So how much do you edit? I was raised on film (showing my age I know!) & I always felt you got what you shot, you compose in camera. In fact in my college photo class you had to use the whole picture, print with the black borders around the pic on the negative, no cropping allowed. I think that may be why I feel guilty when I do edit even if it is only a crop, or slight contrast tweak.
I realized today that, for the most part, I don't really do anything that I wouldn't do in my dark room. In my dark room I would crop, change the contrast, dodge & burn, even, mess with the saturation & level when I did color. So I guess I have nothing to feel guilty about.
A lot of the time I don't do much but lately have been playing a bit in photoshop.... I am used to SOOC so a little bit more aware of my photographs and composition etc... the one I took today though is SOOC
Was wondering that myself. I just got photoshop so am enjoying playing around with effects & filters etc but will probably stop once the initial excitement has worn off!..
I find I don't need to edit film as much... to this day at the same shoot I will have some film and bat like 75% with it... with nothing really needing to be done, besides correct the scans a touch... But I will only use 5% of my digital shots SOOC and 50% are edited.... or whatever... even when I want to test my chems before... I find I have a tough time just burning film... I want to compose and now waste it!
Editing programs are still a bit foreign to me with the exception of common applications like cropping, b&w, etc.. So I'm used to composing when I take the picture also. But lately I've been trying to become more familiar with using Piknik and such to take advantage of effects like cross processing (which I've recently fallen in love with), selective color, etc.
I'm afraid I'm also a hangover from film. I have PSE and am very proud that I've learned how to use it to resize my photos before uploading them. That's my one achievement. I'm hoping to learn a bit more but still think if I can't get it right in the camera then no amount of post capture fiddling is going to fix it.
I edit as little as possible....but having a Nikon that's hard, they are designed for pixel peepers it seems.
I found an article somewhere where they stated that a digital image has less latitude than the old colour slides have/had. I can believe that. I do try and print (at the local photolab) some pictures both for an old fashioned album/s or just to check how things look on paper. I haven't spring for my own home printer having had a very unsatisfactory experience with an Epson in the '90's! Also I don't have buckets of money for inks - its currently cheaper at a good Fuji-film digital lab.
I use Picasa, I would have used Lightroom following the trial period but not prepared to mortgage the house for it. I have the ACDSEE trial but haven't done much with it yet so....I liked the Nikon Software lens correction tool but since that wasn't free with the camera.....
On our Lynx Laptop we have Digikam (free for Lynx) which I found had some nice filters but haven't used that much either.
I am currently using Picasa online to store files and am overdue to back up to external drive here and still haven't got a good editing storage regime organised. I had to download from Flickr some Japan 2009 files as I seem to have lost all those one way or another!
I have PSE4 which I use to resize images and occasional fix ups you can't squeeze out of Picasa!
My HTC Desire has fixes in the camera and I use those. Ditto the Nikons and I also use those. I have the Nikon set to give me fairly sharp images straight from the camera but since it is an exposure variance queen....you end up reworking stuff in post processing.
I am of the belief there is too much sensitivity with my Nikons and am not sure the image quality justifies the amount of work they require, nor the absence of decent software with the camera purchase. I am thinking over a Lumix, the wife's TZ10 (ZSZ7) is a dream and almost perfect! Then there is Pentax K5, Sony A33/55, Samsung...if the D90 stuffs up once more....I like flippy floppy screens and still have 2 Canon Powershoot digicams so am thinking of Canon 60D into the bargain!
I usually only play with levels, Once in a great while I will adjust shadows and highlights. I did just get Lightroom, so my last 3 uploads have been there.
having never worked with film, i've only known digital. but i still dont edit very much, just crop and slight light levels - having a 5d its colours are awesome so i dont have to play with them - sometimes i change to black and white.
very very little. i prefer my SLR so i cant "cheat" and have to use my instincts to create something beautiful in what i see thru the lense not get it home and play with it
The vast majority of my photos so far have been sooc, because I work really hard to get a good picture BEFORE I upload it to the computer. Occasionally, though, I'll get a wild hair... observe:
That's definitely not normal for me, but I can't say I don't like it!
I do play in Photoshop, I grew up using a darkroom and happy to say I still have one in my home. My 15 yr old baby Canon AE-1 is still my true love and I use it regularly.Just not convenient for posting daily photos here :-)
Film?...Dark rooms? ...what are those? Sounds so medieval..
What I do:
-open my RAW in Photoshop,where most of the time I crop it a bit,enhance the details to the max ,enhance the contrast a little,and save it as Jpeg.
-then I edit the saved JPED in Photoscape,often adding one of those film colour-tone effects
-and thats it
...I`m not that good with editing software,but I try. The word SOOC is out of my vocabulary
I'm still struggling with light so glad I have a dslr where I can take loads of photos to get it right. Once I upload I put them on for edit but I mainly just check exposure levels and let the program auto fix it, I'm learning now though by taking lots I'm doing that less and less. I try not to crop but sometimes I can't help it.
I did a taster course where I got to develop film and learned exposure, cropping etc but can you tell me what dodge and burn is? I've seen this on picnik but never used it. How do you do that on film? We used b&w film at college.
