post-processing rant

Face it. Post-processing is a part of everyday life. If you salt your food you’re post-processing. If you put your clothes in the dryer after you wash them, you’re post-processing. If you use toilet paper, you’re post-processing.

All the color negative film you ever shot was post-processed. It was converted to a positive print, almost all pictures were cropped, even 4x6’s, colors were adjusted, the lab either focused on the grain or did not, intentionally. Most pros spent (or paid others to spend) more time in the darkroom than was used to take the pictures.

Photography is an art form -- all about quality. Why, in the digital age, do we have a mentality that says post-processing shouldn’t be necessary? Doesn’t a “good” camera produce perfect pictures right out of the camera? Isn’t post-processing evil or, at least, cheating? I’ve even seen people imply that pro cameras need pp and amateur cameras don’t -- or is it vice-versa? If you post an edited image, somehow you’re not showing what the camera can really do.

Let’s simplify it this way. People who post-process their pictures are involved in photography. Those who don’t are just snapping pictures. Both have their place, but let’s keep the distinction.

Okay, have at me.

Darrell

90% of people bitching about post processing are fixing problems with their file that SHOULD have been delt with beforehand.

--
2oo4 STi TD06 20g

Post processing is not evil, just the way some do it. Most people do not realize the amount of adjusting that happens to film prints. It is a lot and usually much more than what happens to digital photos. For me, post processing is usually quite minimal. Sometimes a little cropping or tweaking of levels. Rarely do I add additional sharpness.

The issues arise when there is too much sharpenning, color or contrast added. However, this is what the photo artist wants. We may not like it but it is not our photo.

Darrell Spreen said:

Why, in the digital age, do we have a mentality that says
post-processing shouldn’t be necessary?

Click to expand...

One reason, I think, is because a lot of people could not post-process the film they shot.

There were people such as me who shot transparency film. Shoot it, send it off to be processed and mounted, live with it.

There were others who shot print film and weren't willing to operate a color darkroom. Very few of them were even willing to spend the money for professional lab printing. Again, shoot it, ..., live with it.

Because of those limitations there was a lot of (necessary) emphasis on getting it right in the camera. (As there should be.) But I think it because a badge of honor that you could produce a good image or two from a roll. Or perhaps a self-imposed set of sackcloth underwear that one donned by forcing them selves to live with their "close miss" failures.

And out of all that rose a cult of "Good photographers don't need to fix their pictures."

I doubt that you'd find the same attitude among those who shot and printed B&W film.

--
bob

The Blind Pig Guild - A Photography Club for Travelers
http://www.jeber.com/Clubs/Blind-Pig/

Member said:

I doubt that you'd find the same attitude among those who shot and
printed B&W film.

Click to expand...

or printed their transparencies. the contrast of the printing materials for slides had such a high contrast, that without masking (a pretty timeconsuming and exacting procedure), you ended up with blown highlights or blocked shadows. getting a print done that matched the quality of the slide took either a pro shop (where the masking was probably done without the photographer knowing), or you printed and processed them yourself (Jobo processing was the norm here ).

Once lightjets and scanning arrived, then slide printing became a lot easier, since the slide was scanned before printing (which allowed both contrast and color masking within the computer).

jim

I think I know a lot of people over at an audio forum who would love to strangle you for what you just said :]

....and if those folks would think about it....everyone "Pre-processes"! By that I mean...you form your composition, make your settings, decide your angle of shot, etc. etc. If 'post-processing' is wrong to them, what about their 'pre-processing'?

I love post-processing...and I had never done anything like it before digital.

Viva Post-Processing!
--
Lucy
U ZI owner!
Olympus C30-20Z
http://www.pbase.com/lucy
FCAS Member #98
'Photography is the art of seeing what others do not.'

nt=no text
--
One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble
One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble
I can feel an angel sliding up to me

Yes--it's posterior post-processing.

Bart

My opinion on this is what do you want your photos to portray?

Do people consider master painters like Edvard Munich or Van Gogh impostors and less talented artists because their photos are surreal and abstract and they use bold, vibrant colours and shapes to tell a story compared to an impressionist who tries to capture an exact replica?

