Image Processing

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Edit My Images
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I appreciate post processing has been around for a long time in one form or another, but i've wondered whether people on the whole are for or against this practice. I assume there will be the die hard veterans (so to speak) who disagree and the more modern, arty, high tech young guns who are all for it.

Is there anyone here who is dead against it? Or those that feel it's a necessity?

I would've assumed that the purpose of most photographers would be to produce a 'one take' pic that captures that moment, and that enhancing that image would effectively be 'cheating'.

Having said that, i've seen some fantastic looking pics that have been tinkered with, but how long do people spend doing this? Surely people don't spend hours messing with a photo that took them a split second to take?

I haven't even scratched the surface of this hobby, but at the moment i feel i would rather be out and about taking more pics rather than sitting around for hours trying to change/enhance what i've already taken.

I'd like to know what you all think.
 
I love it! I used to design websites and used Photoshop a great deal and it has taught me a lot and i need a programme to edit my shortcomings in taking photo's, i couldn't do without it!

However my dad keeps harping on about getting it right in camera as much as you possibly can, and he's right of course!:D BUT i do love editing images!
 
I dont believe in completely changing a photo in processing software but I do like the ability to be able to slightly sharpen a pic or a slight colour change if a casting is present or be able to turn it to mono or crop etc.

Most processing software is very feature rich and lots of 'toys' to play around with but that's all most are IMO: TOYS.

Without the software though I do believe that many of the excellent shots on here would suffer slightly. I'm not saying that the photos are crap, all I'm saying is the software makes a good (or even an ordinary) photo an excellent photo.

How many models and other famous people really look as good as they do on fronts of magazines?? Post processing obviously has its advantages..!!
 
I thought of a fancy answer, a-hm...

Processing and photography are but facets of the jewel that is visual art.

I see it same way as composition or colour or subject, processing is an artistic tool that you can choose to use. It helps to learn about it to know if you can use it. I dont think it's essential by any means but it really can come in handy for little adjustments that make you happier with your work.

On the other hand you can do some serious left of centre tweaking that can be visually appealing in a similar way to drawn art and also inspire other photographic ideas. Effects can also bring out details that you may have missed which in turn help you to 'see' more potential before you even take an image, it can teach you to look more deeply at a subject (wether you finish up using processing on that image or not).

Processing is what your brain does when light hits your eye and mixes it with your personality so i would say find time to give it a look.

Hello by the way, it's a pretty cool forum!(y)
 
I don’t know about ‘high tech young guns’ I’m 67 and use it all the time, there’s nothing you can take in nature that can’t be improved on, after all if God hadn’t wanted us to improve it ‘ He wouldn’t have given us Photoshop’!
 
The idea that image editing is somehow cheating is a misconception, usually from people who've never processed and printed film and don't realise that it always happened pre-digital anyway, except it was in the darkroom.
 
I'm not saying either way is right or wrong, i'm just getting the views of long term photographers :)
 
Post processing of digital images is almost obligatory (in most definitions of the word). At the very least due to the way the ccd records colour (Bayer filter) a degree of sharpening is required. Even in JPG mode whilst the camera will have settings for sharpness it is usually better to do it yourself with an image editor (imo).

Regarding the other issue of (creative) post processing this issue has been discussed and will continue to be discussed ad infinitum. Especially since the explosion in digital camera ownership and the numerous PP programs available. I personally have no problems with images which have been heavily PP if that is what the photographer desires. For most people creative PP is a means to an end allowing the image to reflect what the photographer was 'seeing' at the time and hoped to capture in camera.

Even legendary photogs such as Adams and (my personal favourite) Bill Brandt were not averse to using creative PP in the dark room it is really no different now to how it was then.

Steve
 
I have only just posted on another thread about this subject and then found this! I beleive that pictures should be as close as possible to how they came out of the camera, but as one or two others have said, digital cameras have thier own ideas about image processing so its required I think, but to a very basic level like sharpening Brightness contast etc.
 
Personally, I hate sitting at the computer and adjusting sliders, cropping, cloning etc etc. I try to get a photo as perfect as possible in-camera. Of course there are times when pp is necessary, but I prefer keeping it to a minimum.
 
Impressionist art seems quite popular. The problem is this question of cheating with PP is too general and assumes everyone wants the end image to reflect what the original scene looked like.

