Something to think about

[radiorickm]

kid with flag | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

I see many post on here about post processing. Right now, there is one that says "I need to do less post processing".

This got me to thinking.
It seems at some point, that being a photographer ends, and being a "computer art technician" begins.

I guess I was influenced in the very beginning becoming a photo journalist. The original WYSWYG. You had one opportunity to produce a usable photo. Trust me, victims are not usually willing to help you re-create a car wreck to get a better photo. I learned initially on a Minolta 101. The light meter had not worked on the thing in years. There were rules of thumb: sunny 16, shutter speed equeal to lens leghth... and then other rules, bracketing. We used one film, Tri-X 400 until TMAX 400 came along.

My boss was usually in a hurry and would just grab and shoot. Some time in the past, he had lost a bunch of photos because some one changed the shutter speed on his camera. So we had a rule: everything was shot at 1/60 (shutter sync speed on older film camera). We learned how!

I guess my standard now is this: If I am not happy with the image OOC (out of camera) i did not do my job as a photographer. I usually will not waste any time with post processing on these images. When I get the ones I like to beging with, yeah, I will spend a little time making a good image better.

I guess, I create the image in the camera, and then do minor adjustments in PP.

So, maybe we should all issue our selves a challenge:
One set of photos, with absolutely no post processing allowed. Lets remember the good old days of photography

 

[photosanity]

If I were to challenge myself with this.. I would just use my Canon Rebel 2000 film SLR. I think we all post process because digital really has not surpassed what film offered. I always get better right of camera photos from my film than my digital cameras.

 

[Cactiflower]

I totally agree with you. I personally started just recently on a DSLR but I believe that to be a good photographer is to get the picture right, no post processing needed. I admire the skill it takes to take an amazing photograph with no post processing or from film.

 

[shmne]

I had a long post written up stating why this isn't accurate... however I'll just save everyone a 1,000 page word essay and put it like this:

Film is always edited 100% of the time. RAW files also should be edited 100% of the time. Neither are perfect coming SOOC, and require proper handling to see their full value. Anyone can take a flat, boring, clean snapshot SOOC. You can not however do anything artistic, as the camera can only do so much. It is the development process that grows the baby image into a fully matured work of art.

An unhealthy baby is doomed from the start, however a healthy - well cared for one will live to see full maturity. Think I put that well.

 

[freeze3kgt]

I feel that doing just this helped me a lot as a new photog... I've been reading books on exposure and lighting and staying away from the PS which I was guilty of over using I went as far as to uninstall because I have no self control. Granted I shoot raw files and if I want to convert to jpeg I will "edit" them in view nx the nikon program, but other than that I feel like this is the best thing for me to do .... My .02 cents

And I agree with the whole baby comparison

 

[radiorickm]

I like the baby analagy...I really do.

Im not sure about film being "edited" all the time. Maybe developed, and yes, thats ok with RAW too. I didn't go in the film days and try to add blur to the background, or clone out branches coming out of some ones ear. We learned good rules for taking pictures and applied them every time.

But the baby thing, thats what I was trying to hint at. Take time and make better pictures to begin with, become a better photographer.

 

[Overread36]

The problem with this kind of discussion is that everyone regards "editing" in slightly different terms depending upon their background and experiences. You also get a lot of people who grew up with the 35mm film system being developed at the chemist/lab - they never did the developing themselves save for a little black and white stuff. So parts such as fixing the white balance and other basic steps in the editing process were; for them, not a part of the process.
For them the two part process of shoot and develop became the one part process of shoot.

There are also a lot who fall for the photoshop marketing and get it into their minds that people today are taking utter rubbish, spending 5 seconds (or hours) in photoshop and then turning out fantastic photos which are more the result of graphic editing than good shooting.

The truth is that most are not - and those that are doing long hours in photoshop often respect even more the need to get it right in camera (because to get that more intensive editing to look right you've got to have a good base - or else you've a lot of work ahead of you).



