Photo Editing

[Don Fischer]

A good photo requires minimal editing, a bad photo cannot be saved by extensive editing.
For example, because of the harsh light, this photo cannot be saved by extensive editing:
View attachment 291411

Here is a photo with better light and minimum editing:
View attachment 291413

Strange how a lot of photographers call what most of us would readily accept as good shot's! That first photo looks fine to me. I think to many people spend to much time chasing what they might consider perfect while the average person thinks they are looking at perfect!

 

[AlanKlein108 24]

In reading through the comments I'm reminded that there are always little bits of truth, little bits of speculation, and even a few bits of false ideas.

An earlier comments said "good images require minimal editing", well yes but, the key is what is acceptable in the final image. A wise man once told me that the work involved in the last little bit out of an images may have the least noticeable effect on it, but elevate the image from good to excellent. If you're satisfied with an image as is great, but all "good" images can be improved.

Another comment touted "experience" as the key to knowing if an image was good. I'd say "experience" is more important in knowing how to set your exposure for the final image you want. In most cases I'd strive to completely fill the sensor, but in this example my goal was to best illustrate the texture of these cotton bolls. I knew the whites would be touchy, and my darkest shadow areas were devoid of any details. So I choose to protect the whites. Here's the original image.
View attachment 291471

As you can see from the screenshot of the histogram, it's a full stop under.
View attachment 291472
I did that because I needed room to set the White point, I knew the deepest shadows had no detail to preserve, and I had specific editing I wanted to do to enhance the cotton texture. The final
View attachment 291473
and a screen shot of the new histogram
View attachment 291474
So, while the histogram is useful, it's not necessarily the final decision on a good or bad image, and while I could have exposed for a full exposure, it would not have provided the same result of the final image which was to show the texture of a white cotton boll.

I like the big cotton ball up front in the BW shot. But we shouldn't limit improvement only to exposure. For example, the aperture was too big, and you lost DOF, especially because you angled the branch. Only the front ball is in sharp focus. The camera should have been more head-on. Why did you include the back end of the branch? It's dead, has no cotton balls, and provides no additional content that is attractive. Eliminate the back end of the branch by cropping it out. There are little bits of seeds or other stuff on the balls and on the board that detracts from the picture. Those should have been removed first or cloned out in post editing.

 

[smoke665]

I like the big cotton ball up front in the BW shot. But we shouldn't limit improvement only to exposure. For example, the aperture was too big, and you lost DOF, especially because you angled the branch. Only the front ball is in sharp focus. The camera should have been more head-on. Why did you include the back end of the branch? It's dead, has no cotton balls, and provides no additional content that is attractive. Eliminate the back end of the branch by cropping it out. There are little bits of seeds or other stuff on the balls and on the board that detracts from the picture. Those should have been removed first or cloned out in post editing.

As noted, all images can be improved both before the shutter clicks and post editing. The intent was to show the texture of the cotton boll, as such I wasn't concerned with the stalk or background. 100mm, f/8 at a distance of just over 60" gave me a total DOF of 3'' which was more than sufficient for what I wanted. The stalk was out of the ground Au naturel, providing a nice leading line into the cotton, as were the bolls. The stuff on the base board was laziness on my part, should have cloned them out. Went back and did it.

 

[Aurora Matthews]

Has anyone compared Luminar Neo’s AI-based masking + relighting with manual masking workflows in heavy tonal scenes? I’m especially interested in how well Neo preserves edge sharpness and avoids haloing when pushing contrast or doing complex sky swaps. Thoughts or crop comparisons welcome.

 

[misterjones143 156]

I'm reading though this thread and realizing I'm probably suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuper amateur when it comes to photography . I've never looked at a histogram and probably 98.3498549328% of the time I don't even look at the pics I've taken until I dump them to my PC (usually because I'm taking nature/landscape stuff so it can wait as I try to capture "the moment").

For editing, if I shoot raw (.CR2 in my camera's case), I have RawTherapee installed and it's also a plugin within The Gimp. Generally speaking I will only edit by rotating if I shot leaning a bit one way or another off the horizon or maybe cropping if I feel it necessary, so these tools are fine for me.

 

[smoke665]

@misterjones to each their own, but I'm curious, if the only editing you do post is to crop or level, why are you saving Raw, why not save JPEG?

 

[misterjones143 156]

@misterjones to each their own, but I'm curious, if the only editing you do post is to crop or level, why are you saving Raw, why not save JPEG?

When I switch my camera from either auto mode, it defaults to saving as a raw file as opposed to jpg. I'm trying to move to manual more often, so I usually wind up with a mix of both.

 

[KJ_North]

@misterjones to each their own, but I'm curious, if the only editing you do post is to crop or level, why are you saving Raw, why not save JPEG?

I read this and immediately thought the same thing, if your not going to edit a RAW file then a JPEG would have produced a much better finished product. You don't need to be an expert in post processing as even auto adjustments can improve things significantly. But for less than a couple minutes of editing you can fix a lot of things very quickly.

 

[smoke665]

ead this and immediately thought the same thing, if your not going to edit a RAW file then a JPEG would have produced a much better finished product.

Don't forget smaller file size, and quicker turn around.

 

[KJ_North]

Don't forget smaller file size, and quicker turn around.

Yes very good points

 

[tinytmp3 2]

MontanaDave has hit on the quintessential point - you need to be the best photographer you can be before turning to post. Note: Some of us refer to the use of an image editor as "post," short for "post-production." That term comes originally from film and video production, but with the rise of digital photography and image editors it is very applicable in still photography.

Many image problems cannot easily be fixed, or cannot be fixed at all, in post. One general class of pretty much unfixable problems is having too much or too little depth of field. A digital camera with a good electronic viewfinder (screen) is invaluable because you can view the image immediately and take additional photos with different settings to correct initial problems. In addition, the electronic viewfinder may be able to overlay tools on the screen when you are reviewing photos to help you to find and correct problems. The viewfinder tool which I normally have turned on during review (because I often use it) is a histogram.

In short, continue to work on getting the best possible photo in-camera while you are mastering an image editor, and if you’re considering software options, you can also look into https://avanquest.pissedconsumer.com/review.html for additional user experiences.

I’d recommend Lightroom for RAW images. It’s easy enough to learn as a beginner but still gives you plenty of control over exposure, colour, highlights, shadows and sharpening. If you don’t want a subscription, Capture One or DxO PhotoLab are excellent alternatives. For a free option, have a look at darktable. Personally, I’d start with Lightroom and learn the basics gradually rather than getting overwhelmed by all the available tools.

 

[davev96 19]

MontanaDave has hit on the quintessential point - you need to be the best photographer you can be before turning to post. Note: Some of us refer to the use of an image editor as "post," short for "post-production." That term comes originally from film and video production, but with the rise of digital photography and image editors it is very applicable in still photography.

Many image problems cannot easily be fixed, or cannot be fixed at all, in post. One general class of pretty much unfixable problems is having too much or too little depth of field. A digital camera with a good electronic viewfinder (screen) is invaluable because you can view the image immediately and take additional photos with different settings to correct initial problems. In addition, the electronic viewfinder may be able to overlay tools on the screen when you are reviewing photos to help you to find and correct problems. The viewfinder tool which I normally have turned on during review (because I often use it) is a histogram.

In short, continue to work on getting the best possible photo in-camera while you are mastering an image editor.

Too much DOF can be modified in camera raw.

 

[MontanaDave]

I recently switch to DXO Photolab 9 and the masking capabilities are outstanding
as well as the noise reduction. The software is for a single frame with no capabilities
such as focus stacking and no adding or removing (like sky replacement, frame extension, AI based erasing, etc)