How often do you "correct" your photos in post production?

<p>Just curious from a newbie.</p>

<p>How often do you make corrections to your photos in a post production process? I'm thinking along the lines of using something like Photoshop, which is the program I am currently most accustomed to.</p>

<p>I'm not talking about quick fixes or changes like cropping, but major changes to color, lighting correction, etc.</p>

<p>I suppose what I'm really wondering is how many of your photos pop out of your camera perfect and how many need a little work. 50% that need corrections? 80%? What?</p>

<p>I'm asking because I'm fairly new to photography. I find myself able to take pretty decent photos on a regular basis, but I always find I can tweak them to be just a little bit better through Photoshop. Usually a saturation of colors, lightening of shadows, etc. But I also feel like I'm sort of "cheating" by doing this. I feel like every photo needs to come out of my camera 100% perfect or I'm failing at learning all this stuff.</p>

<p>Am I wrong in feeling this way? I'm just trying to see what some of the veterans might think about this. There is no right or wrong answer I'm looking for. I'm just curious about what a "norm" might be.</p>

<p>Am I cheating by making changes in Photoshop?</p>

<p> </p>

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<p>Am I cheating by making changes in Photoshop?</p>

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<p>No, and only doing so (cheating) if you dont admit to doing it when asked.</p>

<p>P.S. - I know there will be some difference on opinion about what "counts" and "doesn't count" in terms of manipulating an image, but I'm trying to avoid a big debate on that. :)</p>

<p>Talking about essentially the same things I could do in a wet darkroom (color balance, crop, exposure adjustment, dodge/burn) and maybe some light cloning if I'm not worrying about things being 100% "honest". This does NOT count sharpening, which I do to almost every digital image.</p>

<p>It depends on what I am using the image for. Images for a wedding client (when I was shooting weddings) would have been really high to eliminate blemishes or to make sure things were perfect (if that is what I knew the client wanted). Something for the web? Almost 100%, because I am switching color spaces and am going to have to make tonal adjustments to account for that. My own personal photos? I don't know, 40-70% maybe. It's a wide range because it really depends on where I was shooting and how much effort I was putting into making things as good as possible out of the camera.</p>

<p>Bottom line, don't worry about it too much. While this is a topic that gets some people really riled up, the majority of photographers don't have issues with slight "darkroom" style tweaks. Now, a higher number of people have strong opinions when you start moving trees or doing HDR or other fancy filters. But that's not what I am talking about.</p>

 

<p>It's not cheating. I shoot mostly RAW so <em>I have to</em> do something in order to even see the images. Same as negative film actually.<br>

The camera and engineers who made it don't know what I want and even if I just rely on in-camera jpg adjustments isn't that as much "cheating" as doing the same in post..?</p>

 

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<p>I feel like every photo needs to come out of my camera 100% perfect or I'm failing at learning all this stuff.</p>

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<p>If you really want to do that then go buy yourself a film camera, a brick of slide film and a projector. Doesn't get much more merciless than that. :) (It's actually fun too.)<br>

Otherwise just edit, it's a normal part of the workflow.</p>

<p>I don't think of my post processing work as "correcting." I think of it as craft and/or creating.</p>

<p>I think Josh describes it nicely. For me, as it seems to be for him, it depends on the picture, the purpose, my intent, what I've gotten in the camera, and what my vision is.</p>

<p>I spend a lot of time in Photoshop but a lot of what I do is quite subtle and wouldn't be considered heavy manipulation in comparison to some stuff that is done with some photoshop bells and whistles, etc. But I'm sure some "purists" would want to run me right out of town. I'm sure some wanted to run much darkroom users out of town as well.</p>

<p>I think as long as you're OK with what you're doing and as long as you're ethical when it comes to disclosure if you're being paid and are asked, you should be just fine. Sometimes, what's OK with each of us will change and evolve over time, and that's OK, too.</p>

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<p>I'm not talking about quick fixes or changes like cropping, but major changes to color, lighting correction, etc.</p>