In the end I think the "fear" that photoshop is replacing good photography is mostly overrated and generally a viewpoint held more by those who honestly don't know that much about photoshop and are not that computer savy - but who fear that the digital age is wiping out good photography in the place of good computing (one skill they have learnt being replaced with one they do not fully understand nor grasp). Most times these people just need a good basic guidance through the basics of editing as well as pointers as to what a JPEG and RAW are - once learnt many of them come to respect the two part shoot and process elements of photography.


As for Journalists that is a slight difference in only so much that its an area where there are specific limitations on the processing side in order to bolster the validity of the photo from the camera (however true or fake this truth is of course - remembering that the first "lie" starts with the frame and its content).

 

[shmne]

Your ending statement "One set of photos, with absolutely no post processing allowed. Lets remember the good old days of photography" Is false.

From your field of view the good ol' days used to be photojournalism where darkroom editing was borderline illegal. Many commercial photographers however have been editing their photos for a very long time now, in fact since film has been around photos have been edited. Either removing telephone poles, adding dead bodies to war photos, moving dead bodies, film has been extremely manipulated just like today's digital images. It is just more in your face now since most people don't know how to shoot, let alone edit.

I don't disagree that getting your image SOOC is important. That is why I included that baby metaphor, as to ensure you that we are on the same page. I just hate it when people act like film was this perfect medium that no one ever edited, no one ever removed trees, no one ever added or omitted items, and that no one ever altered.

There is little difficulty with creating an image that is considered "good" straight out of camera. I can shoot properly exposed and composed images all day without even breaking a sweat, as I'm sure anyone that has been shooting more than a year could do. The difficulty that is brought out of photography comes to the creative mind. This is where we disagree.

"It seems at some point, that being a photographer ends, and being a "computer art technician" begins."

See I disagree completely with this statement and would like to flip it.

"It seems to me that at some point being a creative ends, and being a camera technician begins"
There is a difference between controlling your camera to a creative end, and being capable of manipulating its ability to photograph- and operating the camera to get clean, clear, and concise photographs.

Operation of basic camera parameters is what any camera technician is capable of, however creatively editing and capturing an image that no one else could have makes you a true photographer. I know you're saying that there are many people get hung up on editing because it is widely available, and you're absolutely right.

I just don't want you confusing people making them think that photos were never edited, and that film used to be this magical form of photography lost to the seas for another generation to discover once more!

 

[ultimadrift]

I agree...I do very little post processing with my photos unless its HDR but thats a different story.

 

[Kerbouchard]

Just because your lab boys didn't tell you what they did with your photos doesn't mean it wasn't done. My guess is your film was edited much more than any of your digital. Do you know how many of your 'film only predecessors' complained about digital when it came about? It wasn't because their techniques had changed. It was because somebody wasn't cleaning up after their mess.

With film, you could be off 2 or 3 stops and the lab could push or pull it and get you great shots. With digital, it's up to you. On the other hand, there are still labs out there that will take your crap photos and make them into what you had wished they were in the first place, as long as you are willing to pay their price.

Personally, I would rather get it right from the get go. I get so sick and tired of hearing about how it was in 'good ole days'...The truth is, in the good ole days, low paid lab techs fixed your screw ups and made them okay. There was never such a thing as F/8 and be there without techs making it work for you.

Get off your high horse. Welcome to the new era.

 

[Josh66]

I guess my standard now is this: If I am not happy with the image OOC (out of camera) i did not do my job as a photographer. I usually will not waste any time with post processing on these images. When I get the ones I like to beging with, yeah, I will spend a little time making a good image better.

I guess, I create the image in the camera, and then do minor adjustments in PP.

I feel the same way. PP apps can make a good picture better, but they can't turn crap into gold. They can't fix in-camera errors, like missed focus or wrong shutter speed either...

So, maybe we should all issue our selves a challenge:
One set of photos, with absolutely no post processing allowed. Lets remember the good old days of photography

See... There is one problem with that...

What would you define "no post processing" to be? I mean, just to get it online, you have to do some PP... Especially if you shoot RAW.

I shoot film and scan it. Even with film, I'm changing things before I even make the final scan (hell, before I even develop it)... I do a low-res preview scan just to see if the picture is usable, I then make adjustments based on that scan. Then, I do the full-res scan. After that, all I typically do is crop and rotate (edit - and sometimes there's dust that needs cloning out). I do very minimal PP, but I still do it... And I don't really see any way of getting around that.