I do like having fun with editing though, I like having a right good go at making an image totally different to what it actually is. I normally do that when my image is terrible so I feel I can get away with it, lol.
Yeah, it would be nice if pics would come off of the camera just the way I wanted them, but that doesn't always happen (it doesn't happen 99% of the time!). My goal is to usually just stay in Lightroom and make a few lighting tweaks. If there is something bigger to tackle, I will take it into Photoshop and fix it. The less working on it, the better. I will say though, Photoshop is like your camera, the more you play with it, the better you know it. The better the results.
Good to hear I am not alone, I was worried it was just me still being stubborn about going digi. I prefer Lightroom as well & I am thinking a lot of us "old school" types that like to compose in camera & get good SOOC images seem too.
I even still carry around a bag full of filters, anything from star, to soft focus, to macros, to colors, in classic old school style & filter it in camera instead of in software.
I only worked in a darkroom in highschool but I loved it and miss it so! Now, I strictly use the software that came with my camera for editing so I do a small amount of it. Mostly crop and adjust lighting. Every now and then I play with color. I guess I just keep it pretty simple.
@davidgeer I agree with this "I found an article somewhere where they stated that a digital image has less latitude than the old colour slides have/had. I can believe that." It was so hard for me to switch to digi for this reason. It just wasn't the same to me.
@neda Know what you mean. I always preferred working in B&W in the darkroom because at least you could print under the darkroom lights as apposed to the full dark of color.
@kirsty1975 dodge & burn is to darken or lighten specific areas of a pic instead of the pic as a whole. dodging decreases the exposure for areas of the print that the photographer wishes to be lighter, while burning increases the exposure to areas of the print that should be darker. I used to use my hand or a piece of cardboard in the Darkroom moving it around (to avoid a hard edge). I am no photo teacher so I don't really know how to explain it to someone learning. I found this explanation online for you. Hope it helps http://www.ehow.com/how_4487410_use-dodge-burn-techniques-photography.html
My goal is to improve my photography skills, especially my composition. Therefore, I am trying to use SOCC photos to challenge me to improve. Using only SOCC really pinpoints out the flaws in my compositions. Occasionally, I am cropping a little and adjusting the contrast a little.
Not sure why guilt should come it to it, editing is not a moral issue. Anyway it sounds like you were dropping your film off and letting somebody else process it--no doubt that serious photographers of yore were making all kinds of 'edits' in the darkroom. That said, there's obviously merit in seeking the best possible composition at the time that you're taking the pic.
As to your question, I'm pretty lazy and rarely make any edits. I'm most likely to crop. I've recently downloaded Aperture 3 and trying to learn it so that I can enhance the images if I want to.
I am all over the board...some are sooc, others are photoshopped to death, while others just have minor crops and tweaks. Just depends on my mood and where the photo takes me I guess!
I'm a non editor about 98% of the time. I do basics like cropping but I really really try to get the photo I want from the start. If I want half a cats face I get it,no cropping needed. If I was a B&W I change my settings on my camera. Its all about me and the camera not me and editing software not that I don't love edited shots I could care less what other people do.
It depends what I want to get out of a picture if I just want a nice faithful representational shot of an object then I find that with the right lighting and camera settings no editing is really necessary, but a lot of my work is about creating an image that is inside my head , giving my photos a spin.that said however I could easily get the same results for the stuff that I do in a dark room with film, masks, layers, dodge and burn, cropping, saturation contrast and distortion are all possible with the right equipment, but if you have the tools to do a job less fiddly then I see no harm in using those tools (I am sure they would have been used a long time ago if they were around)
depends, sometimes I set up a shot knowing that its going straight to the pc for edit..
other times I know what ever I take , thats it....
and sometimes I set up the shot thinking that its going to be sooc , but just cant get it right without an edit!
Depends on what I had in mind when I took the shot. Some just work sooc, and I keep it that way. But others when I see it I even think "this would be good B&W (or sepia)" or whatever so I do some filters. I have played a round with a few other editing techniques too, but for the most part I just play with lighting a little in PSE and maybe crop or sat/desat a little bit.
Honestly, sometimes I feel people over-edit. I know of a few local photographers that are only as good as their editing tricks. Drives me crazy to know they are charging people so much for their photoshop skills.
I know what you mean. A lot of photographers in my remote part of the world will do that everything black and white but your matching shoes and dress thing. Go to the city and you'll find talented photographers that have an understanding of how to make a good photograph, not edit one. I found that they charge hardly any more. But that's just a pet peeve of mine.
As for my edits, I'm horrible at judging exposure, so I usually have to fix that on the computer. I also like to play around with saturation and contrast and filters, but never anything too drastic. I like my photos to still look like photos.
I try to keep mine as "real" as possible. They are often cropped but not edited too much after that. The photographs with a subject, that is. Some of the abstracts I've gone a little bit edit-happy on. But I think of those more like digital paintings. Also, lately if I've gotten one that I thought was too boring I've tried a few color and contrast edits on those too. I only just got photo editing software a couple of weeks ago, so in the past I never even had the capabilities to do much beyond crop and brightness/contrast.
