Photography without Photoshop

[matfoster]

maybe you had it set on moorhen (?). the icons are quite similar on the 3000.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

@kkamin, There is nothing wrong with anybody taking up photography as a hobby. I didn't mean to imply that. I just relate it too how C&C is taken and given, as an observation.

I have a few hobbies myself. Glass blowing, Ceramics, Kite design and building, Painting (oil), Wood: carving and constructed sculpture, and a few others. The thing is that they are all related to art.

 

[chameloeonv8]

My philosophy is to take the best picture you can, and not rely on programs like photoshop to fix your pictures because you couldn't get the best shot. I do believe though, that for certain photo's (ie wedding pics, or other formal events) people like some photo editing to the pictures.
I myself have photoshop cs4 and i try to keep my photo editing to a minimum. I always feel more proud of my work when I know the shot is amazing because of the way it was taken, not because of how talented I am at photo editing.
That's just the way i see photography.

 

[NateWagner]

The argument isn't that the shot would be amazing because of the PP work, it's that the combination of the two produced an amazing result. The photograph is good, maybe even great, and the processing kicks it up the extra notch.

It's kind of like the presentation in cooking. You make something that tastes great on it's own, but if you take that extra step and present it nicely it can look and taste even better.

 

[mrmacedonian]

Quick Clarification:

Are people considering all PP as "photoshop-ing"? I mean when I open up the RAW in adobe's Camera RAW 5.6 or Lightroom and manage the settings such as White Balance, Brightness, Contrast, Clarity, Saturation, etc.. are you saying affecting those settings at all is considered Photoshop-ing and is considered weaknesses in the photographer's skill? As far as those two programs are concerned they do not bring over any photo information with the .raw so its essential to set them.

I see the threat entitled "Photography without Photoshop" and then people refer to PP, which I've always taken as Post Processing. I may be wrong but I don't consider Post Processing synonymous with Photoshop, which I associate with edits such as removing parts of the photograph entirely (commonly via Clone Utility, etc.)

I just want to clarify this because I see both terms being thrown into a discussion interchangeably while I don't feel they are

 

[LagunaLab]

My personal preference is to stick to cropping and maybe a slight bit of exposure compensation in PP. I use iPhoto btw.

 

[kkamin]

Photoshop is post processing. What do you think it is, preproduction? The OP is referring to the type of PP done in raw editors and in PS. The two types of programs share many of the same capabilities but are just executed differently.

 

[NateWagner]

Quick Clarification:

Are people considering all PP as "photoshop-ing"? I mean when I open up the RAW in adobe's Camera RAW 5.6 or Lightroom and manage the settings such as White Balance, Brightness, Contrast, Clarity, Saturation, etc.. are you saying affecting those settings at all is considered Photoshop-ing and is considered weaknesses in the photographer's skill? As far as those two programs are concerned they do not bring over any photo information with the .raw so its essential to set them.

I see the threat entitled "Photography without Photoshop" and then people refer to PP, which I've always taken as Post Processing. I may be wrong but I don't consider Post Processing synonymous with Photoshop, which I associate with edits such as removing parts of the photograph entirely (commonly via Clone Utility, etc.)

I just want to clarify this because I see both terms being thrown into a discussion interchangeably while I don't feel they are

Yes, PP does mean Post Processing.

Photoshop is a form of Post processing (thus, anytime you refer to photoshop you are inherently referring to post processing). However, as you stated PP does not necessarily mean PS.

That being said, many times PS is used for PP in other areas, such as burn/dodge and sharpening (still done much better in PS than in lightroom etc.).

Photoshop is often to PP, what google is to websearch. There are different programs and methods to both, but PS, and google are the most well known of their fields.

 

[nemopaice]

One other side note, I find it interesting that I have yet to hear a photographer who is serious about his work, and has been at this for a while (pretty much anything other than a newbie to photography) make the suggestion against Post Processing.

The people that say "I just want to capture it like it is, all natural" or some such variant are almost always people who are relatively new to photography.

Yea, I'm no professional, but I have been shooting off and on for more than two decades. I have a couple friends that have been shooting professionally for twice as long. So I can just share my views on it and what they have said to me in the past.

The best photographers in the world will do some sort of post work. You can spend all the time in the world on a shot and make it perfect, and still something may go wrong. The perfect frame, the one the client is sure to take, may have a spot in it from dust, a fly, gnat, anything. Maybe the spot is over the face of someone? you never know. Are you going to call up the model, or agency, or what have you, and say, "sorry, I got the shot, but there is a tiny problem. I know it will cost more money, but we need to get him/her back in to reshoot."? That would be career suicide.

