Wedding Profession: Sorry, this is just so sad....

[tom_aellis1]

<p>I really think that this is one of the largest reasons that Professional Wedding Photographers are just getting slammed now. (Very few clients really peel the layer of the onion)<br>

Please take a look at the orig. and then the "Plug-ins" and tell me what you think.</p>

<p>http://www.presetsheaven.com/2010/03/14/2-presets-for-weddings/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Presetsheaven+%28PresetsHeaven%29</p>

[konrad_bilinski]

<p>Welcome to the digital world Tom</p>

[john_h.1]

<p>Professional Wedding photographers are "getting slammed" because of plugins?</p>

[Spearhead]

<p>I haven't heard anyone slam professional wedding photographers lately, except the ones that are late or rude. Where is this massive swelling of complaints?</p>

[irusan]

<p>Plug ins make our lives easier and sometimes harder.</p>

<p>The example image still required excellent composition skills. It's not going to make a terrible picture great.</p>

[alan_chan4]

<p>It is so sad professionals are buying off the shelf gears for their jobs. Real pros built all their gears from bits and pieces. They should melt, cut, ground and coat their own lenses. Pros with L zooms & Zeiss primes? They should be ashamed.</p>

[mark_ridout1]

<p>educate your clients, help them peel the onion without tears. Presets won't make any difference on what your client thinks of you. Who is slamming wedding photographers for using presets?....that's just a really odd statement.</p>

[javier_herrera1]

<p>Woopse.......Sorry Tom. You're alone on this one buddy</p>

[Palouse]

<p>Forget photography, it's too modern---back to cave painting with a sharp stick or a rock?</p>

[david_schilling___chicago_]

<p>It's evident to me that many so-called photographers covering weddings these days have little understanding/skill in using lighting and couldn't set-up short-lighting, broad-lighting, or Rembrandt lighting if their lives depended on it. Digital compensation and/or creativity isn't the problem.</p>

[matt_needham]

<p>Ha! It's a plug in for white dresses for folks who don't know the meter goes for middle gray.</p>

[simon_crofts]

<p>On the one hand there is the view that you should 'get it right' in camera ie. an image as close as possible to the intended finished result. On the other hand, you can actually get better technical results by deliberately not doing so, and an apparently murky original like the one shown is not necessarily wrong or an accident.<br>

If going for a high key, blown out result, there is something to be said for deliberately exposing so that the RAW file captures all the tones of the scene, then using post processing to bring the image to the intended result. It may make the original look unattractive, but it can produce a better result technically and give you greater flexibility on the final look of the image. Giving the image a high key/deliberately blown background in-camera can lead to nasty highlights where the sensor has blown, and you can't reveal delicate highlights afterwards if you've blown the original just because you wanted to take a short-cut to your final high key result or because you've been told you should get it right in camera.<br>

The kind of manipulations that this plug-in does is part of the normal technical armoury that a photographer has nowadays, and getting on top of such adjustments is part of being a good photographer and a good technician. What's lazy about this one is that it seems to be applying several actions at once in an indiscriminate manner that won't be appropriate to most images - it's a rough shortcut that is probably going to be used by people or who don't have the time or inclination or probably the knowledge to do a decent job on each image.</p>

[Dave Luttmann]

<blockquote>

<p><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=508126">Matt Needham</a> , Jul 08, 2010; 07:57 a.m.</p>

</blockquote>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Ha! It's a plug in for white dresses for folks who don't know the meter goes for middle gray.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Could you share your metering settings for the vignette?</p>

 

[rt_jones]

<p><em><strong>Could you share your metering settings for the vignette?</strong></em></p>

<p>Yes, I'd like to know how to shoot these as well. :)</p>

<p>Almost everything I PP has a slight and subtle vignette, corner burn on it.</p>

<p>I wish I could dump my shots and just deliver them as is but it's just too easy to express yourself these days in post and it doesn't change who or what is in the photo.</p>

[fotografz]

<p>

<h1 >"Wedding Profession: Sorry, this is just so sad...."</h1>

<p>Yes, it was also sad when the wedding photographer from 10 years ago dodged and burned images in the darkroom ... even when film had as much or more exposure latitude than digital capture does now.</p>

<p>In many cases the wedding photographer of yesterday had to place a nylon over the lens to help a bride's skin in harsh light, or a graduated ND filter to keep from blowing out a sky ... sad indeed.</p>

<p>Wake up and smell the presets and actions that make all of that a LOT easier to do than just a few short years ago.</p>

<p> </p>

</p>

[tom_mann1]

<p>Another reason to use presets in wedding photography is for consistency of look. </p>

<p>While some combinations of processing steps can easily be made into a preset (...think Lightroom's presets), others, particularly multi-step treatments are a bit harder and need to be done using Photoshop's "actions" or the equivalent. Some folks don't have the DIY skills to do this on their own, others are looking for "hot / in" looks, etc.</p>

