What can i do to improve?

[runnah]

Like everything you seem to be over thinking it. I edit until I have the picture I want. If that means 5 mins or 5 hours it makes no difference.

 

[hamlet]

But somehow i'm starting to think that there is no real science behind this. Everyone edits the way they think its supposed to be done, i'll read up on those adobe books and figure something out.

 

[hamlet]

Like everything you seem to be over thinking it. I edit until I have the picture I want. If that means 5 mins or 5 hours it makes no difference.

I plead guilty, road blocks just bug the hell out of me. I'll figure it out.

 

[runnah]

But somehow i'm starting to think that there is no real science behind this. Everyone edits the way they think its supposed to be done, i'll read up on those adobe books and figure something out.

No science at all.

 

[apaflo]

Is there an authority you could point me to regarding raw image editing? Right now i'm just doing things until i think its great.

That's not far from right. But here's an authority: Rudolf Arnheim (1904-2007) was a perceptual psychologist, and wrote the classic text on the subject, "Art and Visual Perception" (originally in 1954, and revised in 1794). That is certainly an interesting book, but more to your point might be an essay you can find online at www.kenb.ca/z-aakkozzll/pdf/arnheim.pdf written in 1971 titled "Entropy and Art". It's not an easy read, but it is well worth the effort.

Here is a quote from the Introduction in "Entropy and Art":

"When nothing superfluous is included and nothing indispensable left out, one can
understand the interrelation of the whole and its parts, as well as the hierarchic scale of
importance and power by which some structural features are dominant, others subordinate."

What your purpose in editing a image should be is the adjustment of that "hierarchic scale of importance and power". You do not want to remove anything indispensable, but you do want to eliminate what is superfluous. Of course to do that requires that you, as the creative artist, decide just exactly what the photograph is suposed to communicate to a viewer. Only then can you decide on what editing will have the affects of adjusting the "interrelation of the whole and its parts" to be the most effective way of visually communicating your intent to a viewer.

And there are reasonable differences in what you or the next person might decide the appropriate message is! It is clear from coments here that there are at least two basic potential images. Some might well want an individual portrait, and for that purpose much of the background is just wasted distraction! Crop it, blur it, clone it... but reduce or remove it as much as possible.

On the other hand, some people see the potential for an environmental photograph, or even a bit of Street Photography. A Street shot doesn't use the person as the subject, but rather as an object that helps to describe the subject. The subject is the relationship between people and their surroundings. That means those background objects are just as important as the center object! How close in importance you want them is a matter of taste and style. Blur them a little more to push them down in dominance, sharpen them up a bit to increase their importance. (For most Street photographers, that would mean reshooting that shot, to get more DOF and a significantly sharper background; but that isn't necessarily the only way to see it.)

Hence, perhaps for your purposes right now, the steps are actually fairly obvious (though not "easy"). Decide what you want an image to communicate to a viewer, and then systematically remove distractions and add clarity to symbols that produce the strongest visual sense of your message. Perhaps you might start by deciding what is the biggest distraction, and correcting that. Then, or perhaps first, deciding what symbals are important and how each can be enhanced.

It isn't really far from you "doing things until I think it's great", but selection of "things" has to be organized!

 

[hamlet]

But somehow i'm starting to think that there is no real science behind this. Everyone edits the way they think its supposed to be done, i'll read up on those adobe books and figure something out.

No science at all.

 

[KmH]

It's art, but there are some generally accepted things that need to be done to just about every digital photograph made.
Like setting the white point, the black point, the gray point, color correction, sharpening, mitigating geometrical lens distortion, dodging and burning to help guide the viewers eye, etc..

Some edits are dine globally - equally to the entire image - or only done locally in part of an image.
If you make a photo so it has a shallow DoF and a very blurred background, it doesn't make much sense to then globally sharpen the entire photo.

 

[Derrel]

A few bits of advice: make haste slowly.

PICK the best frames to work on, carefully. And not immediately after making the exposures. Do not sit down and post-process 150 consecutive shots--that's usually a waste of effort and energy. DO not edit an entire day's worth of photos in one,single marathon session.

