Photo Editing software which one?

[Columbo]

I've never understood why people use such programs. Wouldn't it be better to learn how to use your camera instead?

Do you understand why film photographers used to learn to develop their own film?

Using an editing suite is no different and your intimation that people that use such programs cannot use their camera could not be more wrong.

 

[deuse]

Nothing wrong with tweaking an image, results on the camera don't always match what you intended when you're viewing on a calibrated monitor or printing out.

Pros use it, I think they know how camera works

I don't know any real pros that use apps like this. Two I know have top modelling agency's.

Here are a few reasons... I've had some of these in my head for a long time, as every time I see a lightroom or photoshop ad on facebook there are inevitably several people in the comments raging about how any kind of digital manipulation is the same as killing babies, so they're not all directly targeted at you - I'm aware you haven't said that all manipulation is bad I just want a post I can copy & paste from later.

Putting aside that people consider photography as art and manipulation as part of that art - Even if you are just trying to accurately reproduce a scene, a 2 dimensional image viewed on a display or a print is just one representation of the scene. In many situations it's literally impossible for a camera to give you results that actually reflect what you saw when you took the picture.

Try taking a picture of Nelson's column on a reasonably cloudy day and you will end up with either a well exposed nelson with a totally white sky or a well exposed sky with a totally black nelson. The dynamic range of the real world cannot ever be accurately represented by a 2d displayed or printed image. Using lightroom or photoshop can bring the detail back to both the sky and the clouds by reducing the dynamic range back down to something that can be displayed. Yes, in camera HDR does exist in some cameras but editing software give you real control of the process.

Beyond that, is photography about recreating a scene exactly as it was or as you experienced it?

A lot of people complain about adjusting colours, contrast etc. in software and proclaim the straight-out-of-camera images as some kind of truth. whereas in reality the camera is taking RAW sensor data and applying a few pre-set adjustments to it to produce one, one-size-fits-all interpretation of the scene. By shooting in RAW and adjusting later you can take full control and come up with an interpretation that more accurately reproduces how you saw the world at that moment and how you felt.
Just like how in the days of film, most people left it up to the shop to process their negatives in some catch-all way, while darkroom photographers could tweak their processing for different results, dodge and burn different areas etc.

Editing items out of a shot can be contentious, but looking back on when you were there experiencing the moment, do those telegraph lines really feature in your memory as prominently as they do in your photograph? A 2d image makes these kind of imperfections much more obvious because they're fixed in one place in the image, whereas when moving through the 3d world you're able to mentally filter them out.

Local adjustments can very subtly draw attention to specific features or areas of an image and can't be applied in camera.

Some people spend hundreds of pounds on a variety of graduated ND filters for landscapes, but with modern RAW processing it's cheaper, easier, and above all more flexible to produce the effect in software.

I agree with most you say. But these days people have many options on the camera to take the right picture.
We are not living in the Box Brownie days

Do you understand why film photographers used to learn to develop their own film?

Using an editing suite is no different and your intimation that people that use such programs cannot use their camera could not be more wrong.

Yes I can remember developing and some people cheated then

just my opinion

 

[Columbo]

Yes I can remember developing and some people cheated then

just my opinion

Cheated at who, what and how exactly?

Please explain which particular part of me importing my RAW files into lightroom, applying some adjustments and presets and producing a final image that 99.9% of my paying customers are happy with is 'cheating', I understand you are of course entitled to your opinion its just a very strange view to have.

Lightroom and most other editing suites doesn't allow you to take an underexposed portait of the elephant man and turn it into a perfectly exposed photo of Brad Pitt, photoshop may to a certain extent but anyone that can do that is undoubtedly very talented artist.

I understand that some people still see the horse and carriage as the best form of transportation but I don't think any of them would consider getting in a car as cheating.

 

[deuse]

Cheated at who, what and how exactly?

Please explain which particular part of me importing my RAW files into lightroom, applying some adjustments and presets and producing a final image that 99.9% of my paying customers are happy with is 'cheating', I understand you are of course entitled to your opinion its just a very strange view to have.

Did you tell your paying costumers that the picture you took wasn't up to standard so you used software to put it right?

I think they would be surprised to know. People may as well get tom\dick\harry to take the pictures
then run them through lightroom. They would save a fortune and end up with the same results.

As I said it's my opinion.

