Editing - to edit or not to edit - and how much is too much?

MrsRobs

Senior Member
Hi guys as Im still very new, I also want to learn a bit about photographer etiquette. Is it done to edit a photo ? With edit, Im talking about edits that are offered on my PC's picture viewer. It enables me to crop, add a bit more light or definition. And it also allows filters.
With the filters I have a feeling that might be considered a bit like cheating, but the other stuff, basic editing, is it a done thing? Or is the aim of the game to get the pic as is and retouch as little as possible?
This is probably up to the personal taste of photographer, but just wanted to put my feelers out as to what is considered normal.
Thanks!
 

480sparky

Senior Member
IMHO, editing begins before you bring a camera to bear on the scene.

Doesn't make sense, does it?

Let me explain. When I look at a scene, I not only decide what camera settings / lens / position / etc to use, I also mentally edit the raw image before I even take it. I know what tools are available to me in the various editors I have, so I already have the editing process figured out while I'm still analyzing the scene.

THEN I bring the camera up to my eye.
 

Peter7100

Senior Member
I think providing nothing looks over done, then it is ok. Nothing worse than looking at a picture that looks like a nuclear explosion.
You will be hard pushed to find a picture in a magazine that hasn’t had some type of edit done to it and I am talking here about the professionals who may not admit to it though.
Filters in terms of graduated and polariser have been used for decades in landscapes by many a great photographer. So as long as you are happy with the finished photo then I see nothing wrong with applying edits. At the end of the day a picture is something we want to enjoy looking at, just like a painting, but we don’t question how an artist achieved his result on canvas, eg. did he copy someone, or use any special techniques.


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hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Contributor
Please keep in mind a camera can't capture the dynamic range of brights all the way to the darks that we see with our eyes. So when the shutter button is pressed, most likely you won't see all the details in the darks like we see, or some of the details in the bright areas will be missing. So image editing helps to bring back some of the details that aren't visible. OR sometimes people choose to shoot HDR and merge several photos into one which also allows more details in the dark and light areas to be visible.
 

480sparky

Senior Member
Please keep in mind a camera can't capture the dynamic range of brights all the way to the darks that we see with our eyes. So when the shutter button is pressed, most likely you won't see all the details in the darks like we see, or some of the details in the bright areas will be missing. So image editing helps to bring back some of the details that aren't visible. OR sometimes people choose to shoot HDR and merge several photos into one which also allows more details in the dark and light areas to be visible.

This is not always true. Sometimes there's only 4-5 stops of difference between the highlights and shadows in a scene. When that happens, the image is 'flat' with no true blacks and whites. So one might want to change the black and white points in post to increase contrast.
 

MrsRobs

Senior Member
Thank you. Do you use any of the camera's own image edit features, or is most editing done on PC? Ive not really looked into the features the camera offers. Are they worth exploring in detail or better get handy with software?
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York offered an online course on photography as art that I took. During the course they pulled an Ansel Adams print out of their collection and what the curator said has forever stuck with me. Ansel Adams was a good photographer. But what made Ansel Adams was not the pictures that he took but they way in which they were printed.

Post processing is nothing more than the digital darkroom. Your raw file (and you should shoot raw) is your negative. You can take that negative to a drug store and get a perfectly acceptable image, but they're not going to deepen or reveal shadows, they're not going to balance the highlights, they're not going to worry that the reds are oversaturated but the greens are under.

I've been shooting seriously for a decade now after playing around with cameras my entire life, and I'm a good photographer. I am a good photographer in that I can identify an interesting subject, find a proper angle to shoot it, and execute the capture. But when you look at my images if you see anything that really grabs your eye it's almost always not the image that came out of the camera but the way in which I've "printed" it for your viewing. If you counted up the minutes I've invested in the last decade learning new techniques in various pieces of post processing software it would likely consume months of time. And when I look back at the things I was tremendously proud of early on - images that I was asked to display in galleries - I'm almost embarrassed by some of them now.

I put some images up on my personal Facebook wall over the weekend that were essentially my takes on the Bernie Sanders memes that were wildly popular here a week ago and an old high school acquaintance is a professional fashion and fine art photographer and she reached out to me and asked if I did professional photo retouching, because she thought the attention to detail that I paid in these silly images was striking - things like matching shading and light sources and color balance. I had never felt prouder of the work I put in after the shot was taken.

I say all this to tell you that nothing is cheating provided you have a vision for your "print". Everything is either a tool to create a masterpiece or a weapon to destroy it, and you'll do both over time. But the art doesn't start nor stop at the click of the shutter, it exists on both sides of it. What you need to do is to learn to wield and eventually master the tools your photos require. You'll put some down along the way and pick up others. That's all good. They didn't build rocket ships with a hammer and nails just because that's what they used to use to build things. We progress. And while some will want to talk about the way things used to be done and how much easier it is now ask them why they're not going to work in a horse and buggy. ;)
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
I put some images up on my personal Facebook wall over the weekend that were essentially my takes on the Bernie Sanders memes that were wildly popular a week ago...

And for the curious, here are a couple...

DSC04423-copy.jpg


E75_6789-Edit-copy.jpg


_E750121-copy.jpg


D71_2559-Edit-copy.jpg
 

480sparky

Senior Member
Thank you. Do you use any of the camera's own image edit features, or is most editing done on PC? Ive not really looked into the features the camera offers. Are they worth exploring in detail or better get handy with software?

