I'm curious...

[meyecam]

And this could be a broad question, but how much editing do you normally do for your photos? Do you tend to stick to the basic "corrections" for your purposes or do you tend to get really creative? Or does it all just depend on what you shot?

 

[Torus34]

Depends on what I'm trying to say in the final picture. I have it pretty well in mind when I snap the shutter [otherwise, why snap?]

I will normally crop slightly [I purposely frame a tad 'large'.] I might change contrast and hold back or burn in one or more sections. In rare instances I'll contrtol the sharpness of the image or tone the print.

 

[Dwig]

Everyone's approach to art is different; they think differently and "see" differently".

I pretty much have the image in mind before I take the picture. I'm an old school photographer and quite skilled in my craft with decades of following the zen of the Zone System. As a result, I do little "creative" creation in post processing.

This isn't to say that I do little in post. In fact, most of my images require a lot of time in Photoshop to "finish". Much as I would dodge, burn-in, adjust overal density and contrast in the darkroom, I do the equivalent in PS. I also do geometric corrections (perspective & rectilinear distortion correction) that I either did with my old viewer camera when shooting, in the case of perspective correction, or wasn't needed in the case of rectilinear distortion correction (my premium old fixed focal length lenses, with perhaps one exception, didn't produce either barrel or pincushion distortion to any detectable degree).

I also do some manipulation that I rarely undertook in my old film days. I will remove "flaws" such as too many dead leaves on a porch, a stray power line between some trees, ... . Things that were too difficult to retouch the classic way.

In a few cases, I will do some global or localized softfocus-like effects. These rarely fit my "artistic eye", but there are the occasional images where they work.

 

[dcclark]

As Dwig rightly said -- we're all different! For example, I apply at least basic editing techniques to almost all of my photos -- levels/curves, unsharp mask, some cropping, etc.

As far as serious retouching, however, it's highly variable. I nearly always clone out dust spots, but I doubt that anyone has a problem with that. On the other hand, I believe that some retouching is typically required to make a photo look "natural" (if that's my goal) -- cameras just don't see the same way as human eyes do, so I often apply often some dodging, burning, and other forms of trickery to manipulate your vision.

You'll find a nearly infinite range of opinions on this topic, and these are just mine. The only particular advice I will give you is -- other than photojournalists -- be very wary of anyone who tells you that retouching is bad and some sort of affront to art! (Photojournalists have a specific set of ethical obligations -- this is not what I'm talking about.) There are those who seem to believe that camera output is holy and untouchable. While they are welcome to do that in their own work, you should always do what's best for you.

 

[~Stella~]

It completely depends on whether the image matches the one I had in my head when I took it, whether further processing could enhance the photo, and my purpose in taking the photo to begin with.

 

[abraxas]

Whatever it takes within the feathered boundaries of my ethics.

 

[JerryPH]

Me it depends from picture to picture. If what I am doing is a tryptich, then I could spend half a day on that one photo alone, if what I am doing is basic colour correction, white balance , sharpness and saturation/contrast, 10 seconds per picture is all I need, if that.

 

[lopezmariel]

contrast and brightness will be enough for me. sometimes editing too much may ruin its beauty.

 

[JayPhotography]

I believe that as long as you get a convincing finished product, the means to achieve it are out of discussion.

After all, with photography you're "selling" an image, not a procedure.

Having said this, i tend to do some minour touch-up, like levels, contrasts and such. In specific cases like selective color or HDR and the sort, you obviously need some more playing around.

 

[mrodgers]

I crop, levels, curves for contrast, resize if necessary (for web images) and sharpen. Like Jerry said, about 10 seconds per photo. The only thing I may do different is B&W conversion or a desaturation processing for an "antiqued" look. I don't do any heavy editing.

 

[Joves]

I do as little as possible. Maybe cropping some levels adjustment on the jpegs. Then some toning, saturation brightness in the RAWs. Every great once in a while do I sharpen.

 

[Josh66]

For me it depends on what it is and what I want to do with it.

Some pictures I don't do anything at all to, on others it seems like I'm never done with it...

 

[captainkimo]

Since I'm into HDR photography, I do quite a number of post-processing for my photos. Often, after merging them in Photomatix, I still edit the merged file in Photoshop, as may be necessary.

Cheers!

Captain Kimo

 

[JodieO]

My client images are all basic editing - crop, brighten, add a bit of contrast, resize, and upload - I take on TOO MANY CLIENTS to possibly spend more than a few seconds in PS per image... until they place their order, and then I will do skin corrections, etc. if needed.

For fine art images that are not for my clients necessarily, but for my own art, I will play with them longer in PS...

I strive to get everything straight out of camera, so I hardly have to do anything after the fact.