Re-processing earlier pictures?

ancient_mariner

ancient_mariner

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Toni
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I've been looking back through images that I've processed while still learning to use lightroom and finding myself wanting to re-process the ones that I still like. My eye has developed and I'm less happy with the strong, bright colours that resulted from pushing black & white points to their limits. My use of software has also changed, and I'm using different software to bring out the fine detail without oversharpening.

Does anyone else go back & re-work their personal stuff, or do you simply take the position that the original image is 'how it is' and only look forwards?
 
I don't do it often, but will sometimes. I usually make a virtual copy and re-work that. It can be rewarding imo.
 
I only rarely re-process an image, but over time I find I do have a different view of some older pics. As you say, maybe a tad over saturated, over sharpened, even the POV or crop could have been better.
Aswell as learning in general, I think our tastes/preferences change too.
 
Not only rework old pictures, but find ones that are better than I thought they were - even 30 year old pictures!
 
Sometimes a bit of distance between the taking and the viewing of an image can lead to a new appreciation of it. And your processing skills aren't static.. you get better, your tastes change, fashions change, you buy new processing software or the manufacturer releases improvements.
 
It's difficult to judge a picture when it's fresh. That's why it's a good idea to make prints, just small ones, and stick them on a wall somewhere to let them 'mature'. If you still think they're OK after a few weeks they probably are. If you take them down after a couple of days they probably aren't!
 
I'm glad it's not just me then. :)

Walking back through pictures that were taken a while back I find that I'm more easily able to critique my work than I could at the time, plus my natural interaction with Lightroom is to over-cook colours and tones. It's been very revealing and helpful to reprocess, I think.

Ed Sutton said:
It's difficult to judge a picture when it's fresh. That's why it's a good idea to make prints, just small ones, and stick them on a wall somewhere to let them 'mature'. If you still think they're OK after a few weeks they probably are. If you take them down after a couple of days they probably aren't!
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Good idea! Some of my prints are on the wall in the office common room, and generally my selections have lasted well, but sometimes not so much.
 
I've re-processed a lot of 'older' pictures of late, primarily because I'm not taking as many new ones. But as has been experienced by others, my processing skills are light years head of when I took them and some that I initially dismissed as not having potential now stand out when I look at them with 4 or 5 years separation from when I took them. Combine this with the fact that my way of 'seeing' has changed as well, and the re-processed pictures now only have little in common with their predecessors, other than the same raw file.
There's also the fact that my colour management (and monitor) is far better which has resulted in having to re-process images that were previously way too dark!
 
Definitely, but I must say some stuff from 10 years ago with a Canon 300D still looks pretty good once I got to grips with using RAW.
Lightroom is much better than whatever I used then though and surprising how often a thoughtful crop works wonders.

Something I do notice is the apparent carefree attitude - recording little studies and random shots which resulted from suddenly being free of film and processing costs!
Some of those are among the most interesting to look back on now.
 
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I suspect the problem I'm suffering is Perfect=the enemy of Good Enough. Now that I've seen how much better images can be, I don't want to accept them as they were.
 
Whenever I get a new lens or a new camera which is hopefully capable of better images than its predecessor sooner or later I'll try and retake one of my favourite old shots to see what kind of difference it makes. That always involves having to revisit the processing so that I'm treating both images the same way.

I sometimes find that the biggest difference between the old shot and today's version is the improvement in my processing skills. Sometimes it's the improvement in my shooting skills. And sometimes I find that I was just really lucky with the quality of the light, and I simply can't equal the old photograph, although I'm now a better photographer with better equipment. I'm sometimes surprised to find that my own impression of how I've developed is mistaken.

I find it so interesting and useful when I take the time to do one of these comparative revisiting of an old favourite that I've added doing more of this kind of restrospection to my list of things that I really must do more of when I get some more round tuits. The thing is that pile keeps getting bigger, and I'm getting older & slower.
 
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I do this all the time. It's great to go back to the RAW images months or even years later and finding an image I had initially rejected, or processing one in a different way and creating something completely new.
 
I wish I could!!

As a newbie I used to take the image in RAW and then save one JPG version once edited deleting the originals :(
 
mjScall said:
I wish I could!!

As a newbie I used to take the image in RAW and then save one JPG version once edited deleting the originals :(
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I do that anyway - for me it's about looking forward to new images and challenges - I delete the RAW's on purpose to force me to go out and take new images not re-work old ones - but each to their own...
 
mjScall said:
I wish I could!!

As a newbie I used to take the image in RAW and then save one JPG version once edited deleting the originals :(
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I used to do that too, but now I keep at least 2 copies of every RAW file. Although it does mean accumulating quite a few external hard drives!
 
FinePrintDandy said:
I used to do that too, but now I keep at least 2 copies of every RAW file. Although it does mean accumulating quite a few external hard drives!
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Yep I've gone one extreme to the other, now I've keep all my raw files and any exported jpg on two separate drives at a minimum.

I was thinking of using amazon cloud to back them all up offsite too but bandwidth is a bit restrictive here and my back catalogue is fairly large, might set it running when I next go on holiday :)
 
ancient_mariner said:
I've been looking back through images that I've processed while still learning to use lightroom and finding myself wanting to re-process the ones that I still like. My eye has developed and I'm less happy with the strong, bright colours that resulted from pushing black & white points to their limits. My use of software has also changed, and I'm using different software to bring out the fine detail without oversharpening.

Does anyone else go back & re-work their personal stuff, or do you simply take the position that the original image is 'how it is' and only look forwards?
Click to expand...


Sometimes, yes. Usually after long periods of working on a series of images, I come back the next day and realise I've over processed due to that "creep" effect you get when things seem to be normalised through hours of staring at them. It often pays to take a break, then re-assess what you're doing.

I've never gone back to old work from months or years ago though, no. Once a project is finished, I move on. I've created what I've created, and that's it.
 
I deffo do this.

When I first started shooting raw I used a package called Rawshooter Essentials and I was very happy with it but there's no denying that noise reduction and sharpening and shadow lifting and other things have improved over the years and I have found that it's possible to get better results out of CS5 and I have gone back and reprocessed shots, not all of them :D but a few :D
 
If I have processed a picture reasonably at the time then no.

Agree with woof woof though:

As processing software evolves and improves, I may go back to the RAW of a photo I was not happy with to see if the new software and my limited but slowly improving PP skills can now make a better job of it.

John.
 
D4rr3n said:
I reduced the sharpening on a load of older shots when I got my glasses!
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:LOL: Good one.

I've gone through phases of editing things in certain ways, using the adjustment brush a lot, or Clarity, or whatever. Hopefully like ancient mariner my editing skills have improved. :)

Sometimes I try to work out what I did do in the past, especially if there was a dramatic difference between a processed image, and an unprocessed image when I'm looking through a folder.

Also sometimes if I catch an older image it may no longer 'look right', I may go back and have a . Also as the years have gone on, the software has improved. There was a point, not sure which version of Photoshop, which they improved the Noise Reduction options in Adobe Camera Raw. Whereas before the slider just moved, with little effect, now it was pretty good, which could have a big effect on older noisy images. Adobe also added the Lens Correction option, which can sometimes have a big effect on an image. Again, that can improve some older images where that was not available at the time I originally edited.

I also enjoy editing images. ;)
 
I don't make a regular habit of re-processing older images but I have done it on the odd occasion yes.

If you feel you've more knowledge & experience now or a different editing program then I can understand why people do it.
 
Like others I rarely go back, however I do have images that I flagged as potential but never got the processing right & do sometimes go back & with the better skills in LR, PS & even plugins do go back & get what I saw in the image originally but couldn't get right.
 
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