To edit or not to edit????

[jrdnc09]

How much editing does one do before posting a pic for critiquing, particularly if using enhancement tools, for example 'picasa' and the many million others???

I have used in the past quite liberally when using my point and shoot, as I am alot more conscious of my pics using DSLR - not too sure what is acceptable and what is not!! (is there such a thing as photographic etiquette??)

Cheers;)

Jo

[mongo]

Mongo recently posted the following comment in a similar post titled "straight out of the gun"

"Post processing is not a new feature of the digital age. Mongo loves Ansel Adams’ work. He could take a reasonably good straight image but it was relatively ordinary until he did what he is largely famous for – his “magic” by way of his post processing in the dark room to turn it into something quite outstanding. The degree of manipulation was not simple or superficial - it was quite involved.

Photography is a visual art form and photographers, like artist, should not be constrained by their choice of use of work media. Everyone should be able to use whatever tools are available and do the best they can with those. We are all in the same boat and there should be no excuses to complain about others’ use of all such tools (except perhaps photo enhancing steroids).

Before digital, Mongo only shot slide film and B&W. The closest thing to pure photography was the slide film straight out of the camera and developed normally. Everything else was a manipulation to some degree or other.

As far as Mongo is concerned, all is fair in love, war and photography. So it was in the film era – so it will be in the digital era."

[jim]

As Mongo says. As much as you feel is necessary to do the job.*

*Preferably not much more than a light sharpen and levels or curves**

**Personal preference.

[Miaow]

I try not too do too much on normal pics- sharpen if needed (depends on lens using tamron 90mm doesnt really need it have found), maybe levels, maybe bit of contrast brightness adjustments if needed, mono conversions if warranted. I do play with other plgins sometimes if I feel the pic might look good with them.

[ricktas]

Personal choice really. Do as much or as little as you want to

[Kym]

In the film era some people got their pictures printed direct from the negatives with minimal darkroom processing.
Others of us used enlargers, cropped, dodged, burned, played with chemicals and timing to alter saturation and/or contrast.

Software is the digital darkroom for the modern photographer and is 1000x more powerful, accessible, flexible, and even safer than a wet darkroom.

[dbax]

for me it varies from image to image, if you wish to show it as it was then just enough to bring out the best. If you want to express it as art then anything goes. No straight answer.

[ving]

as above... i usually dont do very much at all but it all depends on what i am trying the achieve.

[lyxivan]

If you happy with the result from the camera, I don't see any reason to waste your time to edit it.

But I never happy with it :)

[dche5390]

I do whatever it takes to get what I want out of the photo. Then a few weeks later, look at the PP and cringe and redo it with another take. Its subjective.

[Robert Horler]

I will put my two bob in, usually only crop and sharpen. Personally,I don't enjoy too much manipulation.

[stoogest]

In many cases, a photo out of an SLR may require more post processing than a photo form a p&s, particularly if you are shooting in RAW format.

For me, as long as you're not adding anything to an image that wasn't already there then it's all good.

Cheers!
Andrew.

[mcdesign]

Mongo recently posted the following comment in a similar post titled "straight out of the gun"

"Post processing is not a new feature of the digital age. Mongo loves Ansel Adams’ work. He could take a reasonably good straight image but it was relatively ordinary until he did what he is largely famous for – his “magic” by way of his post processing in the dark room to turn it into something quite outstanding. The degree of manipulation was not simple or superficial - it was quite involved.

Photography is a visual art form and photographers, like artist, should not be constrained by their choice of use of work media. Everyone should be able to use whatever tools are available and do the best they can with those. We are all in the same boat and there should be no excuses to complain about others’ use of all such tools (except perhaps photo enhancing steroids).

Before digital, Mongo only shot slide film and B&W. The closest thing to pure photography was the slide film straight out of the camera and developed normally. Everything else was a manipulation to some degree or other.

As far as Mongo is concerned, all is fair in love, war and photography. So it was in the film era – so it will be in the digital era."

Well put Mongo.

[peterking]

I agree with Mongo.
My personal choice is,
Adjust White balance if need.
Crop.
Sharpen
Post.

I refuse to add anything, because I don't know how. And I hate to remove anything, for the same reason.
I am working to get what I want from the camera.
Once I've achieved that consistently I will look to the software to get more.

[bigdazzler]

Like everything in this game .. it depends on what youre trying to achieve.

My travel photography has very little editing applied, whereas my portraiture has a bit more. All depends on what youre after, and what youre going to use the pictures for.

IMPORTANT NOTE : RAW files will always need a degree of post editing applied, because they are exactly that, RAW data.

