From another thread…

How many STW digital photographers are regularly manipulating their photos? I tend not to, trying to get it all when I push the button.

As little as possible.

i'm much like you, try and do most of the work with the camera.

Although i'm using iPhoto on my mac these days for importing and storing my pictures, so its much easier to edit them straight in that for things like colour balance, saturation, etc etc. i never really give them more than a "tweak" just to balance the colour out.

Most of the stuff I post to Flickr is straight off the card with no post-processing (apart from resizing for quicker uploads).

I do play around from time to time if I'm looking for a certain effect but it tends to be tinkering since I'm a bit ham-fisted with Photoshop – learning though! Current favourite trick is channel mixing to get high-contrast B&W images without introducing noise.

Currently taking lots of RAW images and seeing if I can get better quality JPEGs out of them.

Here's a processed one:

Original had lots of horrid colour casts so I converted to B&W using a red/green channel mix, tweaked the curves to bring out a bit more shadow detail and finally used the healing brush to remove two telephone wires. Unfortunately, I didn't set the JPEG compression level correctly so it has some artefacts when viewed large.

I always shoot in RAW, so some post-processing is pretty much a given.

Most of the time I just mess with white balance, exposure, levels, sharpening, dodge, burn and crop – so basically I'm just "developing" the image from a RAW "negative" in a digital darkroom (Capture NX for Nikon)

I rarely actually modify the image contents, though I've nothing particularly against that and I'll happily do it if I think it improves it.

Yep, 99% of the time anyway.

All pictures will benefit from a sympathetic crop (just to get your lead-in lines sorted out and to play with composition) and a tweak to the levels in photoshop.

Usually play with the colour saturation and add a little sharpening also, just to add a bit of punch.

And whilst your at it, might as well tweak the shadows, highlights and contrast, to bring out the details.

Oh, and then see if it looks better in monochrome and re tweak contrast accordingly. 😀

Just what I used to do in a darkroom, but faster, cleaner and cheaper.

I usually fix the levels and sharpen a bit if I'm posting quite a lot of photos. Wouldn't usually bother for a quick snap on a forum though.

I shoot raw, so yes. Most images will get a minor tweak or two but not much – crops, exposure, DRO etc. Some photos will get some work in Elements (removing blemishes, dodging and burning, fixing overexposed skies etc).

Definitely – the exposure is just the start of the process – just as it always was in the days of film

As above, I only shot raw so there is always work to be done. I don't tend to do any brushwork unless there's a dust spot or something. Mainly curves and contrast really.

is cropping post processing? then yes i do

crops – often. Adjustments to brightness and contrast – sometimes. Thats about it tho

I don't, mostly because I'm lazy but also I just like the honesty of an untweaked photo.

I dont…because I dont have the software or the know how.

S'pose I should do some, then my pics wouldnt be shite

There is nothing more honest about an untweaked photograph. You are just letting the camera make all the decisions about what tweaking it is going to do, hence why I shoot RAW so I get the choice as to what those tweaks should be.

Everything I shoot goes through "Post Processing" as it seems to be called these days, though since it is taking the raw data and turning it into a picture I would call that straight Processing 😉

Indeed RobS.

Arguably all pictures are post-processed – it's just that "untweaked JPGs" are the result of automatic post-processing by the camera.

I try to get things right in camera but I usually alter something in post pro.

Only ever crop and resize for uploads.
Dont shoot raw as with ports 2000+ shots a day are a common occurance.

Crop and odd sharpen.

I shoot RAW, tweak the sliders a bit on the RAW import and some sharpening then crop.

Dont shoot raw as with ports 2000+ shots a day are a common occurance.

You must be very keen on ports!
Do you mainly prefer ferry ports, or are the working industrial ports more your kind of thing? 😉

It's not that simple!

What comes out of the camera differs from camera to camera & remember you can tailor your camera to your own requirements in the camera's menu.
For example:The Leica M9 has next to nothing in the in-camera processing, so the RAW files need post production.

The more the camera (you use) is aimed at the professional market, the less in-camera processing goes on, that's why we shoot in RAW / DNG.
Amateur cameras are set up so you can use the resultant jpegs direct from the camera.