My point is that you never know what will happen regardless of the steps you take to insure nothing will. If you are a professional and your entire livelihood is dependent on your work, it has to be spot on. Even if you are relatively new and want to pursue a career in photography, you will need to build a good reputation and want to have not just good, but great shots. It doesn't matter how good you are, nobody is perfect. You need some type of way to do post processing.

I read the thread and agree that some people to push the envelope when it comes to PP, but that doesn't make it a bad thing, because there is a demand for those types of images. But PP can also be as simple as basic WB correction, or blemish removal (most widely used by pros working in the entertainment and magazine industry), etc. etc.

I would like to say that the only ones not needing to do any PP is photojournalists, but I can't even say that. One might take a great shot, but because he maybe saw it at the last second and had to hurry to catch the shot, got more in the image than he needed to. He may crop the image.

People who do landscapes and or macro, would probably need to do the least amount of post work, but a couple of long time pros I have had the pleasure of talking with at one point or another admit to doing a small amount of post work, albeit just color saturation or vibrance, crop, etc.

I remember one of the most popular images taken at war time was a black and white picture with a little girl standing in a red dress. I can't remember who took it or the title of the image, maybe someone here will know, but that picture would not have been without post processing. And it touched the hearts of many.

Having been so long winded and saying all this, you don't need much. Picasa, Gimp, Cinepaint, iPhoto, are all great for minor adjustments. Unless you need to do some detailed involved PP, things like PS CS4, etc. aren't needed. Some people get things like CS4 that never will use any function that they couldn't use in Gimp or Picasa. It's like people that spend $2,000+ on a camera and a few more thousand on a lens or two, but don't bother switching out there camera strap that says NIKON D(whatever), or Canon 1D mark (whatever). Knowing how uncomfortable they are, they just like the status of showing people they have it.

I'd say don't get into software like that unless you have a genuine need for it. But as far as a need for some type of PP, from the professional photographers I know and the ones I read about, they do it.

 

[ChasK]

Hi everyone,

Just looking for some opinions on this...I'm not sure exactly what I think about it, so I'm interested in your thoughts.

It seems like almost everyone on here has some type of photo editing software (Photoshop, etc.) and relies on it to make their images "pop" or fix problems. Those editing programs can also do some fun stuff that a camera simply cannot (effects like making the photo look like an oil painting, pencil sketch, etc.). I like seeing the fun effects and I think that kind of takes photography into another art form. I love seeing how dull photos can be made bright and exciting, too.

My question is, as a photographer, do you think it is necessary to use these programs to get a great looking photograph or are you wanting to improve your skills enough to not need to use it anymore? I'm not talking about all the crazy effects you can do; I just mean things like fixing the sharpness, making an underexposed photo look brighter, or editing out distracting elements.

I don't have any of the fancy editing software myself and I'm wondering if it's something I should be saving up for if I really intend to churn out great looking pictures. I look at photographs from famous phtographers before computers got involved and they look pretty good to me!

Curious as to your thoughts on this

~Meredith

Having followed this thread for about a week, and getting sucked into the argument (like everyone else) I though it might be nice to answer your questions.

Fancy editing software is something you should be saving up for. I would buy Lightroom and Photoshop. That's about a thousand dollars depending where you buy etc.. . If you can't get both get Photoshop. But don't get lazy. You should never ever say "I can fix that in Photoshop." While it is usually true it will make you lazy. Photoshop is best used for enhancing photographs and the occasional fix. Every single photographer in history enhanced their photographs. So don't get caught up in that phony "purist" argument. That just someone who is either too broke to buy or too lazy to learn the software. Because if they could, they would. With maybe a few exceptions.

Here's how I use Photoshop.
step 1 batch rename with a 4 letter description
step 2 batch crop for proofs, this also adds copyright info
step 3 tweak color and retouch purchased prints.

It's all really simple stuff, but none of my customers want the pimples, wrinkles, or age spots, no matter how natural or realistic they are. Sometimes I also do a little color enhancement on the eyes, and take off a stray hair or two. I do some skin smoothing but not too much, I really don't like the fake skin look you see so much of. I also do a lot of compositing, putting two or more photographs together, in Photoshop.

I also do oil paintings with Corel Photo Paint and pencil sketches in Photoshop. I use Lumapix for School Yearbooks, Memory Books and Wedding Albums. And I still use an old copy of Corel Draw for some vector based work now and then.

