Restraint

[kiwi]

On a number of recent threads of people, weddings, landscapes etc what's apparent to me is that a lot of photos have been literally beaten to death in photoshop. Over processed or badly processed, selective colouring, fake blur, HDR, and the list goes on

If you show restraint in your processing and get right basics like exposure, white balance, sharpening first to make the "raw" photo accurate first it would really help your photography in my opinion

In this case less is definately more

[jim]

100% agree.

[ricstew]

I agree with you Kiwi.......but it takes a while to develop your own style. Playing with all the things you can do or make in PP teaches you not only how these things work but what you want as the photograph taker. Its a bit like a birthday cake.........the huge sticky gooey type, covered in icing, made with love that you want to bury your face in! Half an hour down the track you decide you really only needed one slice to eat cause you have checked in the mirror and discovered that gooey icing in your hair isn't a good look :)........if that makes sense. Sometimes putting your play objects up for critique lets you look in the mirror.

[OzzieTraveller]

G'day kiwi

Agree completely - not much more needs to be said beyond 'welcome back mate'

regards, Phil

[kiwi]

Re style, most leading photographers do have a certain pp style, but very rarely is it more than a slight deviation to the original photo, usually just a slight colour shift and adjustments to tonal contrast and they all certainly get the basics right first.

[dbax]

so true Darren, I noticed in your recent weeding thread just how good the balance between the bride in white and a light background worked when the photographer knows what he/she's doing. I think most brides now days probably would like some images with the "PS tricks" applied, but the natural ones are the ones they cherish and remember most.

[Ms Monny]

You definately have a point there....getting the basics right in the first place is what SHOULD be done - exposure, lighting, composition, white balance etc. There is no way anyone can make an amazing photo from a dud. If the basics aren't done correctly, then no amount of PS will improve it.

The only thing though, as an amateur, I sometimes believe that PPing an image will help it but 9 times out of 10, the experts pick that it was a bad photo to begin with. You will see experienced people comment on the basics (or the lack of) but amateurs will not see these and only see the final result - good or bad. It is sometimes like the 'blind leading the blind' where I can look at one of my photos and, for the life of me, not see where I went wrong, so I go into PS to try and improve it.

I have noticed that HDR is being used when there isn't a high dynamic range in the image (I did one recently just to try it out) but that doesn't mean they are wrong in using it. Art is subjective and what some people like, others won't. This doesn't mean though that they disregard the basics; no one is going to get anywhere in this field without learning them.

[gabber]

Whilst I agree with everyone here, I tend to think of it as just human nature in over-doing something when you just start/are learning with it for the first time.

Most people (if they stick with, and want to improve) tend to get the shot right in camera and in turn do less p-p after time.

[deannmelissa]

Like anything in life, there are those that want a great end product without putting i the required effort.

[moonshine]

Less is sometimes more