Have you ever had the urge to re-process old pictures?

Rupert67

Rupert67

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Edit My Images
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Looking through my digital photo archive ever since I sold my EOS 3 and turned my back on film in August 2005, I've frequently become more critical of some of my earlier efforts at editing which, although seeming to be fine at the time, can now look slightly amateurish.

I've had several private wedding commissions in the past - something that I no longer do, they're too stressful for a one man band! But looking at some of the earlier results, with which people were very pleased (happily), I've sometimes felt that I could produce a whole lot better set of finished pictures today. This is principally, of course, because over the years I've become a lot more proficient in the use of Photoshop, Elements being my editor of choice.

Although I am unlikely to spend valuable time revisiting old RAW files and having another go in the editing suite, I wonder if anyone else has been similarly tempted?
 
Yes I do sometimes go back a few years and go over the shots I've taken and do sometimes re-process them since the programs I used have been updated and now give better results and as the OP said I have also become better at PP.

Can be quite a productive enterprise when the wind and rain are howling outside and I prefer to stay in the warm!
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Short answer - yes sometimes. Generally if I'm looking for a shot and if my processing skills or software has improved, I might have another go if needed - or redo a crappy processing I did [emoji3]
 
I do occasionally, as the way I edit pictures changes all the time. Depends if I was totally happy with the final image at the time though. Sometimes I may have been using certain settings/effects that I may have gone OTT with in the past which I don't like now. :rolleyes:

Sometimes a change to the software I use can make me go back to some pics that were not quite there at the time, usually because of noise or exposure problems. A few years ago Adobe suddenly made the Noise Reduction options in ACR and LR actually work, ;) so some older images with cameras that were not as good in low light as the cameras I have now may be able to be made better. :)

There are some images which I have that even though I am better at editing, and the software is way better, I can't improve or even replicate as a starting point to try. :rolleyes: :LOL:
 
I am working my way through a lot of aerial images and finding that my processing has improved sufficiently to warrant re-editing my favourite images from more than 2 years ago; I'm working on a book, so I do have an incentive to work on them.

Also, some low-light images warrant revisiting due to improvements in software. I have one night image that was unusable when I originally took it, but improvements in software meant this image was now worth working on.

I always shoot in RAW and always have for this reason; software and personal editing skills are bound to improve with time. I rarely delete original images (only very obviously unusable ones), I just store them on hard-drives.
 
GreenNinja67 said:
Definately.

And sod's law being what it is all the ones I want to have another go at are all jpegs.
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I know it's not quite the same as working with lossless RAW files, but you can always have a go at opening jpegs in Camera Raw and go from there .. at least you'll have a full set of sliders to work with. I've sometimes used this practice when a friend has asked me to 'sort out' a camera phone image that warrants that kind of attention. The results can be surprisingly good.
 
Rupert67 said:
I know it's not quite the same as working with lossless RAW files, but you can always have a go at opening jpegs in Camera Raw and go from there .. at least you'll have a full set of sliders to work with. I've sometimes used this practice when a friend has asked me to 'sort out' a camera phone image that warrants that kind of attention. The results can be surprisingly good.
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I'll give it a go Rupert.

Although the files are from a 6.1MP Nikon D70 so not sure how it's going to turn out.
 
Mostly old stuff when I was fairly new to photography to correct over enthusiasm.
 
aliengrove said:
I am working my way through a lot of aerial images and finding that my processing has improved sufficiently to warrant re-editing my favourite images from more than 2 years ago; I'm working on a book, so I do have an incentive to work on them.

Also, some low-light images warrant revisiting due to improvements in software. I have one night image that was unusable when I originally took it, but improvements in software meant this image was now worth working on.

I always shoot in RAW and always have for this reason; software and personal editing skills are bound to improve with time. I rarely delete original images (only very obviously unusable ones), I just store them on hard-drives.
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I've only done so for the last eight years.

It's interesting to note that, as ACR edits produce the sidecar files containing the editing data, when you open an old RAW file in a later version of ACR, the original choice of sliders is still there. However, if you then select the 'Camera Raw Defaults' from the little drop-down that lurks at the right hand edge of 'Basic' (in my version it does, anyway - probably the second item down, immediately after 'Image Settings'), you can start all over again as if you'd never worked on it before, except this time you have the latest ACR version at your disposal.

This is probably common knowledge, but I only discovered it for myself when I was having another go at an older picture, something I very rarely do (hence my original post).
 
Rupert67 said:
I've only done so for the last eight years.

It's interesting to note that, as ACR edits produce the sidecar files containing the editing data, when you open an old RAW file in a later version of ACR, the original choice of sliders is still there. However, if you then select the 'Camera Raw Defaults' from the little drop-down that lurks at the right hand edge of 'Basic' (in my version it does, anyway - probably the second item down, immediately after 'Image Settings'), you can start all over again as if you'd never worked on it before, except this time you have the latest ACR version at your disposal.

This is probably common knowledge, but I only discovered it for myself when I was having another go at an older picture, something I very rarely do (hence my original post).
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Pressing the Reset button at the bottom of the adjustments panel does the same thing.
 
I'm kind of doing this at the moment. My pp is much better after 5 years but my pics from 5 years ago are workable at least for my own entertainment. It's a learning experience...
 
I'm often re-processing old images, I don't get out with the camera often due to work/family life, but I do get time to practice/improve my post processing (when the little one is in bed) so I tend to go over old stuff with new methods to improve them.
 
shruggy63 said:
I'm kind of doing this at the moment. My pp is much better after 5 years but my pics from 5 years ago are workable at least for my own entertainment. It's a learning experience...
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Me ^ this.

Been looking some old, old pics of a bald eagle that I never really did anything with (captive) and today I have drawn a flag in ps and used a tutorial to add a displacement map and make it ripple. Talk about rewarding to actually do something like that :) then and I stuck my bald eagle on top and lowered the opacity. Got the end result I wanted and have learned a lot [emoji51]

Now my head is buzzing with ideas
 
Yes often go back and play with some of my early digital stuff, lets be honest the softwares moved on a bit as well quality wise.
 
I'm often reprocessing old files. When you work on long projects or series you often need to look back several years for other images that might fit the brief. When I started processing I didn't really know what I was doing and the software is so much better now as well. With older files you need to convert to the latest process version of Lightroom (2012), by opening "calibration" in the Lightroom Develop module. (Bottom right.) ........In case anyone didn't know.......
 
Its quite normal to reprocess the old photos. But in most of the cases I have seen people like to do the post processing task once only.
 
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