 

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<p>"One man's quick fix is another man's manipulation."</p>

<p>Personal answer. I need to do (something) to all my digital images. So I suppose my answer is 100%.<br>

These include exp comps, sharpening, selective masking (exp leveling), black point white point sets etc...</p>

<p>This question has raged for a long time amoungst photographers and few of us agree 100% with eachother in defining manipulation Vs. adjustments. Some instances are obvious, some are not so obvious.</p>

<p>I find no problem with adjustments, toning, exp comps etc....Ansel Adams is a great example. He was (IMO) a far better master of the darkroom than master of camera; though I'm sure that is debateable to some.</p>

 

<p>It's yours do with it what you like....<br>

I take lots of HDR Images..So I go shoot with the intent to manipulate... OK I said it "HDR" bring on the beating ;)<br>

It's all personal preference and what you intend the impact of the image to be on the viewer.</p>

<p>Thanks. Makes me feel a little better. :)</p>

<p>Anyone else can feel free to answer, I'm not trying to stop discussion here!</p>

"The negative is the score; the print is the performance." - Ansel Adams

 

In other words, you get the best possible negative (or image capture) you can and then create the best possible print in the darkroom. Wet or dry darkroom, it doesn't matter.

<p>my answer skips hdr and panoramas, which require pp work. and with my answer consider that i have been shooting with an slr/dslr for 40yrs, in every situation and scene and lighting condition any couod think of. this terms of knowledge and experience gives me huge advatage when i take my shots. i almost instinctively know what to do with the dslr settings and hardly think about it. i am much more intewrested in what i consider the hard part of photography - the composition.<br>

with the above said, i shoot jpeg almost all the time like 99.9%. i currently get about 95%(100% on sa good day) right interms of exposure and wb. i rarely crop, i am a beliver in getting the composition right oin the camera this makes the cxropping later in the pc unneeded. even the images that i pp, except for the sharpening, i spen bewteen 30-40 seconds per image. if i spend more than 1 minute pp a image then i know i messed up when i took the shot. if i exceed the 1 minute then i will probably delete it, and simply use another image. i get no pleasure or joy at all in sitting at the pc doing pp work, and i try very hard not to do any if i can help. i accomplish this by getting it right in the camera. i went on a 3 week trip west in august, shot 543 pics using 2 dslrs, and every one was correct. of course i knew that i would probably not be going back to those places so i put a lot of effort in getting them right. the only raws shot were at antelpope canyon and carlsbad caverns. this was due to lighting conditions, and i wanted to hedge my bets. as it turned out, with exactly one exception, the raws never got used the jpegs were better.<br>

but note again that i have 40yrs of practice. that makes an enourmous difference.</p>

<p>This discussion about what's "fair" goes back waaaaay before digital. The amount of manipulation of exposure, density, color and so on that was available to an educated and talented darkroom worker (like Ansel Adams) was incredible and very nearly equal to what can be done digitally nowadays.</p>

<p>Photomontage and combining different scenes with different skies and all were commonplace back to the early days of photography when people didn't even have "film" as such yet. Photoshop just makes this sort of thing available to people with computers, as well as to those with darkroom skills. That's why it's called <em>Photoshop</em> , after all.</p>

<p>Occasionally, I get it all just right in the negative or slide or digital image, but most often I find when I look at the scan that maybe a touch more "fill" or toning back the highlights helps a little. Like makeup, if it's obvious, there's too much of it.</p>

<p>By the way, note that jpgs can also be opened in Adobe Camera Raw, most easily from Bridge with a right click and choice.</p>

<p>I usually adjust my images only once. From time to time I go back a couple of years to favorites for submission revert to the original, and re-do (easy to do in Apple's Aperture and iPhoto). My eye has changed to less punchy, and more subtle tonalities.</p>

Minus 10%

<p>Rarely, other than to compensate for an error in the photography or unusually wide range of illumination. If you are using a good sharp lens, a tripod, and meter carefully, it isn't necessary that often. I do have Lightroom now, but use it only occasionally.</p>