I shoot with average setting dialed into the in-camera menu, meaning I add some post production values once in the post production software, usually a little colour saturation, shadow & black, some Recovery, some clarity & vibrance.

These I have set up as a default in the CS3 / LR2 software so it's done immediately. I add a little where required, possibly vignette, maybe b&w, etc etc, in short, not too much of a deviation from the original image.

Occasionally I will work on an image if it's worth of it – such as the opening image on my site (which needs some serious updating! HERE

I shoot in RAW so levels, curves, saturation, colour balance adjustments are pretty much a given. However I'll use HDR, motion blur, anything really if I think its necessary.

Posted in error, apologies.

Only about 30 seconds an image in my book. Any more and the photo was taken poorly.

Get the camera settings established to give you what you like (like you would find a film you liked years ago)

I don't know why folk bother with RAW either. Way too much messing IMO but I'm sure I'll be lynched for that comment. 🙂 high quality JPEG all the way.

My idea of honesty is to make the shot look like what I saw at the time, not whatever came out of the camera

I am a wedding photographer, so try my best to compose correctly and get white balance etc spot on straight out of the camera.

I have several actions i run in photo shop and lightroom. If i have a real winner i may spend up to a few hours on the image, getting the brides facial tone right etc. When it comes to bikes, pretty much straight out of camera.

Some cameras, typically the professional models, produce poor (by comparison) jpegs.
That's by design.
It's getting better with each generation however.

Remember, even simply opening a jpeg loses information from the image.
Everything you do with a jpeg, information is lost, forever.

With weddings etc, I won't spend much time on any single image in the early stages. If the client wants work doing to it, fine £60 per hour. If it's for an album for example, I try and do everything in Bridge. Once I open an image into PS3, the clock starts ticking & the client pays.

Get the camera settings established to give you what you like (like you would find a film you liked years ago)

But in film days your film didn't change ISO halfway through a shoot and the only equivalent to White Balance was using colour filters.

Remember, even simply opening a jpeg loses information from the image.

? presumably you mean if you open it and then re-save it?

depends what i'm after really.

I rarely have to make edits beyond what i do in camera. If i do then its usually to add something a lil extra 😉

No, do ANYTHING with a jpeg image, open it, close it, whatever, however little, and you lose information from that image.
If you shoot in jpeg you MUST back it up first before even thinking about opening it and working on it.

You do not lose information from a jpeg image simply by opening and closing it.

Dudie. Yep!

Errr. no you don't.

You only lose information when you re-compress it during saving. Simply opening and viewing a JPG image doesn't change the file at all – otherwise you wouldn't be able to open files on read-only devices like CDs.

Get the camera settings established to give you what you like (like you would find a film you liked years ago)

In the old days you would then spend hours in the dark room processing the image. Well, a pro would, or someone would do it for him. PP just makes the darkroom more accessible. If you want to emulate taking your film to boots for processing then the camera has that facility built in.

We're talking about post production aren't we?

"If a JPEG image is opened, edited, and saved again it results in image degradation. It is very important to minimize the number of editing sessions between the initial and final version of a JPEG image. If you must perform editing functions in several sessions or in several different programs, you should use an image format that is not lossy (TIFF, BMP, PNG) for the intermediate editing sessions before saving the final version. Repeated saving within the same editing session won't introduce additional damage. It is only when the image is closed, re-opened, edited and saved again".

Hope that clear it up.
RAW all the way! However, I'm not a sports photographer, where jpeg would perhaps win-out over RAW.

"Honesty" in photography is very subjective.

If I was hallucinating at the time a picture was taken, would it be honest to try to replicate that feeling during post processing? This one was a happy coincidence, but you get the point.

Is processing a colour image to appear monochrome dishonest if it enhances the moodiness of the image?

Personally, I think 'The camera never lies' is up there with 'There's no smoke without fire' as the biggest crock of horse**** ever spouted by man (or woman, Reg, obviously). 🙂

Just a point i would like to make:

To an extent PP is essential due to the anti aliasing methods digital cameras employ they will never be as sharp as film sooc (in raw mode) so some sharpening is often required regardless of stopping down a lens and getting your focus bang on.