Editing/Tweeking

kassie

Does everyone edit/tweek all of their photos??? Are you ever happy with a shot straight from the camera without the necessity of just the slightest bit of editing?

This is just something i wondered about at the weekend - wonder what you more experienced/professionals do?

Splinters

If you shoot in RAW you really should be editing everything.

Jpg shooters can get away with not editing but I still believe theres very few, if any, out of camera images that cannot be improved even slightly with a bit of post processing.

kassie

i was asked to take some photos last weekend as a favour and shot mostly in manual (bear in mind i'm a total beginner). I switched to auto for a couple as i couldn't get the camera still enough (lesson learned - bring a tripod!!). When i got the pics onto my laptop when i got home the auto pics needed little or no tweeking where the others needing brigtening up to make the subject "pop" a bit. And thats how i came to wonder whether everyone edits or not. Glad to know that its the done thing

oh and the guy i took the photos for was "blown away"...so i was mega chuffed with my efforts, and it has boosted my confidence with my camera

we should open a random pic thread for non edited pics... see what pops up

Splinters

See thats getting into the question of why would somebody edit their pictures in the first place.

You're suggesting the ones that needed to be edited were the ones that were underexposed. Thats using editing to fix an image, but theres other very good reasons to edit an image too.

What about the ones that were perfectly exposed? Do you really think that straight out of the camera they couldnt have been improved upon? Im just speculating as I obviously havent seen the pictures.

I just tried to check on google images to find a good example and seen this....

http://www.alexwisephotography.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/lightroombeforeandafter.jpg

Theres a before and after. Theres nothing wrong with the before image. Its fine, maybe a little flat but nothing is under/overexposed or more to the point nothing needs fixing. The after version is stunning though, because he shot in RAW and captured way more detail then initially appears in the image.

Obviously in an ideal situation you'll get a perfectly sharp, perfectly exposed image but that doesnt mean you should stop there.

Im sure plenty of others have a different take on it but thats my 2 cents anyway.

kassie

well when i was shooting in manual i was using the exposure gage/bar as a guide and was only taking the shot when that was at the correct point. So in essence the pics weren't over/under exposed but just needed a little editing to brighten colours in the background (it as in a forest so it brought out the green of mosses and oranges of fallen leaves). I haven't the pics on this pc so if i can, i'll try to post an original and edited pic later to show as an example

DaireQuinlan

kassie wrote: »

well when i was shooting in manual i was using the exposure gage/bar as a guide and was only taking the shot when that was at the correct point.

No point whatsoever in shooting manual if this is what you're doing, you're just doing exactly what the camera would do only more slowly.

5uspect

A digital camera is a sensor with a certain dynamic range. This means it can measure a certain range of light. A scene has a different range of light. A good exposure plants the range of your scene somewhere within your camera's range. As a result digital images are a little flat. The various filters that camera makers are layering over their sensors or through software to remove IR, moiré etc can also influence sharpness etc.

A lot of cameras will attempt to adjust the data automatically. When you shoot RAW you have more control over how this process works and therefore more creative freedom.

kassie

i'm still learning, and am half way through the book Understanding Exposure, but any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated!

dinneenp

I'm an amateur and post on my photo website, forums like this and the odd photo print and put up.
I use Picasa 3 for organising and editing photos.
It's free and extremely easy to use and suprisingly good. It covers all the basics (crop, rotate, red eye, saturate, darken, lighten etc.) and has a lot of effects/filterst too (B&W etc.).

I constantly promise myself that I'm going to get Lightroom and learn it. I don't need to but most people say that it's great so I'm going to make the jump at some stage.

As for editing i don't always edit/post process but often will do something- could be a crop to take out something that's distracting or fix exposure.

There is a before and after thread here so you can see shots before & after Post processing.

squareballoon

I edit every picture but generally wouldn't spend a huge amount on each one. It depends what the pictures are ultimately for though. Wedding photos that will be in an album would have longer editing time than a snap of a walk in the hills obviously.
There will always be some that come out perfectly and others that you will deliberatly shoot under exposing in one area in order to retain good exposure in another knowing that you will be able to bring it back in post processing.

magicbastarder

generally speaking, i'd tweak colour balance, exposure, and shadows on a shot. not much more.

ScumLord

All always do a bit of tweaking once I get the Raw file onto the computer. I don't think you can properly assess an image using the cameras viewfinder. It might not be much tweaking or it could be rescuing a poor shot but there's defined improvements to be made once you can view the picture on a calibrated monitor with all the controls of photoshop.

Basically I get the image with the camera and make it look the way I want it to look through photoshop. For me a picture would feel incomplete without being tweaked in Raw and photoshop.

dirtyghettokid

squareballoon wrote: »

I edit every picture but generally wouldn't spend a huge amount on each one. It depends what the pictures are ultimately for though. Wedding photos that will be in an album would have longer editing time than a snap of a walk in the hills obviously.
There will always be some that come out perfectly and others that you will deliberatly shoot under exposing in one area in order to retain good exposure in another knowing that you will be able to bring it back in post processing.

magicbastarder wrote: »

generally speaking, i'd tweak colour balance, exposure, and shadows on a shot. not much more.

the above applies to me also.
some times there might be a spec of dust i have to take out. i do have some straight from the camera shots that are fine (IMO)... but technically the fact it's imported as raw and exported as jpg, that's a bit of editing there

PrintedCanvas

most of the times i edit them but it really depends on what i want to do with the image. i always shoot raw anyway, unless i'm really really really stuck for space. but i never edit ALL the photos from the same shoot, i pick out the best ones, and the ones that might have some potential, if edited, and then i go through them again and i choose the final few and then i edit them.

Pete67

I generally shoot raw, and tweak white balance and exposure, very slight boost to contrast and saturation, tone down highlights if there are small blown areas, lift the shadows slightly if needed, and sharpen a little. Takes about 30 seconds per image including a crop if i want to adjust the composition. Any more than that and I take the raw image to ACR and Photoshop, but I'm only learning PS so generally spend a lot more time getting what I want out of an image. I'd love to be more proficient in PS.

jozi

I started only editing/processing the good images I shoot, no point going near the bad ones as they wont ever be shown anyway. Takes way less time also to edit 20 good images than all 200 you shot.

CabanSail

I process every photo which comes off my camera. The only exception is the occasional shot I take with my iPhone where I have limited control.

Shooting digital my aim is not to capture an image that does not require editing, but rather to get te best data set to suit the Post Processing workflow. Out of the camera I expect over exposed flat images with the wrong colour temperature.

zero19

I just go crazy with the curves tool in PS and hope for the best.

jozi

Every single image? Or just the good ones that you want to share/sell/show?

ScumLord

jozi wrote: »

Every single image? Or just the good ones that you want to share/sell/show?

I'll often have a go at the bad ones too, with RAW you can mess around and see what's actually in the data. Sometimes there can be something worthwhile hidden in the picture.

Promac

Processing on a computer is not "editing". It's just a basic part of your workflow. You either let the computer in the camera produce a jpeg based on limited (but often fine) presets or you do it yourself on your own computer. The only difference is that you get to choose how exactly you wanted the exposure and colour/white balance and final sharpening. The whole concept of "straight out of the camera" doesn't really apply to digital photography. Never really applied to analog either but that's another discussion.

DaireQuinlan

Promac wrote: »

Never really applied to analog either but that's another discussion.