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I'm doing some right now and it bores the t"ts off me.
I am not very quick but I'm thorough.
I wonder if my clients have any idea how much time is actually spent after an event /shoot just sitting at the damn computer?
Clients don't care about PP, all they care about is the finished picture.
It was, as I'm sure you're aware, a rhetorical interrogative.
They don't care that I'm still working on their behalf - woe is me!
Actually, I'm finished.
Another load from Saturday's event for me in the morning though.
Theres always some PP required imo. Never seen an absolutely amazing shot straight out of a digital camera...or at least one that couldn't have been improved with minor tweaks.
In the days of film, the post processing was done in the development of the film and the exposure onto different papers with different chemicals etc. Arguably, the best wet film photographers were also the best developers - or they used the services of a professional developer.
Photoshop is a simple (I wish!), clean, quick and cheap alternative but the principle is the same. You take an unprocessed exposure (RAW) and then develop it to give the image your saw in your minds eye.
I don't have the PS skills to make major changes but will tend to tweak WB, exposure, contrast, brightness, saturation, crop, clone (remove dust bunnies, telephone lines etc.), levels, curves etc.,
I try to get as much right with the in-cam shot but accept that post-processing is a necesity for digital RAW files.
Cheers,
The Panasonic Lumix LX3 that I use for personal projects etc requires less PP than my Nikons. Sometimes nothing at all is required and I have to zero everything I've just applied!
My D300s are set up to produce a fairly flat, un-contrasty and un-saturated jpeg. So yes, PP is always involved.
Tried raw for about half a dozen weddings but found it was just adding an extra step into my already long workflow. I get the exposure / white balance right enough of the time that I'm not worried about correcting afterwards (ooooh, get him....).
Regarding the 'honesty' or 'integrity' of an image, it's all pretty subjective and I do what I need to do to the photo to get the desired effect. The bride getting ready shots for instance; it's usually a very high key kind of a time - both in mood and in PP to reflect this.
Of course it's all part of taking the photos.
So yes, PP is always involved.
Tried raw for about half a dozen weddings but found it was just adding an extra step into my already long workflow.
Personally I don't get why you'd ever shoot JPG if you know you're going to post-process.
I do my PP in Capture NX and it's not an extra step, it's the whole thing!
All my PP is done losslessly within Capture on the raw 12-bit NEF file. All the changes are saved into that NEF file so I can come back and change them again later if required. I can even have multiple different versions of the same image stored in the file.
Conversely if you shoot JPG then you immediately throw away colour information (8-bit instead of 12) and detail (due to compression) - both of which you may have been able to usefully use in PP.
Then everytime you re-compress the JPG image during PP you will degrade it further. Plus it's much harder to do non-destructive editing or go back and do another version of the same photo but with a little bit more sharpening or a little less noise reduction.