"I hate photoshopping and I hate editing"

[Erin]

So not getting into the age-old argument, but I take photos specifically to play with in Photoshop most of the time. Not because I am lazy but because I love the process of bringing an image to life just that one step (or ten) than the camera could ever catch. There's a trick to getting it right, though, and 7 out of 10 people don't have the skills to do it. I hit that perfect picture only once in a blue moon too. That's where people turn around and say "I hate photoshopping". Lack of know-how can be way too frustrating.

[Bennymiata]

Many pictures can be brought to life using Lightroom or Photoshop, or other programs too, and it's not about changing the image, it's more about bringing out what you think you actually saw.

Here's an example of a befor eand after.
Photoshop was only used to re-size the images, and most of the PP was done in Lightroom.

Personally, I like doing the PP work, as for me, it is a major part in the whole process of taking the picture, then making itlook how I want it to.

Aus-Day-12-8287.jpg


Rough-8287.jpg

[ricktas]

The argument for not editing also assumes that our camera gear is perfect and captures a scene with absolute precision. It doesn't consider distortion caused by wide angle lenses, softness due to lens design, inability of the camera sensor to accurately capture the scene. Remember that sRGB and AdobeRGB can only capture about 1/3 of what the human eye can see in the colour spectrum.

The human eye has a dynamic range of about 20 stops, most cameras are about 9-11 stops.

The anti-post processing mentality is assuming that this gear can capture accurately any given scene, and it renders it perfectly.

Being able to even correct a curved horizon is post processing, but all the photographer is doing is 'repairing' the photo to present what was seen by them at the time of taking the photo, and fixing distortion that the less than perfect camera gear created.

How this can be seen as a bad thing, I am unsure.

[bowjac]

My eye sees one thing, the camera sees another. Post processing provides a 3rd representation, or a 4th, 5th.....

Let's face it. I'm a post-processing junkie.

Now I just need to become good at it.

[Dylan & Marianne]

Oh well, this thread I started seems to have got back to the age old PP vs no PP argument lol

I guess what I was originally trying to stimulate wasn't actually that argument but :
1. how much people like post processing (regardless of whether you think its necessary or not)
2. what you think the quoted comment would mean to the general public.

My answers
1. I love it!
2. I think it's bad press against photoshop!!

[fillum]

The photographer in question also did not say the image was not processed or edited, that this is just his general feeling on the subject.

Yep. Didn't say he doesn't do it. Didn't say he is opposed to it. Just said he hates doing it. I'm sure many of us have parts of our jobs we hate. ( timesheets )


Cheers.

[Mark L]

1. I dislike, though it's necessary.
2. Is the general public likely to read this quote? Won't change the impression they already have (whatever that may be).

[Shelley]

I can do pp, well like to think I can, but jeez if I could afford to, I would pay someone to process my photos. I am always behind in processing. My husband nags me, I find I need to be in the mood to do it. But, birding I have to be really sick not to go out.

[ApolloLXII]

When people say they hate doing something, it's usually because they are either no good at it or find it boring. For the record, I LOVE Photoshopping and I LOVE editing.

[sunny6teen]

not that surprising really. the community has always been divided into photographers and printers. some take on both roles but it's not as common as often believed (or at least it wasn't).
take the previously mentioned landscape photographer. a professional landscape tog will spend 300 days in the field shooting/scouting etc. that's not leaving a lot of time for processing. instead, the film is posted to a printer who does the rest.
as far as I know, digital and photoshop hasn't really changed the process. I know a lot of the most renowned landscape photographers are sending their files back to teams of 'post-processors' with instructions on the final look.
It's not limited to the landscape folks. anyone who is getting plenty of work doesn't have the time to do the processing.
Dave Hill's portraits are flavour of the month lately and his style is quite 'photoshop intensive'....in short - he has a team of photoshop dudes.

Terence Donovan might have been top dog of London's fashion togs in the 60s...but he was nothing without Robin Bell. nothing has changed.

[jim]

Shelley, that's about it for me too.