I do absolutely no editing.. all my photos are taken on my phone and then emailed to this website directly from my phone.. often the first time I see my photo on a bigger screen than my phone screen is after I have uploaded it and written about it!
I meant that to sound like I am different from most other people who do editing/touching up/whatever.. having read it, I just sound like a weirdo who has no knowledge of technology whatsoever. Oops!
I edit on my iPad only. Mostly working with filters and curves... There are some great apps out for the iPad...I am into B&Ws right now but shoot in color on my Pentax. Just want the option to have a color & BW photo.
I usually feel guilty editing them even though the only film cameras I've used are disposable and Polaroid... but I mostly just play with cropping and contrast to bring out the most in the image. I do like using filters sometimes when I'm feeling lazy!
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For this project so far I have mainly cropped and an occasional brighten/contrast..
I found an article somewhere where they stated that a digital image has less latitude than the old colour slides have/had. I can believe that. I do try and print (at the local photolab) some pictures both for an old fashioned album/s or just to check how things look on paper. I haven't spring for my own home printer having had a very unsatisfactory experience with an Epson in the '90's! Also I don't have buckets of money for inks - its currently cheaper at a good Fuji-film digital lab.
I use Picasa, I would have used Lightroom following the trial period but not prepared to mortgage the house for it. I have the ACDSEE trial but haven't done much with it yet so....I liked the Nikon Software lens correction tool but since that wasn't free with the camera.....
On our Lynx Laptop we have Digikam (free for Lynx) which I found had some nice filters but haven't used that much either.
I am currently using Picasa online to store files and am overdue to back up to external drive here and still haven't got a good editing storage regime organised. I had to download from Flickr some Japan 2009 files as I seem to have lost all those one way or another!
I have PSE4 which I use to resize images and occasional fix ups you can't squeeze out of Picasa!
My HTC Desire has fixes in the camera and I use those. Ditto the Nikons and I also use those. I have the Nikon set to give me fairly sharp images straight from the camera but since it is an exposure variance queen....you end up reworking stuff in post processing.
I am of the belief there is too much sensitivity with my Nikons and am not sure the image quality justifies the amount of work they require, nor the absence of decent software with the camera purchase. I am thinking over a Lumix, the wife's TZ10 (ZSZ7) is a dream and almost perfect! Then there is Pentax K5, Sony A33/55, Samsung...if the D90 stuffs up once more....I like flippy floppy screens and still have 2 Canon Powershoot digicams so am thinking of Canon 60D into the bargain!
i dont even own photoshop (yet)
I don't edit much, if I do crop it's usually only slightly, usually the main reason for my editing is I resize and add a watermark.
The few times I do more editing is usually just a HDR or a collage.
That's definitely not normal for me, but I can't say I don't like it!
What I do:
-open my RAW in Photoshop,where most of the time I crop it a bit,enhance the details to the max ,enhance the contrast a little,and save it as Jpeg.
-then I edit the saved JPED in Photoscape,often adding one of those film colour-tone effects
-and thats it
...I`m not that good with editing software,but I try. The word SOOC is out of my vocabulary
I did a taster course where I got to develop film and learned exposure, cropping etc but can you tell me what dodge and burn is? I've seen this on picnik but never used it. How do you do that on film? We used b&w film at college.
I do like having fun with editing though, I like having a right good go at making an image totally different to what it actually is. I normally do that when my image is terrible so I feel I can get away with it, lol.
I even still carry around a bag full of filters, anything from star, to soft focus, to macros, to colors, in classic old school style & filter it in camera instead of in software.
@kirsty1975 dodge & burn is to darken or lighten specific areas of a pic instead of the pic as a whole. dodging decreases the exposure for areas of the print that the photographer wishes to be lighter, while burning increases the exposure to areas of the print that should be darker. I used to use my hand or a piece of cardboard in the Darkroom moving it around (to avoid a hard edge). I am no photo teacher so I don't really know how to explain it to someone learning. I found this explanation online for you. Hope it helps http://www.ehow.com/how_4487410_use-dodge-burn-techniques-photography.html
As to your question, I'm pretty lazy and rarely make any edits. I'm most likely to crop. I've recently downloaded Aperture 3 and trying to learn it so that I can enhance the images if I want to.
other times I know what ever I take , thats it....
and sometimes I set up the shot thinking that its going to be sooc , but just cant get it right without an edit!
Honestly, sometimes I feel people over-edit. I know of a few local photographers that are only as good as their editing tricks. Drives me crazy to know they are charging people so much for their photoshop skills.
I know what you mean. A lot of photographers in my remote part of the world will do that everything black and white but your matching shoes and dress thing. Go to the city and you'll find talented photographers that have an understanding of how to make a good photograph, not edit one. I found that they charge hardly any more. But that's just a pet peeve of mine.
As for my edits, I'm horrible at judging exposure, so I usually have to fix that on the computer. I also like to play around with saturation and contrast and filters, but never anything too drastic. I like my photos to still look like photos.
I meant that to sound like I am different from most other people who do editing/touching up/whatever.. having read it, I just sound like a weirdo who has no knowledge of technology whatsoever. Oops!