<p>Presets / actions / whatever are tools. If you're in this as a business and don't have the luxury of treating every photo individually, most folks will use any tool that gets the job done, is cost and time effective, etc.</p>

<p>Tom M.</p>

[ryan_k]

<p>Don't look too far into this Tom.</p>

<p>A terrible photo with a preset action on it is still a terrible photo.</p>

<p>In the end, it's the photographer that makes the grade. The actions just give us a short cut to actions we should be performing anyway (color, contrast, white balance, etc.) from time to time</p>

[tom_aellis1]

<p>David, THAT's my point. You got it.<br>

I asked to please take a look at the orig. photograph. It is beyond horrible. Then, via software it's made "wonderful"<br>

Frankly, I don't think of of this as a "Wedding Photographer Shot" I think of this as a "Graphic Artist Photograph"<br>

But people are insulted when you mention that they have little or no talent with photography or specifically wedding photography. Don't know why. But I'll tell you this, the person that took this photograph is not a wedding photographer based on this photograph that has been used for an example.<br>

Tom</p>

[Spearhead]

<p>So you haven't responded, who is doing all the "slamming"? Where do we find it?</p>

[simon_crofts]

<blockquote>

<p>I asked to please take a look at the orig. photograph. It is beyond horrible. Then, via software it's made "wonderful"</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It's not a particularly amazing photograph, but it's not beyond horrible. It's just a generic lifestyle-type picture of a wedding dress, with something odd in the top left corner. I would guess it was just chosen to illustrate the effect that the preset has, not as an example of wonderful wedding photography.</p>

<p>But you don't seem to be against <a href="../photo/8191657">use of post-processing</a> in your own portfolio? Why is running a picture through an HDR programme OK (presumably?), but putting a picture through a preset is 'sad'?</p>

[roger_smith4]

<p>I downloaded these presets a few weeks ago and found them useless for the type of wedding photography I do. I downloaded a variety of presets as inspiration for what can be done with Lightroom. In the end I returned to my own self-made presets and also the cold tone one that ships with Lightroom.</p>

[tom_aellis1]

<p>Just as an FYI, many missed my point, quite a few did not.<br>

I have not a thing against Post-Production, Pre-sets, Plug-in, or digital photography. My OP really had noting to do with that.<br>

Again, take a look at the orig SOOC photograph. This site's "Post" really gives the message that it's kinda sorta ok to shoot any piece of trash and post it with x-y-z preset and bam, you are a wedding photographer.<br>

As many here have mentioned, very few photographers have very little understanding / skill in lighting et. al.<br>

(oh, the comments here as you can see are kind of slamming these "type" of wedding photographers, sorry if I was not clear)<br>

Professional Photography is, for the most part, over with the execption of high fashion, NetGeo types etc... so much on the stock photo sites etc.... There is still a lot of opportunity for those that study the skill and the art of it, but, sorry, it's really pretty burned out now.<br>

It became apparent to me when we had "Book Writers" and "Software Teachers" become "renowned" Photographers.</p>

[senor_crocodrillo]

<p>Jeff- Perhaps he's referring to the stress on photographers that has come with the digital age. Digital has significantly lowered the entry level for professional photography. If a middling photographer (I'm not directing this at anyone) took for granted his place in the pre-digital hierarchy, or can't find a way to distinguish himself from the rest in today's over-crowded marketplace, he's most certainly feeling slammed at this point. He may even feel frustrated or bitter towards those with little or no education or even technique, entering the business at a time when clients are spending less money. He definitely wouldn't be the first to feel this way. In fact, I think it's quite common. At least that's how I've interpreted the posts.</p>

[StuartMoxham]

<p>Was it really a terrible photo or just a bit underexposed. That plugin is doing nothing different than many lab workers did for years, many photographers never realised just how up and down their exposures really were.</p>

[neilambrose]

I recall an interview I read with the person who printed a lot of Henri Cartier-Bresson's work. According to the article, HCB

routinely over-exposed his shots to the point they needed a lot of darkroom time to print correctly: pre-flashing the paper,

grade IV filters, lots of dodging. He was renowned for the decisive moment, but not the accurate exposure.

 

There has always been a distinction between source material and the end product. That's the playground for the artisan,

and being able to do it well is just another type of expertise. It doesn't have to be right in camera as long as it's right in the

end product.

 

My only concession to the OP is a recognition that actions are dumbing down post-processing, to the point where there

is an increasing number of people who don't know how to process their images correctly. There's no such thing as a one

click, one size fits all action. People with unbalanced reliance on actions are not entirely in control of their own work, and

that's perhaps something that is more significant than the fact that the images are post-processed.