[Dylan & Marianne]

Mark - this was in an everyday widely circulated newspaper with a half page feature -hard to miss it :P

[Ezookiel]

I also hate it. Not saying I don't agree with it, just that I hate that for an hour with the camera I'll spend way longer than that sitting at a computer, so yes I do hate it. I however also love it. I love the way I can put an extra degree of "artistic" on an image than I am currently able to do with just the camera. I also love "fixing things up" - so there's the whole sense of taking something that isn't great, and making it better, is very satisfying. It's not just that I'm not yet a good enough photographer to do that in the camera, though that may be part of it, it's the way you can make an image vastly more spectacular than I think any photographer would get SOOC. There was a picture recently in one of the comps of a woolshed. The amazing light coming through the windows and holes, etc was spectacular. The original photo prior to the editing and photoshopping was much less spectacular. I'm not sure any skill level would have got that final image SOOC. It is part of the skill set of a good photographer, I believe, to be able to work the whole of his/her medium, to get the final result to look the way they want it, or the way they saw it, and I may be wrong as I'm no expert, but feel that may not be possible to do in a single SOOC image.
But you can still hate doing it and not have to hate the concept of it. It is a lot of work, and it's nowhere near as nice work as being out on the site taking the photos, so pefectly entitled to hate it. If you then took that to refusing to do any, then I imagine your photos will suffer for it.

[Stingray]

I never used to PP and was happy with my shots
then my partner (who is a graphic and web designer) showed me how just by tweaking the levels a lil can make a good shot great ..
Even being colourblind I can see heaps of differences from b4/after .. its really a lil learning curve .. so now I almost always PP
PP can be a lil or alot of tweaking .. depending on the outcome you want ..

[Arg]

Plenty of people hated darkrooms too!

If you hate editing and photoshopping, just do what the darkroom-phobics did: load your camera with slide film (today: set camera to jpeg files) and take a lot of care to compose to the corners of your frame and get the exposure right first time (bracketing if necessary).

I don't see anyting wrong with the above approach, and I don't see anything wrong with photographers who work that way.

[Xenedis]

I don't want to implicate any individual for the line above and I suspect it may have been taken out of context , but
That was the caption beneath a picture published locally (in a newspaper) quoting the photographer.

Your thoughts /reactions?

At face value, my view is that the photographer who takes a dim view of editing (or flatly refuses to do so) is imposing significant artificial limitations on himself or herself, and perhaps doesn't fully understand the nature of digital imaging.

[I @ M]

Oh well, this thread I started seems to have got back to the age old PP vs no PP argument lol

I guess what I was originally trying to stimulate wasn't actually that argument but :
1. how much people like post processing (regardless of whether you think its necessary or not)
2. what you think the quoted comment would mean to the general public.

My answers
1. I love it!
2. I think it's bad press against photoshop!!

My answers.
1. Love and hate are at the extreme ends of the spectrum to me. I enjoy processing images to make them look the way I want them to be but I don't enjoy using every tool in the palette (a) because they all need to be used (b) because they are all available to be used.
2. A statement such as was made by the photographer is definitely bad press for Adobe photoshop. I would be interested to know if he specifically meant the Adobe product or whether he was referring to image editing / enhancing programs in general. I think all most of us realise that "photoshop" has become the all encompassing term for editing programs and at the best a handful of non photographic or graphics inclined members of the public would realise that there are actually more than one program out there to create the "photoshop" look.
As much as Adobe photoshop or lightroom have become hugely successful and capable programs they have also become their own worst enemies because for every well edited image that is produced by a competent person behind a mouse or graphics tablet there must be half a million images that are glaringly bad produced by incompetent editors. Doesn't matter whether the good or the bad images went through the Adobe product or simply an art filter that was in the software supplied free with the camera when new, they are all assumed to have been "photoshopped"

[Wayne]

I hate doing it, but understand it is often necessary just do things like crop/straighten/contrast etc. If I have little creative thinking that will prompt me to move an image to photoshop and create many layers etc. I do 98% of my editing in LR. In saying that, I think the lack of skill is a reasonable barrier and creates a fair amount of frustration for me, so I tend to avoid it.

[Dwarak]

I cannot see how the photographer who owns a digital camera can hate photoshop so much I am not good at it either but try to use a very simple workflow which works for most shots I take and do not try to do too much. To me it's a step in the digital process something like developing a film in a lab.


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