I like to shoot pictures and post process the hell out of them to acheive the art that I want. I strategically think about my shots before I shoot them and how I like them to look. I know about rules of thirds and composition. I've taken 3 years of graphic design at the college level. My day job is creative director.

I could careless what people think about my shots to be honest. Of course it's great to hear positive feedback but if everybody that saw my shots told me they sucked, the end result is what matters. Am I happy with it? And my answer is yes.

It's my hobby and I love post processing. I love trying to acheive what is in my head.

I'm more then capable of acheiving a nice photo without post processing as well. I have many of them.

I think you will find 2 people in this life. People that tell you post processing sucks because they can't do it well or don't have the insight to acheive what they want or people that respect art and say, cool. That is great. And most likely they either appreciate art for what it is, or are confident in their skills as a photographer to appreciate a different style.

I don't much like bird photography but I certainly can tell a great bird shot when I see one and I'll give kudos when it's due. Doesn't mean that I don't think they are great photographers just because I don't like the style of photography.

I strive to be an artist first.

So always strive for what makes you happy. Do the best you can and try to push the envelope a little further each time whether you choose to post process or not. In the end you want your photos to give the viewer some emotion and to remember your work.

How you do that is up to you. But if you have acheived that you've done your job. Even if that emotion only comes from you.

--
Check out my photo gallery !!

http://www.edgeflowmedia.com/gallery

Very original and beautifully constructed. While
everything loaded quickly, I couldn't get past the
initial image when I made other selections. It
could be that things are just bogged down tonight.

regards,
Darrell

Ansel Adams used to put it in music terms, saying the negative is the score, the print is the performance. The guru of camera craft would make the best negative he possibly could, then spend hours or daysmaking a print from it. I'm with him. To my mind, "get it right in the camera" means getting the quality raw material I need to create the finished product, either in the darkroom or at the computer.

But sometimes, for family snapshots or routine jobs, it would be nice to have software that would do for a digital file what a good minilab can do for a film negative -- just plug in the card and wait for the prints to pop out, almost all of them with decent exposure and color correction.

--
J.R.

Somewhere south
of Amarillo

Joe0Bloggs said:

I think I know a lot of people over at an audio forum who would
love to strangle you for what you just said :]

Click to expand...

Yeah. I have several direct-to-disc black vinyl LP's that
claim to have no post-processing and I'm convinced they're
better than the best CD's in my collection. Probably it's a
fair analogy to say that post-processing will introduce
distortions. Sometimes they're helpful and sometimes
they're not.

D

Hmm. Working fine here. It could just be slow tonight. Thanks for the comments but I cannot take credit for the gallery. It's a free download. The link is on the site, bottom right.

Easy to set up and easy to update.
Thanks again for the compliment.

--
Check out my photo gallery !!

http://www.edgeflowmedia.com/gallery

Darrell Spreen said:

Face it. Post-processing is a part of everyday life. If you salt
your food you’re post-processing. If you put your clothes in the
dryer after you wash them, you’re post-processing. If you use
toilet paper, you’re post-processing.

Click to expand...

Some people "DON'T" salt their food, and MANY people HATE doing laundry, I'll leave the toilet paper analogy where it belongs, in the toilet!

Member said:

Photography is an art form -- all about quality. Why, in the
digital age, do we have a mentality that says post-processing
shouldn’t be necessary?

Click to expand...

Photography (for you and many others) may be about quality, but for many 100, 000's if not millions of other consumers, its simply about capturing a moment, birthdays, graduation, a sleeping child, water fights in the back yard, places and people we visit. Thats not "ART" its just photography, sorry to disappoint you.

Member said:

Let’s simplify it this way. People who post-process their pictures
are involved in photography. Those who don’t are just snapping
pictures. Both have their place, but let’s keep the distinction.

Click to expand...

OK, so you don't consider yourself a picture snapper, whupty do!!

You seem have many of us confused with people who care!

Plenty of snapshooters ask me to replace… an ex with a lover, or remove a shadow on the wall, or laugh their bottoms off when they see a kitten pointing a gun at a dog…

It's not that they don't care about post processing, but (most of the times) they can't do it themselves.

Darrell Spreen said:

Why, in the
digital age, do we have a mentality that says post-processing

shouldn’t be necessary? Doesn’t a “good” camera produce perfect
pictures right out of the camera? Isn’t post-processing evil or,
at least, cheating? . . . People who post-process their pictures
are involved in photography. Those who don’t are just snapping
pictures. Both have their place, but let’s keep the distinction.

