was just talking to someone about the benefits of film over digital and vice versa. I'm really interested to know what people feel about "post-production" editing on programs such as photoshop.
to throw in my tuppence - i'm torn. I love the idea of a pure art form where the people who handle cameras the best produce the best photos. But i also understand that actually "the art" doesn't stop until you have produced the final picture - be that after editing or whatever, and shouldn't it be the outcome that matters and not the process?
on the other hand, do people just not care and am i over thinking this?
Another topic that will never stop being discussed. Seen a few discussions on this recently. I am firmly in the camp of you should do whatever you prefer. I myself love nailing a sooc shot but also get a lot of satisfaction from post production. The world is big enough for both in my opinion.
@gwhit123 Completely agree with Richard - do whatever pleases you the most! I nearly always edit and love watching a picture change, but occasionally love a shot just as it comes out and that gives me great pleasure too. Just enjoy doing your project :)
Lots of opinions. Personally I like to edit my photos, sometimes to get a more accurate representation of what my eye saw that my camera can't capture, or sometimes just because I like the feel of my edited picture. Do whatever makes you happy. It is your photo, you project.
George, a good image is a good image- I use film and recently started using my phone as a camera and I do lots of editing, even someone who uses a darkroom will "edit" by dodging, burning, filters etc. for me Polaroid is the least forgiving but the most rewarding, same goes for b/w printing- it's whatever you like. There's massive choices out there and it would be boring if we all did the same thing , it's good to see a variety of techniques :)
@gwhit123 You have voiced my sentiments exactly - I feel photographs shouldn't be edited and the shot needs to be sorted out before you click the shutter. Having said that, post-processing is an art-form in itself and you can get some lovely effects. Personally, I don't change the photo as it was taken, but I do crop, add frames, apply vignette and once or twice have used the Focal B&W application. I do my editing in Picasa. I agree with your final comment - I really don't think people care whether you process or not. In a way it's like saying you will only use a typewriter, not a computer - we have to move with the times, and a few years back none of this digital technology was available. Now that it is, let's have some fun with it.
"It's a non-argument, as long as people have been taking photographs then they have also edited, post-processed, manipulated them. You thinks Adams, Bresson etc. didn't just because is was all done in the dark room? Technology just made it easier, less time consuming and more accessible that's all.
Even the current most expensive photo, Andreas Gursky's Rhein II, had a factory and people digitally removed from the image. Though personally I think it may have been more interesting if the factory had been left in. "
If you don't want to edit a photo, then throw your digital camera in the trash. The moment you snap that photo, it's being edited. The .JPG conversion in the camera alone is applying sharpening, lighting adjustments, color adjustments, contrast adjustments, and a white balance adjustment, all based on what settings you chose. Even the default settings are all doing that. Might as well thrown the film camera out, too, since the photo labs doing the processing are applying lighting, color, and contrast adjustments to that image in their processing. There is no such thing as an unedited photo.
For me there are days when I don't feel the urge to edit anything (other than resizing to have my harddrives), and than there are days when I'd like to get some practise in with photoshop. Sometimes I even make duplicates of the same photo, one that is edited while the other is the original and afterwards see which I like more! :)
@jase_h i read about that photo, he also removed some dog walkers - thought it was quite interesting and definitely blurred the lines between photography and art, although these have always been blurred. Don't really understand it though, why not pick a portion of the river without the power station and the photographer came out with some rubbish about it being the only way to see the river how it was meant to be! whatever that means
Those who do film edit their photos also. There really no such thing as "pure" photos once you can adjust fstop and shutter. I know when I am in the dark room my negatives become photos that are straight, cropped, hot spots toned down, and dark areas become brighter and create contrast, just like @ingrid2101 mentioned. I have not one "untouched" film photo.
George, part of the joy of 365 is the ability to be inspired and try things that other photographers are doing. If you stick with this, you may play with editing and like it or try even more. I always try to make the photo that makes me happy, that I would give as a gift to someone, or hang on a wall. I try not to edit for people on here.
I asked this last week and learnt a new term SOOC (Straight out of Camera).
There were a lot of comments about the camera editing the image or in the old days editing was done in the darkroom, etc, etc.
Personally I try to get the shot composed with the background and exposure checked as i push the shutter release. I may crop or rotate, but when people combine multiple exposures to get what they desire, personally I think this goes beyond photography and more into general art.
