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Time Photographing vs Time Post Processing.


Sanford

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for me, post processing depends on my the subject and my goals. My favorite pastime is shooting landscapes, and post-processing would easily reach 50/50. For portraits, head shots and formal groups, it's still aboutt 50/50, but on a a lower percentage of the images. For concerts and events, I spend post time selecting, with very little time processing.

 

Before digital, I let the lab do my film - badly except for slides. After getting a film scanner, the quality improved, but it was extremely difficult to make timely deliveries to customers at 2 hours/roll, excluding selection, adjustments.and printing. When I had access to a darkroom, I did a lot of "post processing", which I rather enjoyed.

 

If you have a garden, you spend many hours pre-processing before you enjoy the fruits of your labor. Photography is like that in reverse order. It takes work to reveal the beauty, if any, therein. An exception might be news photography, and its red-headed stepchild, street photography. The subject is everything, while composition, color and balance can be safely ignored as long as it's "fit to print" in a broad sense.

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Like Ed, it depends on the type of shot, did I have much control I had during the shoot and the ultimate usage. I studied with Denis Reggie, a wedding photographer who was emblematic of the photo-journalistic style. He charges 30-50 thousand per wedding with minimal editing. For some things I do little post. Much of my work is to my vision before shooting and much post is needed to achieve that vision and the shot is often taken with that post in mind. That work bears much alteration from the original capture because of maximizing the purpose of the shot. Like the Impressionists or Surrealists, I am not aping what is in front of the camera while the camera tends to capture exactly what is there so more time is spent in front of the monitor than behind the camera. Vincent, I like wearing the Kodachrome yellow T shirt from Dwaynes indicating Paul Simon sang about it. The $2 per click makes me a precise shooter with MF and that finds it's way into my digital captures as well, in turn, saving me time in post.
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Did I mention no film guys allowed.

 

I spend more time getting a good print even from a well exposed negative than I do trying to salvage a single bad RAW.

 

Aside from that, I do my best in camera. Unless the photo is irreplaceable, if levels, curves, sharpness, and saturation don't get it there it's probably going in the trash.

 

I'll also add that although I shoot more frames in a given situation with digital than I do with film, I still don't go nuts. Looking at my recent habits, I'd say my rough equivalent is 4x 4x5~3x 120~2x 35mm~100-150 digital exposures. Often times, I won't even come back that many-I may come back from an afternoon out with 50-75 digital frames to show for my time. That cuts my post processing time pretty dramatically in that I don't have to wade through a lot of stuff.

 

So, for digital I'll say 75/25.

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I rarely try to salvage bad photos with post processing. I post process because I consider it part of my photography workflow and enjoy bringing out what I want from a photo I shot.

 

About 50/50 but it varies with the shot and situation.

 

I do my best in camera and I do my best in my post work.

We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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You spend whatever on shooting and whatever on post ... then how many times do you ever look at the thing once you're finished with it? Not counting pictures of family and friends.

 

Before you answer, note that if we add up what you spent on shooting and what you spent on editing plus what you then claim for looking and it amounts to more than twenty-four hours, we will suspect you are from another planet with a different orbital speed.

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If I shoot at 1/30 sec and spend five minutes in post, that's about .05% on shooting and over 99% on post.

Are you Superman or Mr. Incredible? I guess planning, travel, and time on the scene don't count. If Cartier-Bresson whipped out a concealed camera and snapped, didn't he have to stroll around Paris and be alert to opportunities. Can't say about rock concerts. Never been, never will. I value my hearing and sanity.

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The worst thing in the world is to say, "oh, I'll just fix that later."

Heartily agree! I still try to get it right the first time. I may spend several minutes getting a shot that is important to me, but post process, cropping and downsizing to post on PN might be as much as two minutes. Unless I have "almost gotten" something unusual or special I don't care to spend a lot of time post processing. I'd rather be taking pictures than making pictures. Different strokes.

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In my world of photography, there's no getting anything right, so I never have to worry about “fixing” anything. There's just getting stuff the way I want it. For me, photography is a process which may include lots of steps from thinking about what I'm going to do to pre-visualizing a result to post processing in order to bring out in a shot what I want.

 

If I want something fixed, I call a plumber or a veterinarian.