But when you think about it - the orginal scene was spotted by a tog with two eyes and stereo vision. The minute the image hits the lens it's already changed and is no longer realistic. It then hits the film or sensor and is interpreted differently depending on the camera and film and of course the camera settings.

So ever without any PP the image has changed significantly. Therefore it might be considered cheating to reproduce an image using a camera since it is not true to the real-life image.

What am I saying? No idea. Just that the question has been asked so many times but with so many pictures taken for many different uses there is no right or wrong answer.

The only thing I think most people ought to agree on is that PP should only be used to enhance what is already a good picture - not to fix a picture that was not captured correctly in the first place.
 
I downloaded the trial version of Photomatix tonight to see what the fuss was about, and must admit i found it rather addictive, so i can understand now why people tinker! I had no idea what most of the sliders would actually do, so just played about with them. I found it quite surprising how much you can actually change a photo (for better or worse!).

Going to have a little more of a play and see if i can get the hang of the various settings before i commit to buying it (and take some decent pics first mind!).
 
macmike said:
Personally, I hate sitting at the computer and adjusting sliders, cropping, cloning etc etc. I try to get a photo as perfect as possible in-camera. Of course there are times when pp is necessary, but I prefer keeping it to a minimum.
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I suppose to some extent I am from the old school in that I did my own D&P in 35mm photography and strove to get the pic right in the camera. However, D&P also employed a certain amount of image manipulation in that cropping, dodging and burning was used to get a better result.

I think that digital cams and sophisiticated photo editing has been a massive and welcome step forward.
I don't mind too much what folk do with photo editing provided they don't try to pass off a pic that has been adjusted on a pc as having come untouched from the camera.
 
arclight said:
I don't mind too much what folk do with photo editing provided they don't try to pass off a pic that has been adjusted on a pc as having come untouched from the camera.
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Same could apply in reverse, it would be cheating taking an awesome picture of the colours in a sunset and pretending you had the skill to achieve the same on photoshop. Good processing is just as skillful as taking the shot in the first place.:)
 
Personally, as my technique is developing and knowing how to use various filters and correct focal i think there shouldn't be anything else to do in post processing other than sharpening or noise reduction. that's the theory. unless you want to create artificial effects or change certain colors.

however I do thank photoshop for its range of tool as i think i won't have any photos to look at without it :)
 
Now that I think back to my D&P days I am glad I no longer need to spend hours mixing and messing about with smelly chemicals and working in a room with a very dim red light, then having prints hang all over the bathroom to dry.
This is much more comfortable. Can go for a cuppa at time or even have one at the same time as editing.
 
Post processing is part of the process of producing a picture - full stop. Used to be done in a darkroom - now it's a computer - it's still an essential element. It is not cheating! It is the image that matters.
 
We live in a multidimensional and colourless world. It's our physical makeup of having 2 eyes, 3 colour receptors and a brain that translates the information for our survival into colourful 3 dimensional images. Photography at its most basic level is about creating a flat rendition of what we percieve and no matter how good you are behind the lens it's never going to be a realistic interpretation (unless you were born with one eye and no stereo vision). I still hav'nt quite got my head around the idea of limiting yourself to a dogmatic approach, it's a bit like religion and is as if some people have convinced themselves that there is a 'correct' discipline.

There is certainly nothing wrong at all in taking the approach of 'traditionalist' and is most likely good for some as it must help in keeping focused on a result when you have pre-defined boundries, but to say that any other method that exists outside that box is incorrect, is ludicrous. Our whole perception of the world is processed and in my opinion post processing of images is reinforcing and evolving our innate human abilities.
 
I didn't realise GIMP was free, so i've also downloaded that and will try that out too :)
 
There are loads of Gimp tutorials on the web so it's worth searching them out to get you going. If Gimp will be your 1st Image editing tool then you will become familiar with it easier than if you had already been using Photoshop or Paint shop etc. Gimp is a really good programme and being free makes it even sweeter!!
 
Helicon said:
I didn't realise GIMP was free, so i've also downloaded that and will try that out too :)
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Ive heard a lot of people talking about Gimp but not tried it,the results i've seen look pretty good and i presume it's a bit like photoshop. Didnt realise it was free either....hmmmmm
 
It's not really. Find some starter tutorials on the web and have a go. You will soon get the hang of it.
 
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