Often times, a lengthy editing session yields mixed results; edit,edit,edit and then come back a week later and you can easily review the edits you made in the earlier session, and say to yourself, "What the HELL was I thinking on that white balance!" or something similar. Really, and I mean REALLY settling on the "best" way to edit a specific, worthwhile image, is often not a one-session type of deal.

This shot of the boy with the funny hat, and the boy behind him competing terribly for attention...there's a lot of stuff going on...the kid in the background holds NO interest to me, as a disinterested third party. He is but a distraction to me; perhaps he's a nephew of yours, perhaps a pupil, or a friend's son...whatever--that shot is not worth much more than what you did...a quick, perfunctory adjustment of a handful of minor adjustments.

 

[runnah]

It's art, but there are some generally accepted things that need to be done to just about every digital photograph made. Like setting the white point, the black point, the gray point, color correction, sharpening, mitigating geometrical lens distortion, dodging and burning to help guide the viewers eye, etc.. Some edits are dine globally - equally to the entire image - or only done locally in part of an image. If you make a photo so it has a shallow DoF and a very blurred background, it doesn't make much sense to then globally sharpen the entire photo.

Even that is subjective.

 

[hamlet]

It's art, but there are some generally accepted things that need to be done to just about every digital photograph made.
Like setting the white point, the black point, the gray point, color correction, sharpening, mitigating geometrical lens distortion, dodging and burning to help guide the viewers eye, etc..

Some edits are dine globally - equally to the entire image - or only done locally in part of an image.
If you make a photo so it has a shallow DoF and a very blurred background, it doesn't make much sense to then globally sharpen the entire photo.

I'm not sure if it's even possible to selectively sharpen an image in lightroom. All i can do is do are global adjustments and maybe paint with light and add digital filters, that's as far as my expiernce goes.

 

[Josh66]

It's art, but there are some generally accepted things that need to be done to just about every digital photograph made.
Like setting the white point, the black point, the gray point, color correction, sharpening, mitigating geometrical lens distortion, dodging and burning to help guide the viewers eye, etc..

Some edits are dine globally - equally to the entire image - or only done locally in part of an image.
If you make a photo so it has a shallow DoF and a very blurred background, it doesn't make much sense to then globally sharpen the entire photo.

I'm not sure if it's even possible to selectively sharpen an image in lightroom. All i can do is do are global adjustments and maybe paint with light and add digital filters, that's as far as my expiernce goes.

Sure it is. I haven't used LR in a few years, but even then you could do it. Not sure how much it's changed since I last used it, but back then, the adjustment brush would be the tool you want.

 

[hamlet]

It's art, but there are some generally accepted things that need to be done to just about every digital photograph made.
Like setting the white point, the black point, the gray point, color correction, sharpening, mitigating geometrical lens distortion, dodging and burning to help guide the viewers eye, etc..

Some edits are dine globally - equally to the entire image - or only done locally in part of an image.
If you make a photo so it has a shallow DoF and a very blurred background, it doesn't make much sense to then globally sharpen the entire photo.

I'm not sure if it's even possible to selectively sharpen an image in lightroom. All i can do is do are global adjustments and maybe paint with light and add digital filters, that's as far as my expiernce goes.

Sure it is. I haven't used LR in a few years, but even then you could do it. Not sure how much it's changed since I last used it, but back then, the adjustment brush would be the tool you want.

Well thanks.

 

[Josh66]

The adjustment brush, when I last used LR, could do basically all of the global edits, but selectively with a brush. Anything you could apply globally could be applied with the brush.

I think 2.4 was the last version I used... I went 100% Linux about the same time the next update came out.

edit
I also began shooting a lot less digital about that time, making LR less relevant.

 

[hamlet]

The adjustment brush, when I last used LR, could do basically all of the global edits, but selectively with a brush. Anything you could apply globally could be applied with the brush.

I think 2.4 was the last version I used... I went 100% Linux about the same time the next update came out.

Was lightroom limiting you in some way?

 

[Josh66]

Was lightroom limiting you in some way?

Not even close. I loved LR.

I just made two separate changes that combined made LR unnecessary.

I switched over completely to Linux (I was dual-booting for a long time), and I switched primarily to film. Both at roughly the same time. Just prior to that the next update to LR came out, and I was trying to decide if it was worth upgrading. I ended up saying **** it and ditched Windows forever.