Ansel Adams was as skilled at burning and dodging as he was at taking the original. With that said, there is no substitute for a great shot to begin with.
i'd love the SOCC to be perfect.
I'm not that gifted. sometimes litter ,signposts are in the way of the idea i had in my heasd.
Didnt even know what editing was when i started nearly 2 years ago. Now i'm beginning to get to grips with photoshop. and beginning to enjoy the challenge
@gwhit123 I must admit I tend to agree with you. I strive to take a good pic without any editing and feel really pleased when I get a good shot. To me, post production editing wouldn't really give me so much satisfaction. I bought Photoshop Elements 11 recently and I can't really be bothered with it. It seems very complicated and I only really got it to try some different types of collages but can't get to grips with it at all. I therefore use picmonkey just to make a collage and leave the rest to settings in my camera
A great photographer takes great photos in the first place, and likely edits a bit to make them even more amazing. Editing isn't going to make a poorly composed image amazing. All the great photos you see on here were great before any edits because the photographers are artists and know their craft. I don't know of any professionals that don't edit. Why not take advantage of the great advantages that come along with technology? But that being said, if you don't like editing then don't do it! Simple! But photography and editing is as much art as painting or drawing or whatever...it takes an artist's eye to compose and edit a beautiful shot. My opinion!
Do what you want to they are your images. Try and take a good image to begin with, saves time. But don't lose sleep about cropping or cloning out a defect.
Why not do both? Master SOOC camera techniques, the fix the rest in Lightroom.
Don't mistake photo editting with photo manipulation (an art form in itself.) EVERY professional edits. If you don't manage the edits, then something or someone else *is*.
Are you shooting RAW? (You should be). If you are, then you *have* to edit the photo, just to convert it into a JPG. Make those decisions consciously, rather than allowing your camera, photo editing, and reproduction shop to make them without your knowledge.
@gwhit123, Lighttoom makes the entire RAW workflow transparent... you'll never know you're editing RAW images, except that you have far more exposure and white balance cotrol than you do while editing JPGs. It will change your photography overnight, and it's so easy to use.
The very act of making a jpg is processing the image. Not matter where this is done (camera or external software), the image is being processed. As was mentioned earler, this is the same as it was with developing film.
I'm new to 365 and have been quite surprised by how many people appear to be using Photoshop to manipulate and change their photos. I had assumed that it would be photographers uploading their shots, perhaps with a bit of cropping but essentially taking and uploading photographic shots without much editing. I've come to the conclusion that it really doesn't matter (especially with my photos lol), just do what suits you. Try and take a good image but don't worry if you do edit. My 2p's worth.
Frankly, I try to do as little editing as possible. Usually if I post a scanned photo that I took with film, I had not edited it at all. Though sometimes you will find that photos uploaded to 365 become darker and or blurred. I fix that if I need to in Picmonkey. Sometimes I do personal challenges for myself where I try to work on something like composition and therefore find that I don't crop as much. I rarely crop at all these days. But then sometimes I am in a photoshop mood and merge two or more photos to create something unique. Mostly for me though, it's about becoming more and more confortable with my equipment and getting the photo to come out of the camera the way I want it to look. But I don't care how you come to that final work that you are satisfied with. It's personal. No one is here to tell you how to do it. But IMHO, try to stay away from HDRing your work to death. There are just too many lovely photos out there that would've been nicer if someone hadn't turned them into cartoons with gray clouds and halos everywhere, Good luck with your project and welcome to 365!
@cameronknowlton do RAW files take up a lot more memory? Never used RAW as I don't have the software to edit RAW files, and am nervous about them taking loads of space up.
I edit until the photo looks the way I want to (but still retaining their original feel and purpose). I think it's a waste to take a photo and not edit it at all if you think that it would benefit from a bit of tweaking - the camera very rarely produces what the human eye sees, in all its sublety and vibrancy.
On those rare occasions that "SOOC" does work, I think it's great and a real testament to the photographer for getting the shot right in-camera :) But it's difficult to achieve and doesn't work in all situations (for me at least).
One thing I almost never do though is crop - if I am a stickler for getting something right in-camera, it's the composition of the shot. Mainly because it's so simple to get right and avoids a loss of print/screen size that you would get if you crop it!
