How much post processing?

[sjluto]

I know its better to get it right "in the camera," but how much do you all rely on post processing? I feel like that is where my pictures come to life. I mean, I can take a good picture and love it straight out of the camera, but rarely do I love it so much that I don't think I can make it better in photoshop. I contribute a lot of this to my lack of ability with knowing how to really use my camera and my confidence in my skills on a computer. But I want to know how much those of you who actually have some experience and training, even own businesses use photoshop for post processing.

Is it really a taboo thing? I'm just aiming at taking great pictures!

 

[Chairman7w]

The correct answer is:

As much as you want.


Really, it's purely subjective and the only one you need to please is you. If others like it, great. If not, that's okay too.

There's a great quote in this month's issue of "Shutterbug" magazine. It is "Photography owes nothing to reality."

I'm fully on-board with that. (with the exception of photo-journalism, which I think should be "as-shot". I make pictures and hope others like them. If they don't, they don't.

 

[Do'Urden's Eyes]

I treat the shots that come out of my camera like negatives. When i expose a scene i try and get as much information as the sensor can get by "exposing to the right" (pushing the histogram as far to the right as possible without blowing any highlights) and for me a lot of magic does happen in PP. Just like photographers used to work their magic in a darkroom with film digital shooters use computers to do the same things. You can buy tonnes of filters and other gadgets to get certain effects that you can recreate now with photoshop and what ever else people use. So out of camera pictures for me are just the beginning.

 

[Dwig]

...
Is it really a taboo thing? ...

Yes and no.

If you are doing documentary work (e.g. photojournalism, ...) anything beyond the very basic exposure and color correction is taboo.

If, on the other hand, your work is purely art then anything goes. The final result is all that counts.

In general, you should avoid doing in post what you can do in camera in order to get the best quality result. You want to capture the image properly without loosing bits and pieces through inaccurate exposure, choose the aperture intellegently to achieve the range of focus thats proper, and of course frame the picture properly to avoid the need to significantly crop in the image in post.

For my own personal work, with is purely art, I rely rather heavily on post processing to create the final image I want.