[Brian500au]

Remember if you are shooting JPG then the file is post edited in the camera. Most modern cameras allow you to adjust the output of the JPG in the camera - so in effect every shot downloaded to your computer already has some correction. As others have pointed out the only file not post edited in the camera is the raw data - this will always need some editing on your computer. In my opinion the amount of time spent editing is really proportional to the audience you are preparing the photo to be presented to.

[rattle]

I'm finding this to be a very interesting subject as I'm a newbie.

Because I'm new to this (had my camera 2 weeks), I feel that the photos that I will show people should be straight from the camera as that is the result of my efforts with the camera at the time.

Having said that, I am already looking at some of my pictures and thinking that if it wasn't for one particular thing, which could be edited, I'd be 100% satisfied with the photo.

I do look at pictures by others that have been edited for whatever reason and I'm just blown away with the result though.

It will be interesting to see which way I go with this as time goes by.
For now, I just need to learn how to take a half decent photo. Hah, Hah.

[ricktas]

I'm finding this to be a very interesting subject as I'm a newbie.

Because I'm new to this (had my camera 2 weeks), I feel that the photos that I will show people should be straight from the camera as that is the result of my efforts with the camera at the time.

Having said that, I am already looking at some of my pictures and thinking that if it wasn't for one particular thing, which could be edited, I'd be 100% satisfied with the photo.

I do look at pictures by others that have been edited for whatever reason and I'm just blown away with the result though.

It will be interesting to see which way I go with this as time goes by.
For now, I just need to learn how to take a half decent photo. Hah, Hah.

Take it slow, don't try and learn everything at once. But there are some things you should learn how to do earlier than others, you will find that once you learn how to adjust levels (http://www.ausphotography.net.au/forum/showthread.php?t=22436) and sharpen (http://www.ausphotography.net.au/forum/showthread.php?t=8579) your photos, that alone can make a huge difference

[draco]

i almost always crop my photos as an effect of straightening horizon and try to adjust colours to my liking and then post.. not that I don't like to PP but I just don't have the time and skills yet :D

[bigbaz]

I don't really edit, as i don't know how to do it

[bigdazzler]

I don't really edit, as i don't know how to do it

Start practicing Baz ... it really is an essential part of modern day digital photography. Your digital workflow is almost as important as taking the pictures these days.

Lightroom is a brilliant start, this will allow you to mange your collection, process your RAW files, and do a little bit more detailed adjustment as well.

Theres lots of tutorials out there outlining the basics .. :th3:

[ving]

depends on what i want... every pic is different.

[bigbaz]

thanks for the tip bigdazzler, will check out lightroom

[Calxoddity]

Hi,
When I first started posting here I was opposed to post-processing on the basis that I was here to do and learn photography, not photoshop.

However, the corrupting influence of forum members has caused me to modify my views. Whilst most of my photos only have some exposure correction and contrast done, I'm now happier going totally feral if and when the mood grabs me (witness my slightly bizarre and tongue-in-cheek entry for the People themed weekly competition....).

Do what you're comfortable with. Mongo summed it up pretty well.

Regards,
Calx

[peterb666]

Hi,
When I first started posting here I was opposed to post-processing on the basis that I was here to do and learn photography, not photoshop.

However, the corrupting influence of forum members has caused me to modify my views. Whilst most of my photos only have some exposure correction and contrast done, I'm now happier going totally feral if and when the mood grabs me (witness my slightly bizarre and tongue-in-cheek entry for the People themed weekly competition....).

Do what you're comfortable with. Mongo summed it up pretty well.

Regards,
Calx


This seems to be a common theme.

I think for me it is because I have chosen to go down a path that the camera itself doesn't cope with as well as it did with more convential subject matter.

Cheers to all.

[darkbhudda]

How much editing does one do before posting a pic for critiquing
As much as you need to get useful critique.

If you can see it is a little underexposed and you don't correct it someone will point it out. However if you want to know why your pictures are being underexposed in the camera post the unedited version so people can check out your settings and people can critique those.

If you just want general critique and there is an out of focus branch in the foreground then people will mention that and give less time to critiquing general composition etc...

[Analog6]

Photoshop and other programs are a digital darkroom. Film users would not hesitate to adjust things in the darkroom, burn, dodge, crop, adjust/change colours with enlarger filters, increase the contrast via softer or harder grades of paper, sandwich negatives etc etc. As Mongo said, the 'purest' photography was transparency (slide) film.