 

[Zogger]

Did you tell your paying costumers that the picture you took wasn't up to standard so you used software to put it right?

I think they would be surprised to know. People may as well get tom\dick\harry to take the pictures
then run them through lightroom. They would save a fortune and end up with the same results.

As I said it's my opinion.

Using software to develop a RAW file is not the same as a photo not being up to standard. You can't deliver a RAW file to a customer, and if you have a particular photographic style that relies on adjustments that are not possible in camera, those customers would absolutely not be as happy with any JPEG that could ever be produced by a camera.

 

[Greebo]

Did you tell your paying costumers that the picture you took wasn't up to standard so you used software to put it right?

I think they would be surprised to know. People may as well get tom\dick\harry to take the pictures
then run them through lightroom. They would save a fortune and end up with the same results.

As I said it's my opinion.

Seriously? I mean, wow. You really must be trolling?

On that basis no point paying £1000 for a camera body as an iphone will do just as well...........

 

[Columbo]

Did you tell your paying costumers that the picture you took wasn't up to standard so you used software to put it right?

I think they would be surprised to know. People may as well get tom\dick\harry to take the pictures
then run them through lightroom. They would save a fortune and end up with the same results.

As I said it's my opinion.

This is a public forum and you are entitled to post where ever you like fella but for reference when talking about a subject, it helps to know something about that subject prior to offering up a point of view which regarding photography and image processing you clearly don't.

 

[D.P.]

Here are a few reasons... I've had some of these in my head for a long time, as every time I see a lightroom or photoshop ad on facebook there are inevitably several people in the comments raging about how any kind of digital manipulation is the same as killing babies, so they're not all directly targeted at you - I'm aware you haven't said that all manipulation is bad I just want a post I can copy & paste from later.

Putting aside that people consider photography as art and manipulation as part of that art - Even if you are just trying to accurately reproduce a scene, a 2 dimensional image viewed on a display or a print is just one representation of the scene. In many situations it's literally impossible for a camera to give you results that actually reflect what you saw when you took the picture.

Try taking a picture of Nelson's column on a reasonably cloudy day and you will end up with either a well exposed nelson with a totally white sky or a well exposed sky with a totally black nelson. The dynamic range of the real world cannot ever be accurately represented by a 2d displayed or printed image. Using lightroom or photoshop can bring the detail back to both the sky and the clouds by reducing the dynamic range back down to something that can be displayed. Yes, in camera HDR does exist in some cameras but editing software give you real control of the process.

Beyond that, is photography about recreating a scene exactly as it was or as you experienced it?

A lot of people complain about adjusting colours, contrast etc. in software and proclaim the straight-out-of-camera images as some kind of truth. whereas in reality the camera is taking RAW sensor data and applying a few pre-set adjustments to it to produce one, one-size-fits-all interpretation of the scene. By shooting in RAW and adjusting later you can take full control and come up with an interpretation that more accurately reproduces how you saw the world at that moment and how you felt.
Just like how in the days of film, most people left it up to the shop to process their negatives in some catch-all way, while darkroom photographers could tweak their processing for different results, dodge and burn different areas etc.

Editing items out of a shot can be contentious, but looking back on when you were there experiencing the moment, do those telegraph lines really feature in your memory as prominently as they do in your photograph? A 2d image makes these kind of imperfections much more obvious because they're fixed in one place in the image, whereas when moving through the 3d world you're able to mentally filter them out.

Local adjustments can very subtly draw attention to specific features or areas of an image and can't be applied in camera.

Some people spend hundreds of pounds on a variety of graduated ND filters for landscapes, but with modern RAW processing it's cheaper, easier, and above all more flexible to produce the effect in software.

beyond any of that the arguments against processing images are completely dead since the camera is processing the images to begin with and as a photographer you are manipulating the produced image to a huge extent. if you weren't there would be no need of professional photographers.


As a photographer you choose the lens,/focal length, where to stand, the exposure time, the aperture, the sensor gain etc. that all effect the image. Brightening an image in LR is no different to brightening the image in the camera, and may yield benefits far beyond what can be done while the photo is taken.

The raw data for sensor is not very attractive at all, so somewhere along the line a whole host of processing has to be done form noise removal, color demosaicing, saturation, contrast and tone curves, sharpening to overcome the demosaicing etc. The camera can apply such algorithms to produce jpegs, so can your computer. your computer has a more powerful processor and can use more advantages algorithms that produce better quality.

