Picture Editing

[reedshots]

All images have been edited as long as taking pictures have been around – it’s the extent and method of editing that has changed. It is much easier IMO now to take an image that most likely would have been tossed or not even shot 20 years ago and make it worthwhile to keep. Don’t get me wrong if it is crap it is crap, but with modern technology even large imperfections can and are correctable. There are so many programs out there these days you can take a nice shot and turn it in to a piece of art with enough skill. You can shoot a landscape adjusting, WB, saturation, focal point and the many in camera settings before you pull the trigger, but you can do almost the same thing in post. The better you are with the camera the less processing you should have to do later. Sometimes you can’t help doing a bit more to one image then other images, can’t remove in life remove it on the screen later.

By the way the first image looks better then second - sky is way to dark and bule. Just my opinion.

 

[fokker]

I haven't taken a picture yet that wouldn't have benefited from some degree of editing. Often just cropping and straightening can make a big difference.

 

[CNCO]

not trying to offend anyone but a very good photographer told me that photographers edit the camera and graphic artist edit on the computer.

 

[misstwinklytoes]

not trying to offend anyone but a very good photographer told me that photographers edit the camera and graphic artist edit on the computer.

Funny that your link to smugmug doesn't work?
Do you edit on the computer?

 

[fokker]

not trying to offend anyone but a very good photographer told me that photographers edit the camera and graphic artist edit on the computer.

You may well be right, but since we're all posting in the beginner forum you can assume that none of us are good enough to get it perfect in the camera every time. Plus, most of us probably can't afford to pay a graphic artist to edit our little hobby snapshots

Anyway since everybody has a computer now, and with free editing software available there's no reason not to learn how to tweak your own shots to bring out the best in them.

 

[480sparky67 66]

not trying to offend anyone but a very good photographer told me that photographers edit the camera and graphic artist edit on the computer.

Too bad we aren't all perfect.

 

[The_Traveler]

not trying to offend anyone but a very good photographer told me that photographers edit the camera and graphic artist edit on the computer.

Just goes to show that one must not have to be very bright to be a good photographer - and that's probably why he or she doesn't edit on the computer.

 

[reedshots]

not trying to offend anyone but a very good photographer told me that photographers edit the camera and graphic artist edit on the computer.

Darkroom editing is done using chemicals, equipment and lighting – computer editing is done with very much the same thing (electronically) so that must mean any developed image is graphic art not a photograph?

 

[The_Traveler]

I'll show a good example of what editing can do.

This is the first shot

taken into the early morning sun light, on a misty, dusty morning from a moving train window in rural Burma, one instant, one chance

and this is the shot after a planned edit and conversion

Oh, yah, computers suck, right?

 

[clanthar]

I'll show a good example of what editing can do.

This is the first shot

taken into the early morning sun light, on a misty, dusty morning from a moving train window in rural Burma, one instant, one chance

and this is the shot after a planned edit and conversion

Oh, yah, computers suck, right?

Well you should have gotten that second shot in-camera.

===============================================

This is an old old very old argument that pre-dates anything digital. Back in the day you could join the chrome camp or the darkroom camp. In the chrome camp you had only the camera. Transparencies where finished as soon as you tripped the shutter. In the darkroom camp you could take a negative and manipulate (un-pure! un-pure!) the print process to get the image you wanted. Nothing has changed. The problem for the chrome camp people was that they were limited to photographing only those scenes in which the lighting condition was ideal to the characteristics of the film they were using. This severely limited what they could photograph. So if the scene dynamic range didn't match their chrome they had to leave the camera in the bag. They became experts in seeing Kodachromes out there in the world. Meanwhile the un-pure could shoot a negative with the deliberate intention of both tinkering with the film development and then manipulating the darkroom process to get the image they wanted.

There's no excuse for screwing up behind the camera -- but after you've done everything possible behind the camera, editing can extend dramatically the range of what can be successfully photographed.

Joe

 

[480sparky67 66]

Darkroom editing is done using chemicals, equipment and lighting ............

That's called developing, not editing. Editing would be things like dodging & burning, cropping, etc.

 

[subscuck]

not trying to offend anyone but a very good photographer told me that photographers edit the camera and graphic artist edit on the computer

Any roll of print film ever sent to a color lab has had the same things done that most of us do to digital in post. There's a big difference between editing and manipulating, as well. So, I guess if this photographer knew what they were talking about, they would have said, "Photographers edit, graphic artists manipulate".