To edit or not to edit?

The finished, matted print on the wall is all. The path to it doesn't matter as long as the print says something beside 'I am an example of the [insert technique du jour]."
 
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I've only been using a still camera for a couple years now.
But I've seen this discussion before.
I agree that over editing is a crime, but I don't understand why so many people think it's to be avoided at all costs.
I usually shoot with an idea in mind about how I intend to edit it.

It's important to know how to take a great photo without editing I know.
But once you know how to do that, you can take it even further in post.

As has been said, the computer is the modern dark room.
If you were shooting film, you wouldn't try to avoid having to develop it in a darkroom, right?
 
The term editing for me usually until reading this thread, always meant editing out the 100 to 200 images working down to the one image that has soul or a voice of it's own.

For me very rarely has an image printed straight from a negative or file and pleased me. I used to use the term darkroom work or just printing an image, which always implied painstaking back and forth trips to the enlarger and trays trying to get the print to sing (or at least sing from my perspective at the time). Years later my ideas may have changed in what I wanted to emphasize and so on.

Ansel Adams who many would consider conservative at least in his subject matter said, "The negative is the score and the print is the performance". If I look closely at his prints I find many of them highly interpretive from what was before the camera or how my eye sees. Often he would emphasize certain potential abstract qualities presented to him through much darkroom manipulation. So for me anyway I always like to keep in mind a photograph is a 2 dimensional representation of a 3 dimensional reality at best. Depending on the image maker some photographers prints move different degrees from realistic to highly abstracted depending on their ideas, hopes or aspirations about which they want to present.

I hope this is helpful and not preachy, it is certainly long winded.

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If you are not shooting Jpegs with appropriate in camera adjustment then you are looking at unprocessed photos if you are shooting in raw.
Like looking at a film negative...of course they need to be edited.
 
The nature of a "raw" images does not give you a good photograph because it is just data. They come out really flat every time and you must post process. Now, if you are shooting slide film that may not be necessary. Just remember though crap in crap out... Really, what I do is try and post process the image to reflect what was actually there (what I saw)...that could be different for each photographer though... I tend not to go over the top unless I just want to mess around or do some HDR.
 
As Garbz mentioned: when you take a JPG image, the camera's actually taking a RAW image and then converting it in-camera with boost in contrast, colour, etc.

The only reasons to feel guilty about editing:
- extravagant editing, like putting Obama into a picture of a strip club and sending it off to a newspaper ;)
- editing JPGs
 
As Garbz mentioned: when you take a JPG image, the camera's actually taking a RAW image and then converting it in-camera with boost in contrast, colour, etc.
The etc, includes discarding about 80% of the color data in the image, after spliting the image into 8 pixel by 8 pixel blocks.
 
Always shoot raw.... If you must have jpg(s) then do raw + jpg

With programs like Lightroom you can select all the raw files and have them exported as jpg(s). You get all the data and your jpg too... (is that kinda like having you cake and eating it?..... I think the answer is YES).
 
Always shoot raw.... If you must have jpg(s) then do raw + jpg

With programs like Lightroom you can select all the raw files and have them exported as jpg(s). You get all the data and your jpg too... (is that kinda like having you cake and eating it?..... I think the answer is YES).
Memory card makers love RAW+JPEG shooters. :lol:
 
I only shoot raw but some folks MUST have the jpg(s) at the shutter release... whatever makes'em happy. Just buy a 64 gig card for $700.00... lol....
 
Why feel guilty?

Photographers have been tweaking their images since photography was invented.
Photographers used to (some still do) spend a lot of time in the darkroom.
Now it's the 'digital darkroom'...but many of the tweaks are the same.

Most people didn't realize, but when they took their film to the photo lab and waited for prints...the lab techs (or at least the machines on auto) were making tweaks to the images.

I worked in a lab and I tweaked photos pretty much all the time. People had no idea I saw their pictures. Best was when this woman dropped off "personal" pictures and got all freaked out when she found out us technicians saw them to tweak them :)
 
,,,but I have a bit of guilt when I do it because it's not my raw image.

Read "The Print" by Ansel Adams and get over your quilt.
Doesn't he say 80% of the work on his images was done in the darkroom?

We could nickname him "Mr. Post Processing."
 

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