About Post-Processing

genital_apparatus

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I'd like some advice on post-processing. I'm new to photography. When I go out and shoot I do it mostly to learn, about how to use the exposure triangle and about which lens works best for what shot. I end up taking maybe a dozen (or more) shots of the same thing using different exposure values and different lenses.

Usually when I return to my laptop to go through my results and finalize my images I end up having to bring up the saturation and the contrast a little bit, and sometimes I also need to bring down the brightness a touch. Only then do I end up with images that I'm totally satisfied with, images that I feel I can show to the world. I'm almost always satisfied with what I get, I find there's never a dull moment in photography.

But I feel like I'm cheating. Should most of this "post-processing" stuff, like contrast and saturation, be taken care of before the shot is taken? Or is it normal to have to do this with basically every image taken?
 
But I feel like I'm cheating. Should most of this "post-processing" stuff, like contrast and saturation, be taken care of before the shot is taken? Or is it normal to have to do this with basically every image taken?

You're not. Step into a darkroom; you'll still have to make test prints, check and adjust colour balance, dodge and burn to even exposure. No image, straight from the camera is ever as good as it can be. That said, if you find that you're always adjusting the same things by the same amount, you can probably change your in-camera settings to apply the desired lievel of sharpening, saturation, etc directly and reduce your post-processing.

The goal of every photographer should be to get as much right in the camera as possible, but you can never get it all right. In short: What you're doing is normal.
 
You're almost always going to have to do some PP, how much depends.

I don't know why "this is straight from the camera" is something to brag about...
Yeah - try to get it right as much as possible in the camera, but there's always going to be something that needs a little tweaking.

I don't even know how you would go about getting the saturation how you want it before the shot is taken. I never went to school for this though, so maybe there is a way. Moving a couple sliders around works good enough for me though.

If you're shooting RAW you pretty much have to do some PP.
 
Hey all, thanks a lot for the advice. I've only been working at photography for about a week now. Out of all the time I've spent working on building my skills I'd say about half of it has been spent reading books and the other half has been shopping around for stuff to shoot at. I just wanted to be sure that I wasn't missing something. :blushing:
 
Genital, that was an excellent question IMHO.
Craig.;)
 
i dont think its cheating at all, because it's VERY hard to make a crappy shot look decent. A good photo lends itself well to editing...it's a LOT easier. You want to learn to take better pictures, becauseyou want to do as little work with it as possible, and because the better the imaage, the greater your options in post.

It's a tool, just like anything else...a tool to make a good picture better...
 

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