How much editing do you do?

[eilla05]

I just did a photo shoot with my 3 year old to get some practice with my camera And I can already tell that I had the F-stop set incorrectly as they are overexposed, but I can fix them with editing. My question is how much editing do you typically do to a photo? I got some great shots but like I said overexposed!

Care to post some pictures that you have snapped in unedited format and the post the edited version?

Thanks!

 

[misstwinklytoes]

Sometimes I do a lot of editing, just to get that not straight out of the camera look. Sometimes I do very little other than some contrast and cropping.

 

[er111a]

depends on the day

 

[Rekd]

It's probably a bad idea, but I don't like editing. I put a lot of effort into out-of-the-camera keepers. Doesn't pay off as much as I'd like, but with the new lens I've moved up to 50% keepers for most occasions, where I was well below before it.

 

[JG_Coleman]

My question is how much editing do you typically do to a photo? I got some great shots but like I said overexposed!

Over-exposure is only a problem if you've blown out the highlights in the photo, because those details can never be reclaimed. For instance, there's usually no coming back from an over-exposed, pure white sky.

However, because of the way in which a digital camera records color information, one would ideally record a photograph as brightly as possible without blowing out highlights. This will ensure that a maximum of color information is contained in the image file. Afterwards you can always lower the exposure in post-processing to make it look a bit darker.

In practice, there isn't always time to tinker with exposure to get the brightest image possible without blowing highlights... but, ideally, that is the goal.

Digital cameras can record a greater breadth of color data in the brighter parts of the image... the under-exposed sections record progressively less and less color information the darker they are.

*EDIT - I suppose I should also mention that whenever you're already pushing your shutter to its max speed at a given aperture in order to freeze motion or when you're trying to get crisp results from a hand-held shot, it isn't practical to worry about capturing as bright an image as possible (since more exposure requires longer shutter speeds). It's just that, in situations where it is practical, you're always best off getting the brightest image possible without blown highlights. You can always take brightness away from your image flawlessly... adding brightness to a dark image produces noise artifacts and reveals low-fidelity image quality in the darker shadows.

 

[TheWarmestKid]

depends on the day

If it ends in "y"? :lmao:

 

[oldmacman]

Before I get blasted for my PP, let me just point out a couple things:
1 - I shoot RAW which means the camera isn't processing the image for me. Colours are often dull and contrast is low.
2 - I try to get the histogram to favour the right side to make editing easier. (As JG pointed out)
3 - I shoot with processing in mind. I usually know what I want to do to a picture after it is captured.

Here is an example - Before:

I loved this little station in a beautiful park near where I live. Unfortunately, an urban building can be seen in the background. Instinctively, I shot this portrait style because of that building (mistake). When I posted the portrait version of that image here, others immediately pointed out that there is too much sky. Of course they were right, so I ended up with this final version:

After:

The above example is one of the bigger edits. Most of the time it's just a levels and saturation adjustment. I also shoot with NR off so NR and sharpening need to be done in PP.

 

[eilla05]

Before I get blasted for my PP, let me just point out a couple things:
1 - I shoot RAW which means the camera isn't processing the image for me. Colours are often dull and contrast is low.
2 - I try to get the histogram to favour the right side to make editing easier. (As JG pointed out)
3 - I shoot with processing in mind. I usually know what I want to do to a picture after it is captured.

Here is an example - Before:

I loved this little station in a beautiful park near where I live. Unfortunately, an urban building can be seen in the background. Instinctively, I shot this portrait style because of that building (mistake). When I posted the portrait version of that image here, others immediately pointed out that there is too much sky. Of course they were right, so I ended up with this final version:

After:

The above example is one of the bigger edits. Most of the time it's just a levels and saturation adjustment. I also shoot with NR off so NR and sharpening need to be done in PP.

I am in love with the After! It looks so relaxing

 

[misstwinklytoes]

LOL! I didn't even see the small house in the original! I was like .... WUT?! He shrunk the building? WTH? LOL! Wow, I need to get some sleep...

 

[Derrel]

Very little post processing...usually just a setting of the black point,then a curves adjustment and sharpening/re-sizing adjustments for the desired output.

 

[eilla05]

Okay here is a sample picture I took today totally unedited.....

1.

 

[Scatterbrained]

Normally.......I start with the RAW file in Lightroom or ACR where I will adjust the levels (clarity, contrast, brightness, exposure, vibrancy, saturation etc), fix the WB and add any sharpening and noise reduction that may be needed. Then if there is more work needed (usually for a portrait) I'll open it in PS for any blemishes, wrinkles, skin smoothing etc. I will also do any B&W conversions or lighting effects in PS before saving as a TIFF to send back to LR for a final crop and maybe a vignette if I'm feeling froggy. So, long story short, Lightroom (or ACR) to Photoshop to Lightroom to the final saved Jpeg. It bears noting that I use my camera with all the image settings at 0 and I still find my colors coming out too saturated for my taste.

 

[Derrel]

You over-exposed the shot. I set the black point at 16 in the Red and Green channels, 10 in the Blue channel, and applied a Curves adjustment. Nothing else was done. 15 second adjustment, bye eye. Can yuo see that setting the black point properly creates black shadows in the tree that is in the background at the left? All the colors "pop" when seen against the right level of black. My image would print properly...yours would look weak and washed out because the "blacks" were positioned totally wrong.

 

[Scatterbrained]

Okay here is a sample picture I took today totally unedited.....

1.

just a thought, if you would have moved the chair camera right a few feet you could have used the tree limbs as a natural frame around your subject rather than having them going through his head (assuming that was possible).

 

[oldmacman]

Okay here is a sample picture I took today totally unedited.....

Well the EXIF data shows that the flash fired, it's using jpeg compression, and using portrait mode. Contrast, saturation and sharpness are all set to normal. So the image is processed, just not by you.

I don't mean this is a bad thing, just that we can miss that a camera does a lot of processing for us.