, the standard by which we gauge digital, had no post processing. Post processing really isn't a new thing for photography. You'll be hard pressed to find any great image, film or digital, that didn't have some kind of post processing done to it. We just use software and pixels now instead of cancer causing chemicals and cow hooves.

 

[Sleepyluke]

Thanks for the replies. I guess I should have said computer processing, but at any rate. For the most part, I tend to leave things alone out of the camera adjsutments, but I find myself looking at so many pictures now that have incredible colors and everything seems to work together, and while I have some of those, more often than not I have a great picture with something that I think could be a little better, maybe that is good, maybe not, keeps the learning curve. When i know I am going for a particular shot, i can prepare, but I also tend to be much more of a fly by wire person, the deer shots the other day were after a bike ride that I saw them, went and grabbed the camera, no tripod nothing but me and the camera and shot 200 pics.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I am starting to learn more and like more of lightroom, so that may be bad for my printing budget!

I guess I also have to realize that what gets posted and what gets printed are less than 1/2% of what people are actually taking too.

 

[zackiedawg]

Now, leaving them natural.... to me that implies that film, the standard by which we gauge digital, had no post processing. Post processing really isn't a new thing for photography. You'll be hard pressed to find any great image, film or digital, that didn't have some kind of post processing done to it. We just use software and pixels now instead of cancer causing chemicals and cow hooves.

Natural isn't a good way of phrasing it, but for those who don't enjoy the post processing part, getting as much customization of the processing in-camera through user settings that suit your desired output, and making sure to get as much right with the exposure and framing while taking the shot, allows us to avoid having to do all of that in front of the computer. It isn't so much that a RAW can't be as 'natural' as a JPG or film - it's about trying to avoid having to POST process anything because of a lack of enjoyment in doing so!

I shot film for 28 years, and I never personally developed a roll in my life - the same theory applied for me there - I loved the process of TAKING the photos, but didn't want to go through the processing of the photos. In order to avoid someone else having too much control over the final outcome, I always checked the boxes for leaving the shot as it comes and not trying to 'correct' mistakes...but of course the overall processing was still out of my control entirely and I had to hunt around for the right lab that I felt confident would deliver the look I was striving for - and I still had to nail the exposures in the camera. What I actually like more with digital is that I now have some measure of control over the processing phase, which can help me avoid the POST processing phase. Unlike with film, I can tune my camera's color, saturation, contrast, sharpness, tone curve, and white balance temperature all up-front, so I know all I need to concentrate on while shooting is exposing and framing and focusing. It's all personal preference - just as in the film days when there were the types who loved the darkroom and wanted to spend time processing their film, there are those types who love post-processing on a computer.

Again, no way is right or wrong. It's all a matter of enjoying the process, and getting results that make you happy. To say that no photo has ever come out of a camera that couldn't be improved may be true - just as you could say that no car cannot be improved with a little custom tuning, or no food could have been cooked a little better - but if the photographer, driver, or chef is happy as a pig in mud with their results, who is anyone else to say they should have done better or differently? Photography is an art, and the photographer is the artist - what they present to the world is theirs alone, whether by camera defaults, or customized processing setup, or post-processed on a computer!

 

[krb2g]

I do some digital post-processing on my photos--either ones I want to print or share or ones that I want to challenge myself. I edit out sensor dust, fix red eye, crop, and sometimes do color adjustment. Occasionally I'll merge images (HDR) or if I'm trying to eliminate people from a landscape shot, or if I couldn't get the exposure right in camera. I have been known to edit people who couldn't make the picture in.... I like to do b&w or b&w with some color remaining some. I'm actually interested in playing more with photoshop to create new things on the computer, but I wouldn't consider that so much photography....