<p>I almost always shoot in RAW and I adjust 100% of the keepers. I don't feel as though I'm cheating, just enhancing and correcting.</p>

<p>I think that Photoshop is as much a part of digital photography as the darkroom is in film work. It's an essential part of the creative process.</p>

<p>That said, I mostly just tweak my images a bit in order to add some "seasoning."</p>

<p>But if I have a job or an image that requires photo illustration techniques, Photoshop becomes a primary tool. </p>

 

<p>I feel that adjustments such as contrast, exposure comp, saturation are all fair game for an honest photo. It is equivalent to when you chose your film in the old days. Film was chosen on desired saturation and characteristics.<br>

When the line is crossed from photography to visual art, in my opinion, is when you add or subtract from the content or change colors, etc..</p>

<p>I can't recall any image I've ever made, film or digital that didn't need "something". As Fred said above, It's all part of the craft of photography. It doesn't matter if you do it under the enlarger or in Photoshop. It's the subtle changes that can give an image wings.</p>

<p><em>"almost always shoot in RAW and I adjust 100% of the keepers. I don't feel as though I'm cheating, just enhancing and correcting</em> ". <em>Ray</em></p>

<p>I second Ray and some others</p>

<p>I photo only with Raw, and I<em> adjust</em> what is needed to be adjusted like sometimes levels, sometime saturation, sometime contrast ,cropping and sometime cloning unnecessary elements, and sharpening <em>once</em> at the end, What I pay attention while photographing is <em>composition ! as the main in camera </em> ( and light ) . I think of the whole process as trying to create something that will communicate my expression, feeling about the subject and will be substantial ( at least for me).I think as well that PS is the digital lab as was the dark room for film. I see it as enhancing the initial composition not realy changing it.</p>

<p>It's all part of the creative process, enjoy the ride.</p>

<p>Every time I used daylight balance color negative film indoors under artificial light, someone had to correct the color balance problems. Even tho' these were just snapshots run through a minilab, a lot of color corrections had to be made to produce photos of people without green or orange skin.</p>

<p>The fact that I didn't personally make those corrections doesn't mean I'm a more virtuous photographer. I just shifted the burden to someone else, so that I could maintain my illusion of purity.</p>

<p>If you shot slide film, you might have box of CC filters. Not to mention under and overexposing to get an effect, as well as cropping in camera and using different lenses and playing with DOF. The act of making an exposure is manipulating reality. It really is that simple. I think one can get carried away (see: how often HDR is used these days, IMHO), but there isn't a single photo out there that hasn't been modified from reality in one way or another.</p>

More than ever since digital arrived. Newspaper pressrooms have different methods and I am constantly adjusting curves, contrast and other factors to try and get the best end result according to what mood the guys running the pressroom are in. Even if I am shooting for other uses I am always futzing about with some aspect. I do the same with film. I don't remember the last time I was happy with a straight print.

 

Rick H.

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<p ><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=5012474"><em>Greg Peterson</em></a><em> </em><a href="../member-status-icons"><em><img title="Frequent poster" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/1roll.gif" alt="" /></em></a><em>, Oct 08, 2009; 11:32 p.m.</em><br>

<em>I think that Photoshop is as much a part of digital photography as the darkroom is in film work. It's an essential part of the creative process.</em></p>

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<p>Adobe has spent millions of dollars convincing people that it is an in dispensible part of the processing chain. I don't use it, I don't need it.<br>

Digital photos typically require a bit of sharpening due to the Bayer Matrix and how the analog signal is processed, but beyond that, if you've got the camera set up right and you have craft, then you don't need p/s, or any other "fixes" beyond color correction and cropping. That's is normal wet darkroom stuff that can be handled by the simplest digital editing software.<br>

I shoot about 98% unretouched. It's about discipline and pride for me.</p>

<p>Bill P<em>.</em>

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