The only time I crop is if I think the composition would benefit from a different aspect ratio (e.g. more widescreen vs more square).
@prochownia, yes, they take up substantial more space, as they should... they have a TON more data in them, which is what makes them valuable. Lightroom is the ultimate RAW editor, you don't even know you're in RAW... it's fluid, and non-destructive to boot. @pocketmouse's right, the camera's JPGs are never what the human eye sees, so you're editing BACK to the image you saw in your mind. You're an artist, so create what you see in your mind's eye.
@prochownia RAW will certainly take up more than a .JPG. At your lowest ISO setting, the RAW is equivalent to the number of megapixels on your camera. The size of the RAW image will increase as you increase the ISO, though.
I use PSE to edit my photos (including the RAW conversion.) The true memory hog is the PSD file from Photoshop. In one example, my RAW image is 28 MB, my .JPG from that shot is 7.6 MB, but the PSD is 190 MB. (I save all three, plus the .XMP file that details the raw conversion. That's a trivial 6 KB, though.
@gwhit123 the sooner you get to raw the happier you will be. I use Corel editing products which are awesome but a fraction of the price of PhotoShop. I love AfterShot Pro for editing. If I want to get fancy and take something out or layer photos than I use PaintShop Pro.
@gwhit123 Photography or art?
Hi George, not always easy. One example was a "photo" of Aurora Borealis on the cover of this months Digital Camera magazine. A fantastic shot until I read it was actually made from a montage of many photos blended together to get the final image. There was no way this shot could ever be taken SOOC. To me this becomes art not photography. It is a great image but not a photograph.
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Lots of opinions. Personally I like to edit my photos, sometimes to get a more accurate representation of what my eye saw that my camera can't capture, or sometimes just because I like the feel of my edited picture. Do whatever makes you happy. It is your photo, you project.
p.s hadn't checked about the previous topics - sorry for the reptition!!
"It's a non-argument, as long as people have been taking photographs then they have also edited, post-processed, manipulated them. You thinks Adams, Bresson etc. didn't just because is was all done in the dark room? Technology just made it easier, less time consuming and more accessible that's all.
Even the current most expensive photo, Andreas Gursky's Rhein II, had a factory and people digitally removed from the image. Though personally I think it may have been more interesting if the factory had been left in. "
George, part of the joy of 365 is the ability to be inspired and try things that other photographers are doing. If you stick with this, you may play with editing and like it or try even more. I always try to make the photo that makes me happy, that I would give as a gift to someone, or hang on a wall. I try not to edit for people on here.
There were a lot of comments about the camera editing the image or in the old days editing was done in the darkroom, etc, etc.
Personally I try to get the shot composed with the background and exposure checked as i push the shutter release. I may crop or rotate, but when people combine multiple exposures to get what they desire, personally I think this goes beyond photography and more into general art.
I'm not that gifted. sometimes litter ,signposts are in the way of the idea i had in my heasd.
Didnt even know what editing was when i started nearly 2 years ago. Now i'm beginning to get to grips with photoshop. and beginning to enjoy the challenge
Don't mistake photo editting with photo manipulation (an art form in itself.) EVERY professional edits. If you don't manage the edits, then something or someone else *is*.
Are you shooting RAW? (You should be). If you are, then you *have* to edit the photo, just to convert it into a JPG. Make those decisions consciously, rather than allowing your camera, photo editing, and reproduction shop to make them without your knowledge.
On those rare occasions that "SOOC" does work, I think it's great and a real testament to the photographer for getting the shot right in-camera :) But it's difficult to achieve and doesn't work in all situations (for me at least).
The only time I crop is if I think the composition would benefit from a different aspect ratio (e.g. more widescreen vs more square).
I use PSE to edit my photos (including the RAW conversion.) The true memory hog is the PSD file from Photoshop. In one example, my RAW image is 28 MB, my .JPG from that shot is 7.6 MB, but the PSD is 190 MB. (I save all three, plus the .XMP file that details the raw conversion. That's a trivial 6 KB, though.
I no longer shoot outside of raw.
Hi George, not always easy. One example was a "photo" of Aurora Borealis on the cover of this months Digital Camera magazine. A fantastic shot until I read it was actually made from a montage of many photos blended together to get the final image. There was no way this shot could ever be taken SOOC. To me this becomes art not photography. It is a great image but not a photograph.