 

[englishpremier]

I've never understood why people use such programs. Wouldn't it be better to learn how to use your camera instead?

Doesn't that depend on whether you want to just photocopy the world, improve your image or create actual art.

Even in the days of film people would double expose, dodge/burn etc.. to improve their image or create something new.

EDIT: I realise he's trolling. Think he does that in the F1 threads too

 

[asim18]

I've never understood why people use such programs. Wouldn't it be better to learn how to use your camera instead?

Awww bless. You've never seen untouched RAW RGBG sensor data have you? And you also don't have a clue how digital photography works do you?

You do realise photos get edited the second you load them into a program don't you? Even when shooting JPG, photos are processed internally and look nothing like the raw RGBG sensor data.

So yeah good luck trying to learn to get a properly coloured image out of a digital sensor without any processing whatsoever. You must be the best photographer in the history of earth if you can manage that using nothing but light and exposure.

 

[deuse]

Awww bless. You've never seen untouched RAW RGBG sensor data have you? And you also don't have a clue how digital photography works do you?

You do realise photos get edited the second you load them into a program don't you? Even when shooting JPG, photos are processed internally and look nothing like the raw RGBG sensor data.

So yeah good luck trying to learn to get a properly coloured image out of a digital sensor without any processing whatsoever. You must be the best photographer in the history of earth if you can manage that using nothing but light and exposure.

I already have a NIKON D5300 DSLR Camera with 18-55 mm f/3.5-5.6 Zoom Lens a Nikkor 70-300 and a Tamron 150-600 G2.

I'm after another 35mm camera that will use medium format film as I dropped my last one and broke it.

I like doing Street photography(no I don't tell them) in Birmingham and Solihull area.
I either like the picture or I don't. But I would never edit it to make it look better.

Lets agree to disagree and end it there.

 

[Marlie]

I ended up cancelling my X100f order yesterday and picked up a lightly used 6d with Sigma 35mm 1.4 Art for the same price of the Fuji.

 

[Columbo]

I ended up cancelling my X100f order yesterday and picked up a lightly used 6d with Sigma 35mm 1.4 Art for the same price of the Fuji.

Awesome combo, that 35mm f1.4 us one of the greatest lenses ever made imo.

 

[Zaf]

I ended up cancelling my X100f order yesterday and picked up a lightly used 6d with Sigma 35mm 1.4 Art for the same price of the Fuji.

Can I ask what changed your mind as both cameras are aimed at complete different use cases?

 

[D.P.]

If you don
'r process the images then your photos look like the left hand side of this:
http://s3.amazonaws.com/wordpresssync/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/19195703/raw-log-rec709.jpg


Each pixel is either red, or green or blue, there is no other colors and no combinations. Worse still each column will be 1 of three colors.

Even after the color processing the "raw" image data will look something like this:
http://s3.amazonaws.com/wordpresssync/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/19195442/avid-no-lut.png


Except with more noise, hot pixels, dead pixels etc.


Things would be pretty horrific if cameras didn't process images. You have to apply contrast, sharpening and color saturation adjustments, there are no iffs or buts about it. Same thing if you use film., you control contrast, colors, tones etc. through choices in films and, wait for it, processing.

 

[niko]

I already have a NIKON D5300 DSLR Camera with 18-55 mm f/3.5-5.6 Zoom Lens a Nikkor 70-300 and a Tamron 150-600 G2.

I'm after another 35mm camera that will use medium format film as I dropped my last one and broke it.

I like doing Street photography(no I don't tell them) in Birmingham and Solihull area.
I either like the picture or I don't. But I would never edit it to make it look better.

Lets agree to disagree and end it there.

you might have trouble getting medium format film to fit in a 35mm body

 

[Raymond Lin]

How does a medium format film fit in a 35mm body?

 

[Columbo]

How does a medium format film fit in a 35mm body?

LMAO missed that post.....

 

[Marlie]

Can I ask what changed your mind as both cameras are aimed at complete different use cases?

Yes big change of mind, but I wanted the interchangeable camera in the end and not get stuck with a fixed 35mm plus ive heard great things about the sigma 35mm. Also I got a really good deal on my 6d, light used on 7k shutter count and like brand new for £750.

 

[Greebo]

you might have trouble getting medium format film to fit in a 35mm body

Deuse called out on being wrong again?