Each photo will need different lebvels of adjustment work deepending on the camera's sensor (they are not all the same), the skill of the operator of the camera and the digital darkroom (not always the same person), the format the image was captured in, and a lot of subjective personal choices.

I don't generally add or delete anything, and I like them to look naturally HOW I RECALL THE SCENE. That's in caps because it is all about what you saw or perceive as being what you saw. Art is subjective, there are no right or wrongs.

[kiwi]

It really also depends a lot on whether you arre shooting RAW or shooting JPEG. JPEG shooting effectively preprocesses a RAW quite a bit including sharpening and colour balance and also contrast

I find therefore a JPEG file all else being equal requires less processing (if any) compared to a RAW file

If you simply cant or wont do at least basic processing of a RAW file you are far better off sticking to JPEG's in my opinion

As much as I know processing, Im probably about average on AP terms, quite often I prefer the JPEG out of camera better than the RAW subsequently processed

[solace]

This is an interesting conversation, seems the common theme is the basic requirements and then depending on what the photo needs.

That is the same approach for me, and I may spend a lot of time on a few photo's as they didn't quite come out the way I attempted the first time. But the majority of photo's all they get is a batch edit of the basics...

[bigdazzler]

If you simply cant or wont do at least basic processing of a RAW file you are far better off sticking to JPEG's in my opinion


I agree entirely .. you need to know how to process a RAW file quite competently to be able to get the file looking its best. If light is tricky, I always use RAW, but have been finding myself using JPG more and more lately.

I did a portrait shoot the other day on an overcast day with natural light and a reflector, and shot 150 images in JPG, in cloudy WB. They turned out fine and it took me a lot less time to get the final edits sorted out too.

[Dwarak]

I am new to photography atleast I consider myself new it's been less than a year now and when I started I had no clue how to manipulate or post process as everyone calls it. This is because o did not know what to look for in a shot bit eventually after reading comments about different shots taken by people you finally get to know what needs to be corrected and then the question about how to correct this which tool to use filters layers etc. I got myself some free tutorials for a start and did a little bit of playing around with different tools to get the desired results but it has made a huge difference to my shots I guess the fear is overdoing it and I am not a big fan of over processed images (though I do some myself) when done correctly you will be able to maintain the quality of the image but yet make it look as natural as possible like you are seeing it through your eye. This is just my experience.....


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[woofie]

Personally. I might tweak a few light settings and sharpness of the photo.

[AndreaB]

I think it all depends on the image. Some images, just need a little sharpening, others look better tuned mono or sepia, all considered editing. Other times, you missed spotting someting int eh background or the subject has a few zits that need correcting, it all depends on the image, and what you want to acheive with it.

[valeriemae]

I play around with ambient and contrast. I never alter my image though using Photoshop I want it as is with just a little tweak and change the ambient of the photo.

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[zollo]

i definitely edit

[andylo]

Not too long ago I am strictly stick to straight out of the gun image.

I have started editing (using DPP, later in PS when have time to learn) recently. I find it pretty hard to produce pleasing images straight out of the gun to the viewer (i.e. my missus) especially compare to images that has done some adjustments nowadays.

Viewers (missus) don't care the dignity/cheating factor about post process. They just want stunning images that makes them "Wow!".

I guess at the end of the day it depends on who is the target audience of the image. (yourself, or "Viewers")

[steve812]

I edit most of my digital shots. I edited my B & W photographs. I have exercised artistic license since my first enlargement. When did exercising artistic license become cheating? There are few scenes in paintings that are depicted as they existed. As artists I believe we all have the right to 'edit' the scene before us.
I guess the responsibility we have is to acknowledge such processes or at least not to deny that artistic license was exercised.

[aycee]

I must enter into this about whether too or not.......and photography is an art so as in all art anything goes..look at Picasso...

do what you want to do with a photo to get the results that you want..some like it to go bang some dont...

if it is to look how the eye saw it it or the the memory remembers it well straight out of the camera isnt going cut it as the human eye is much better than the camera for colour and depth etc

the old adage of what you put in is what you get out is worth remembering ..it takes some large amount of time to manipulate photos so they look real but arent as if just some filter has been pushed though the choice is always yours and yours only as to how much

two cameras with the same lenses taken at the same time give different renditions of the same object so they have manipulated the photo without anything other than the shutter being pushed

and it depends what you want as a result...really nothing else..its personal and will remain like that

it would come as no surprise if i said i do manipulate mine considerably...Alan!

[dbax]

snip

it would come as no surprise if i said i do manipulate mine considerably...Alan!Snip

And you do it very well indeed Alan!!