Editing in post is the only way to go. In-camera edits are find if all you're going to do is email the images to your Aunt Edna, or post 'em on your Facespace and MyBook pages. But for serious work, you need the horsepower of a desktop or good laptop, and a large monitor. Teeny screens on a camera are useless for serious work.
 

Peter7100

Senior Member
Thank you. Do you use any of the camera's own image edit features, or is most editing done on PC? Ive not really looked into the features the camera offers. Are they worth exploring in detail or better get handy with software?

I use Lightroom most of the time, although those that take mainly portraits tend to use Photoshop, however I would say there is a lot more learning to be done in the latter, where as Lightroom is fairly user friendly.
There are a few free software programs about but probably don’t have the features of the above.
There are some programs that require a lot of computer power, the one that comes to mind is Skylum Luminar, so it is always work checking you have the necessary spec before any purchase.


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MrsRobs

Senior Member
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York offered an online course on photography as art that I took. During the course they pulled an Ansel Adams print out of their collection and what the curator said has forever stuck with me. Ansel Adams was a good photographer. But what made Ansel Adams was not the pictures that he took but they way in which they were printed.

Post processing is nothing more than the digital darkroom. Your raw file (and you should shoot raw) is your negative. You can take that negative to a drug store and get a perfectly acceptable image, but they're not going to deepen or reveal shadows, they're not going to balance the highlights, they're not going to worry that the reds are oversaturated but the greens are under.

I've been shooting seriously for a decade now after playing around with cameras my entire life, and I'm a good photographer. I am a good photographer in that I can identify an interesting subject, find a proper angle to shoot it, and execute the capture. But when you look at my images if you see anything that really grabs your eye it's almost always not the image that came out of the camera but the way in which I've "printed" it for your viewing. If you counted up the minutes I've invested in the last decade learning new techniques in various pieces of post processing software it would likely consume months of time. And when I look back at the things I was tremendously proud of early on - images that I was asked to display in galleries - I'm almost embarrassed by some of them now.

I put some images up on my personal Facebook wall over the weekend that were essentially my takes on the Bernie Sanders memes that were wildly popular here a week ago and an old high school acquaintance is a professional fashion and fine art photographer and she reached out to me and asked if I did professional photo retouching, because she thought the attention to detail that I paid in these silly images was striking - things like matching shading and light sources and color balance. I had never felt prouder of the work I put in after the shot was taken.

I say all this to tell you that nothing is cheating provided you have a vision for your "print". Everything is either a tool to create a masterpiece or a weapon to destroy it, and you'll do both over time. But the art doesn't start nor stop at the click of the shutter, it exists on both sides of it. What you need to do is to learn to wield and eventually master the tools your photos require. You'll put some down along the way and pick up others. That's all good. They didn't build rocket ships with a hammer and nails just because that's what they used to use to build things. We progress. And while some will want to talk about the way things used to be done and how much easier it is now ask them why they're not going to work in a horse and buggy. ;)


Ive had a browse through your gallery, and your attention to detail is incredible. Im still very early doors, I inherited the camera years ago, but never had an opportunity to devote any time to it until now. Thank you for taking the time to respond. I am going to google Ansel Adams now :)
 

MrsRobs

Senior Member
Thanks, Ive started with Lightroom today, had a play around with my cat picture, its great, and easy to use. Thanks for the tip!
 

Peter7100

Senior Member
Thanks, Ive started with Lightroom today, had a play around with my cat picture, its great, and easy to use. Thanks for the tip!

Based on your cat picture, I would say you have mastered Lightroom already. Great capture and processing!


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Dawg Pics

Senior Member
You are where I was a few years ago. I got a camera, didn't do much with it for a very long time. I finally decided to learn photography. One year of participation on this forum taught me more than I ever thought I could learn. I never thought I would learn all the buttons on the camera much less shoot in manual mode. Now, I shoot only RAW files and can do some decent editing.

I started with a D100 and then got a D300, which is a great camera. I now have a D500, but I still use the D300 now and then. The D300 with my Tamron 28-75mm F2.8 makes terrific images.
 
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Danno

Senior Member
I think there are times when the camera cannot see all that the eye can see. A sunrise is one of those times. You can get the best exposure but inevitably some of the highlights and color will wash out. But with a little work in Lightroom will bring back that color and shadows. The camera just cannot mange the light as well as our own eyes.
 

Peter7100

Senior Member
I think there are times when the camera cannot see all that the eye can see. A sunrise is one of those times. You can get the best exposure but inevitably some of the highlights and color will wash out. But with a little work in Lightroom will bring back that color and shadows. The camera just cannot mange the light as well as our own eyes.

Very true Dan. The human eye has a dynamic range of about 20 stops to a typical DSLR having about 12 stops. With a sunrise and sunset I often find using a grad filter is my preferred choice, although technically it is just another type of edit but just at the initial stage of capture. I find grad filters hold details better than trying to retrieve them during post processing.
 

Danno

Senior Member
Very true Dan. The human eye has a dynamic range of about 20 stops to a typical DSLR having about 12 stops. With a sunrise and sunset I often find using a grad filter is my preferred choice, although technically it is just another type of edit but just at the initial stage of capture. I find grad filters hold details better than trying to retrieve them during post processing.


I have used those for my sunrises and they are a great option. I probably should do that more often, but I find if I can keep from blowing out the highlights I am usually pleased with the results. But you have me thinking again. I haven't had much opportunity to take any good sunrises last year with the Z6 and I do have the 14-30 f4 Z mount that does not require that cumbersome filter the 14-24 f2.8 required.
 
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