Do I think it necessary to use these programs? Absolutely, PP or post processing is necessary to achieve the results I want. Even at the highest res. and perfect exposure the files look a little fuzzy and muddy, if nothing else just a little sharpening does wonders. Plus from a professional point of view I have to offer my customers something they can't buy anywhere else, or do themselves. I they can do it by their self, they don't need me. If it's the same stuff they can by anywhere then it becomes a bidding war so who ever is willing to work for nothing usually wins. But most importantly it's necessary to produce the results I want that cannot be done in the camera alone.

I'm about to add Lightroom to my workflow as with the newer version I can see some benefit for my proofing and backup steps.

 

[kkamin]

I think a lot of people might be unaware of how "unfinished" an image can be coming out of the camera. I really think, almost anyone's images of people coming out of a high-resolution D-SLR look like a$$. The D-SLR sensor is very unforgiving compared to the soft, organic quality of film emulsion. Digital sensors reveals every little skin blemish like it was the Grand Canyon. Images usually lack proper color balance, exposure, contrast and saturation coming out of the camera too. You don't really notice until you fix it. Then you say, "Holy crap, my photo did look like $hit!"

Take a look at Amy Dresser's retouching portfolio. All the images she is retouching are shot by commercial professionals. If you hover over some of the images you can see the 'before' and 'after' (this starts at the third image down). The most striking thing to me is how "unfinished" the images look before PP. And these are shoots where there are art directors, hair stylists, make-up artist, photo assistants, etc.

AMY DRESSER || PORTFOLIO

You want images to be about the subject, not about glaring distrations within a photo.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

Fantastic link, kkamin!

 

[Mendoza]

My question is, as a photographer, do you think it is necessary to use these programs to get a great looking photograph or are you wanting to improve your skills enough to not need to use it anymore?

It's a great question.
In the 5+ years I've been using Photoshop for post-processing, I've also developed the bad habit of sometimes taking shots and thinking: "Well it's not going to turn out, but I'll fix it later." This is one area where the ease of digital turns into a liability. I'm paying less attention to the subject and the shot if I'm allowing too much room for error. It's a bit like taking more shots of a subject than you could ultimately want or need, just because you can. With film the limited length of a roll meant one was a bit more selective before depressing the shutter.
The obvious remedy is to try and get everything perfect from the beginning, but even a perfectly captured image can be fine-tuned afterward. The goal in my mind is to limit, as much as possible, the amount of post-processing and refinement necessary to satisfy the intentions of the photographer.

 

[ChasK]

The obvious remedy is to try and get everything perfect from the beginning, but even a perfectly captured image can be fine-tuned afterward. The goal in my mind is to limit, as much as possible, the amount of post-processing and refinement necessary to satisfy the intentions of the photographer.

Very well said!

 

[mrmacedonian]

Photoshop is post processing. What do you think it is, preproduction?

Haha, I suppose I need to clarify my request for clarification? fail andrej..

I didn't mean Photoshop isn't Post Processing, I simple consider them levels or degrees in a Post Processing flow. What I mean: Anyone taking a photo and opening up the RAW needs to adjust certain settings, considering -- at least with canon + camera raw 5.6 -- doesn't import the settings used to make the JPEG (if you shoot RAW +JPEG, as I do). I look at the JPEG and the RAW and they sometimes look nothing alike. THIS is the Post Processing I think every photo needs. Calibration of these settings I do not consider Photoshop-ing and equate it to being in the dark room staring at a negative being projected onto a white piece of paper you are adjusting to produce a photograph.

From here you get into what I believe falls in the scope of Photoshop-ing. Adjustments such as dodging, burning, cloning, patching, even HDR and the Layers overlays such as the one in Dominantly's thread (which i'm now obsessed with doing to my blown-out skys).

So I suppose I think of Post-Processing to have two levels, RAW Processing and Photoshop-ing. So when I said I see the terms used interchangeably I was unclear in that I was referring to Photoshop-ing was being used to talk about RAW Processing*. I do not think that Photoshop-ing should be used as a crutch to improve photos. I was just concerned people around talking about how they never PP aren't talking about not processing their RAW files. Thats why I was trying to bring to the attention of individuals that the thread is speaking of Photoshop in the latter sense.

*While I do understand that the Camera Raw 5.6 plugin functions through Photoshop, it is mutually exclusive. i.e. You can not use filters, layer, tools, etc in the RAW editor, simple calibrate the RAW and export it to Photoshop.. thus progressing from the RAW Processing level to the Photoshop-ing level.

Hopefully that clarifies what I meant..