Okay, have at me.

Click to expand...

I wouldn't call post-processing evil, or even cheating, but I definitely have a mentality that says it shouldn't be necessary; furthermore, as BobTrips pointed out, it's not just the digital age. Here's an interesting tidbit from the introduction to Samuel Grierson's book "Outdoor Photography" (printed in 1940) in which he reverses your point about picture snappers, arguing that it's the time and skill put in to exposing the image (i.e., the level of "involvement" in taking the picture) that can reduce or eliminate the need for certain post-processing steps later.

"There are two methods of procedure open to the outdoor photographer. He may take his camera and a quantity of film, exposing right and left at everything he sees, giving slight heed to composition and forgetting to exclude undesired objects. When he returns to his darkroom and develops his negatives, he picks out those that have some possibilities, makes an enlarged negative, and goes to work on this negative with his shoe blacking and other media, putting in this and taking out that. When he finally makes his prints he may have fine pictures--but this is the hard way.

How much better and easier it is to spend the time out in the field that one would use crouching over the retouching easel! The time spent in careful study of the subject saves trouble and drudgery later. Careful composing on the spot also saves a lot of photographic material and teaches the photographer the very important habit of being observant.

Pictures produced by the second method always impress people with their feeling of naturalness. They are less artificial, and pictures should not apear artificial. Photography is an art form in itself, and a photograph should be admired and loved for what it is, not for what has been added to it after exposure."

Part of my bias against post-processing may also be due to having shot mostly slides for several decades. Ever since I saw my first projected slide (huge, bright, colorful), prints simply held no fascination for me. I learned to like the time and discipline needed in the field (since I wouldn't be altering the mounted Kodachromes after they arrived) to get a good composition, properly exposed, working within the contrast range of my chosen media, and free of extraneous and distracting elements. Like Mr. Grierson, I would much rather spend the time I can devote to photography out taking pictures instead of crouching over the retouching easel, or computer screen, and I don't think that makes me any less involved in the hobby.

My favorite digital camera is a Sony Mavica using floppy disks. I spend the time to take the best pictures I can out in the field, and they are recorded directly to floppies which are ready to use in a floppy-based tv photo viewer upon returning home--no computers required, no post-processing, just big, bright, colorful pictures on my television screen that render the beauty I saw outdoors in a reasonably accurate, natural way.

JR_Sprawls said:

Ansel Adams used to put it in music terms, saying the negative is
the score, the print is the performance. The guru of camera craft
would make the best negative he possibly could, then spend hours or
daysmaking a print from it. I'm with him. To my mind, "get it right
in the camera" means getting the quality raw material I need to
create the finished product, either in the darkroom or at the
computer.

Click to expand...

I think you, Darrel and I have the same idea. I have seen his work and it is good.

I like taking available light photos and sometimes you need to lighten shadows by a couple percent to better see the peoples' faces. Sometimes you need to clone out the powerlines that cross in front of that beautiful art deco building. Crop or clone out the guy who began to step into the photo. PP should be minor tweaking. If you need to add a lot of contrast and sharpness, something is going wrong earlier.

JR_Sprawls said:

But sometimes, for family snapshots or routine jobs, it would be
nice to have software that would do for a digital file what a good
minilab can do for a film negative -- just plug in the card and
wait for the prints to pop out, almost all of them with decent
exposure and color correction.

--

Click to expand...

The photo software that comes with cameras will do this. I find they make as many mistakes as doing things right. They get fooled by large light or dark areas and large areas of the same color. I start with a good original, tweak in PP. If I want them printed, I take it to the lab and hand the CD to the clerk. If you use a kiosk, the photos go through the minilab correcting process. They always redo WB and exposure, messing it up most of the time.

JR_Sprawls said:

J.R.

Somewhere south
of Amarillo

Click to expand...

That's probably why I enjoy it so much.

I'll probably wind-up here:

The reason a direct to disc recording is so good is that there are a number of steps removed that cause a loss to audio quality. With a digital photo, you can process it without loss. That is one of the joys of digital. The copy is the same as the original, plus or minus your changes.