You have to make certain choices in PP before it's even a viewable photo...


So, where is the line? How much PP is "no" PP?




EDIT

For the people that grew up never knowing what film is...

There are certain choices that must be made before you even load the film into the camera. What ISO are you going to shoot it at? Pushing/pulling can give a certain effect that is sometimes desirable. That's one decision you have to make... Hell, even just picking which film to use is a decision that will affect the end result.

OK, so you've picked a film and shot it... What are you going to develop it in? Another decision you have to make that affects the end result.

Now you've got a roll of developed film ready for the scanner/enlarger. More decisions... Exposure, contrast, curves, sharpness, etc...


I guess my point is, there is no such thing as 'straight out of the camera' or 'no post processing'. Some of that is actually pre-processing though, and some of it is just plain processing...





...This is me thinking about your question. I think it is a good question, and worthy of discussion and thinking about. "There is no spoon."

 

[Kerbouchard]

You have to make certain choices in PP before it's even a viewable photo...


So, where is the line? How much PP is "no" PP?

My guess, is the OP never knew how much post processing went into his 'perfect captures' in the first place.

Heck, any bad shots were probably blamed on the lab tech in the first place.

 

[T3HeavyShop]

For me, the amount of PP involved depends on three things.
What does my audience want to see? Or, what do I want my audience to see?
How realistic do I want the image to appear? Or, how realistic does it need to appear?
Does this process, effect, etc, add visual value to the image?

I started with film many years ago, stopped taking pictures for about 15 years, and just recently got back into it. I am currently in the process of re-learning . I did not have the resources back then to develop my own photos, so I had to drop film off at whatever processing center was in whatever part of the world I was in at the time. So, in-camera became (and still is) very important to me, but I'm not going to dismiss an available tool for a purely ideological reason.

 

[Derrel]

Silver-based imaging's basic goal has always been to capture the desired image, and to make it permanent in light-sensitive silver, or using light-sensitive dye layers. With a silver-based image, there is a physical,tangible negative or positive image that is perfectly captured and preserved on a glass plate, or a piece of film base (in most cases). With a digital image there is NO physical,tangible image fixed in a permanent medium, but only an invisible collection of 1's and 0's, capable of being interpreted, re-interpreted, and re-interpreted again and again and again. The essential basis of analog photography is that of film and silver and dyes,with the representation of light captured and "frozen" within a physical medium in ONE,exact form; the essential basis of digital capture is that the image is composed of electronic code, and does NOT EXIST in an exact, "frozen" form in a physical medium.

The above is my summary of a very profound essay written by the noted Leica photography expert Erwin Puts, in his essay "Photography does not exist anymore!", found here, on his web site p://www.imx.nl/photo/Analysis/Analysis/page106.html

 

[Josh66]

You have to make certain choices in PP before it's even a viewable photo...


So, where is the line? How much PP is "no" PP?

My guess, is the OP never knew how much post processing went into his 'perfect captures' in the first place.

Heck, any bad shots were probably blamed on the lab tech in the first place.

Just to expand on that bit of mine that you quoted ... Even if you say "but I shoot JPG and use the auto modes" - 'decisions' are still being made, you've just taken that task out of your hands and placed it in the CPU in the camera. No different than in the film days when you dropped a roll off at the lab and left those decisions up to the techs on duty...

So, in-camera became (and still is) very important to me, but I'm not going to dismiss an available tool for a purely ideological reason.

Yes. Tools can be used effectively, or they can be mis-used. It's entirely up to the person with the tool in their hands (that statement could be applied to so many things...).

I think, as photographers, we should all strive to get it as good as possible in camera. It will only make your work better and more efficient... I know that I'm not perfect, and a lot of the work I produce isn't all that great, but I never said it was - lol. I do try though, and I think that's what counts. You're never going to improve if you don't put a little effort in... That's what annoys me so much when I see people saying "I can fix it in PP", or whatever. Yes, you can (sometimes), but why do you settle for that? Why would you not want to just skip that step by doing it right the first time?