 

It's not the worst thing in the world, but it's pretty bad to find out how many people don’t know the history of photography and don’t know what post processing is for and about.

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We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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There are many things you need to "get right" at the time of exposure. In addition to focal length, exposure settings , and focus, there is composition and attention to extraneous details and interferences. In general (at least for RAW files, you must wait to adjust color, saturation, and contrast in post. While it is good to have a wide dynamic range and color gamut, the consequence is low contrast and saturation in the unedited image. Unless you have a tribe of minions to clean up the scene, there are the inevitable pieces of "civilation", like wrappers and plastic bags, to clean up, not to mention the also inevitable dust spots on the sensor.

 

To say things never need fixing is either a blind acceptance of fate, or ignoring the details that distinguish a good photograph from a snapshot.

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I like pieces of civilization in my photos. They add character. Plastic bags and candy wrappers on the streets capture light nicely and can provide some texture to a shot.

 

Sensor dust, you got me there, though I do get mine cleaned regularly to avoid the need for spot cleaning.

We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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If you could put a percentage it. I'm thinking about 50/50 but I could be way off.

 

I'm around 40:60 shooting to processing and administrative work.. I shoot wildlife, so when I've had a really good shoot, I'll have a couple of thousand images to cull and pick "winners", which are typically 5% or less. I'm looking at eye-light, tack-sharp focus, best head-angle, etc., etc. I use Photo Mechanic to view up to 32-images at once and can often jump page by page, but when the action gets interesting, then it's image by image. Once I've narrowed down to 20 to 50, the processing is about 1-minute per image. I'll adjust lighting on whole groups that have similar lighting, then set the crop on each, individually. Shadows and Highlights may or may not require individual attention. Only 1 in 1000 ends up in Photoshop, to clone out a distraction that ruining an otherwise top grade shot. Uploading and tagging usually takes another 30-minutes, total, which is the best of the best only.

 

Uploading to Getty is another painful chore. Even with some batch tagging, it seems like it's 5-minutes per image. I only do this once every other month, but it seems to take hours, doing batches of 50.

 

I allocate a couple of days per quarter to chase down infringers and consult with my attorney. It's frustrating, but it leads to my biggest paydays. Still, it's easily 16-20 hours per quarter.

 

All-in, it's around 24-hours per week, with 10-hours shooting and 10-hours processing and 4-hours administrative work. Oh, I forgot, bulk Registering my stuff with the US Copyright Office is another 2-hours per quarter, but that's included in my averages.

 

I have a full-time job as a risk consultant to banks and play trumpet in a couple of bands, so my days are full. The work element of my photography is sizeable, but I still enjoy it it. Similarly, playing trumpet requires an investment in practice, rehearsal and maintenance of my chops. I play trumpet to enjoy the performances, but the practice and rehearsal time vs. performance is more like 90:10 preparation vs. performance. In that light, photography doesn't seem so bad.

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Similarly, playing trumpet requires an investment in practice, rehearsal and maintenance of my chops. I play trumpet to enjoy the performances, but the practice and rehearsal time vs. performance is more like 90:10 preparation vs. performance.

David, I can relate. I play the piano and often find myself fantasizing that practicing scales IS a performance. It gives my scale-playing renewed vitality which I believe actually does find its way into the music eventually. I've tended to view all my creative endeavors in a holistic rather than compartmentalized light. It works for me.

We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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David, I can relate. I play the piano and often find myself fantasizing that practicing scales IS a performance. It gives my scale-playing renewed vitality which I believe actually does find its way into the music eventually. I've tended to view all my creative endeavors in a holistic rather than compartmentalized light. It works for me.

 

I agree, part of my practice has long been to evaluate each note as if it were a performance. I try to make all practice musical. I too see my hobbies, music and photography, as a holistic one. When I find one side not getting its fair share of my attention, I adjust my schedule to attempt to get back in balance.

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I do the best I can to get the shot the closest I can to what I have visualized, while shooting. But I feel no shame in spending time in post-processing, doing the best I can to make the final image the closest I can get to what I visualize as the (always elusive) ideal.

 

Ansel Adams often spent more time in processing an image than he did shooting it, I don't think I'm better at photography than he was. And when people sneer about spending time working on a shot in post, I'm willing to bet none of them is better at it than he was, either.

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