Does anyone here refuse to post process?

ScarySquirrel

ScarySquirrel

ScarySquirrel

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Bit of a random question.

But I'm sure we've all come across people online who think processing their digital images is somehow 'cheating'. I just wondered if we have anyone on these boards who is of this opinion, and why?
 
I'm starting to think a lot more about what i'm shooting to try and avoid as much PP as possible. As i'm only using a 30D I feel I need to tweak my images to make them stand out a little bit though.
 
I haven't done it so far but I will when I pluck up enough courage and effort to try.

I do see lot of pictures on here though and think to myself it's gone too far. It's not even what your eye is seeing why create a picture of something that doesn't look like that in real life.

Just the same with portraits I'm not a fan of pictures of girls that are touched up too much.

Its hard to explain without pulling up example shots I've seen, but I'm not about to openly critise a picture by someone with 500 times the talent :)
 
I always post-process, I like to think I have four forms of PP. The latter being my current project. I shoot RAW with the exception of #3.

1 - Indepth - Used for single or sets of less than 8 images. Everything is perfected in one uniform style. Used for important or small sets of work.

2 - A standardised style. I work with one colur style and one black and white. I have two colour processing techniques but only use one- "vivid and contrasty" or "cinematic, cross processed". Used for sets of 30-100 images.

3 - If delivering a set of images in a few hours is a priority. I shoot jpeg and use colour styles to get the image. I only use lightroom for selection and organzing. This way I reckon I can download sort, mark & make brief adjustments ect in about 45mins for 250 images. I don't like doing this and luckily I don't have to except the one or two times I've worked to a strict deadline. Used for deadlines.

4 - Processing Black and White film. Tricky. Not very good at it yet. But I'm starting to get the hang of it. Used for film cameras!!
 
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I don't like to process beyond what might be achieved by selecting and processing film myself. I don't think it's cheating per se, I just feel I like taking photos, not making art and I see editing photos to produce a effect which wasn't how my eyes saw it as art not photography. Photo's should be factual to me, so I try and make images like that. Nothing against those who're trying to make art, but it's not what I'm aiming to do.

As an example, I like the photos people make of long exposures of flowing water but I don't have an interest in making photos like that myself because it's not something you'd ever see with your eyes.

That's all my personal style, not saying it's right or wrong. Just saying I try and avoid too much processing and why.
 
ScarySquirrel said:
Bit of a random question.

But I'm sure we've all come across people online who think processing their digital images is somehow 'cheating'. I just wondered if we have anyone on these boards who is of this opinion, and why?
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Itryied not to do any Proccessing at all, but after a while I noticed lots of photos looked a little flat/under or over exposed. Now I just do a little proccessing to "fix" them but other than that I do firmly belive in the "shoot right" approach. but I'm still learning.

I don't like it when people over proccess and start to smoth the skin and take things out of photos, like a tree that's in shot. I try to spend a lot of time planing and moving around subject to take the best possible photo with what's at hand.
 
I shoot film that I then scan. The problem is that my scanner seems to get the colours wrong so sometimes they need some adjusting to correct that. Sometimes I'll get a photo disk too as a guide.
Oh and scanning = dust so I have to clone out that.
I've never felt the need to do any more than that. I would use a different film If I wanted a certain look
 
If you're not touching your files at all you're almost certainly not seeing anything in print/screen how you saw it with your eyes. There is a whole industry of colour management dedicated to helping that very process (amongst others), and not touching a single thing in post is not the same thing. Not to mention the wild variety of screen settings, papers, inks, etc.

If we're talking about digital, and you're shooting RAW (which you should be ;)), they are deliberately neutral to capture the maximum amount of information, giving the user the greatest possible amount of leeway in determing the photos feel and tone when developing the RAW file. Just as we chose different films for their colour/tonal properties.

We need to get out of this post processing = impure stigma some people seem to be clinging onto. If anyone here has any experience in colour/b&w darkroom printing they will know how much you can alter the print from the same negative, even on a very basic level (I think a lot of this negativity is born of the digital age).

If people don't like larger manipulations (lots of healing, removing items, composites, etc) then that's of course entirely upto them, a matter of taste. The only problem is sometimes it feels like these comments somehow imply inferiority to these processes, as if they're really easy to do well. Good post-production is as much an art form in itself!
 
I'm an ex slide worker so I normally only pp to correct the deficiencies in the digital medium. I'm used to getting it right in the camera and digital's real advantage for me is the instant review of what I've taken. The digital darkroom interests me as little as the wet one did.
 
Adrianr said:
If people don't like larger manipulations (lots of healing, removing items, composites, etc) then that's of course entirely upto them, a matter of taste. The only problem is sometimes it feels like these comments somehow imply inferiority to these processes, as if they're really easy to do well. Good post-production is as much an art form in itself!
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While that's true I just don't feel it's a photo anymore, it may as well be a CGI render because it doesn't actually exist in reality. Not saying there isn't skill involved but things like cloning big things (small stuff I can live with) out of photos just seems like loosing the integrity of the photo without jumping the gap into the creativity of creating art. IMO obviously.
 
If you're not touching your files at all you're almost certainly not seeing anything in print/screen how you saw it with your eyes. There is a whole industry of colour management dedicated to helping that very process (amongst others), and not touching a single thing in post is not the same thing. Not to mention the wild variety of screen settings, papers, inks, etc.

If we're talking about digital, and you're shooting RAW (which you should be ), they are deliberately neutral to capture the maximum amount of information, giving the user the greatest possible amount of leeway in determing the photos feel and tone when developing the RAW file. Just as we chose different films for their colour/tonal properties.

We need to get out of this post processing = impure stigma some people seem to be clinging onto. If anyone here has any experience in colour/b&w darkroom printing they will know how much you can alter the print from the same negative, even on a very basic level (I think a lot of this negativity is born of the digital age).

If people don't like larger manipulations (lots of healing, removing items, composites, etc) then that's of course entirely upto them, a matter of taste. The only problem is sometimes it feels like these comments somehow imply inferiority to these processes, as if they're really easy to do well. Good post-production is as much an art form in itself!
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totally agree.
 
Post processing does not equal HDR and airbrushed faces.

If you shoot in RAW then you'll see the need to post process, if you shoot in JPEG and think that you'd be cheating by post processing anything then you need to realise and understand what the camera is doing to your image when you hit the shutter button.
 
GeX said:
Post processing does not equal HDR and airbrushed faces.

If you shoot in RAW then you'll see the need to post process, if you shoot in JPEG and think that you'd be cheating by post processing anything then you need to realise and understand what the camera is doing to your image when you hit the shutter button.
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absolutely agree with that.
 
I agree with most of the above and try to process very little. Most of my stuff however is cropped a bit and/or resized. I like quite a few of my photo's to be a piece to remind me how the moment was without changing it too much...
 
I used to be a bit anti PPing (and like a few here I do feel like it is overdone a lot - fake looking models, some HDR/Selective colour etc), however it is a necessary process of taking images imho and even images that have almost been rendered can be brilliant, however it is not photography and shouldn't be classed as such - again just my opinion it's more akin to digital art.

I have since given the Lightroom Beta a whirl and have to say, am thoroughly impressed and in my eyes, some of my bland plain boring pictures have been brought to life so I have been a bit of a convert. But I think it is mainly due to the ease of use and the fact I have taken the plunge and finally given it a go ;) Will be slapping down a few quid when LR3 goes retail, quite enjoyed playing around with pics in the cold evenings - although already starting to over do it :)
 
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