When did you start becoming happier with your photography?

Panza

Senior Member
Sure. I don't time it, but yes, it can go fast. Very special pictures will see more care, but speaking of like a Baltic vacation with 1200 pictures, plus 500 on the wifes compact, yes, one evening. You still might come back and work on a few special ones more, for other purposes.

Buying a USB 3.0 card reader speeds that up. When outputting all the JPG file batch, you can go get coffee or glance at the TV news.

But opening one and tweaking exposure, what? Five seconds? You see what it looks like.
White balance can be five seconds or could be much longer. :) Again, you see what it looks like (but yes, there are some tough ones).
Cropping, say five seconds? Again, you see what it looks like.
All of these steps might involve a second try, to see possibilities, but there is not much to it.
In many cases, you might do many similar pictures in one click (at least with Adobe Raw).

My concern is those that simply will not consider doing this necessary step.
Thank you for the tip : )!! I had been doing it more for special pictures however I didnt think you could work on images so quickly. I'll give it a try in lightroom the next time I have a large image set and try to work on my editing speed.
 

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
But opening one and tweaking exposure, what? Five seconds? Cropping, say five seconds? Again, you see what it looks like. All of these steps might involve a second try, to see possibilities, but there is not much to it. In many cases, you might do many similar pictures in one click (at least with Adobe Raw).
I would agree with all of this... Times vary, sure, based on what you're looking at but in general if you've done your part and there's nothing "extreme" going on, basic edits should not take much time at all. But again, we're discussing basic edits, or corrections, really, I would call them. Artistic (ha! (if I have any)) endeavor can take much longer because, typically, there's a lot of experimentation going on to try and find something, or several "somethings" that work for me. I have Adobe Camera RAW set up with customized defaults that serve as a launching point and this saves a ton of time since so often these presets dial in the bulk of the corrections that need to be done (the whole reason they're presets to begin with, obviously).
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wornish said:
Don't want to derail this thread but I am surprised by the number of people who post about the time they spend changing the white balance in their shots. Trust your camera.
I do, but adjusting WB, even a little, can really transform a photo. Sometimes a tad warmer looks better than a little cooler does, or vice versa. I don't always want technically perfect "daylight" 5500K white balance; sometimes it needs to be 5800K, or 4550K, to give me what I'm looking for. It doesn't hurt the tools in Camera RAW also make it super-duper easy-peasy to play with WB. It's also my opinion that Nikon color tends to run a little on the cool side, generally speaking. I almost always fine I need reduce the Blue color channel (via a Levels adjustment) by about 10% or so to achieve accurate skin tones.

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Pretzel

Senior Member
Don't want to derail this thread but I am surprised by the number of people who post about the time they spend changing the white balance in their shots. Trust your camera.

I have never sold a shot :( Yet ......but building a group of recommenders. It's not my goal to make a living from photography but just enjoy learning and maybe fund more glass.

I always shoot in "auto WB" mode (unless I have a specific purpose in mind), then adjust in LR. Every incandescent bulb seems to have a different temp, and it can vary with the actual ambient temperature of the room. Don't even get me started on fluorescents. Sunlight even varies according to haze and time of day. I've found, though, that once I find the right WB for one shot, it's pretty spot on for a group of shots taken around the same time.
 
Really, it takes you 60 seconds??

When I go out and shoot I may shoot 250 shots. I start looking at the thumbnails in Adobe Bridge. I only bother to open the ones that jump out a grab me. I open in Adobe Raw and do the basic adjustments like shadow, brightness, highlights and basic sharpness. Occasionally there might be something else that needs tweaking there. This really should not take over 15 to 20 seconds. I then open in Photoshop and see how the overall shot looks. I always go to Vivesa in Nik Tools and do a couple of basic tweaks there. If needed I will do any control points there and tweak them separately. Depending on what I have to do there should take from between 10 seconds to 5 minutes. I then see if there are any crops that I want to do. Then if there are any objects I want to remove I go to the content aware healing brush and cloning stamp. This can increase the time depending on what I want to do. Then I go to a script that resizes, frames and saves the photo in a separate folder on my desktop ready to upload.

Most times I only spend about a minute on any one photo. If I do find a photo that just knocks my socks off I may spend hours on it getting every single detail just perfect. Once you learn your processing and get your skills up to par you really should not be spending that much time on the average photo. IF you are then you may need to work on your shooting skills.
 

wornish

Senior Member
Forgive me, but either you're joking, or don't know or don't care. :)

You clearly cannot mean Auto WB. :)

And Flash WB has one choice, but flashes vary color with power level.

Incandescent has one choice, but there are many types of bulbs, and my cameras don't match any of them.

Bright Daylight has the best chance, but still there is sunset and haze or fog or clouds or shade..

My cameras are simply not trustworthy. :)

Certainly not joking, and certainly hope I am trustworthy!!!! But ... I adjust lots of other things BEFORE white balance.
I am not talking about Lightroom auto white balance I agree it awful and never use it.
I mean As Shot , that works for me 90% of shots
My cameras have always done a pretty good job of getting it right.
after that then I rarely touch that slider in LR.
The rest of the sliders yes.
I don't shoot very much with flash so that might be different . But natural and incandescent light then it just works.
 

J-see

Senior Member
If I shot a series, I usually process the first until I'm satisfied and then apply that to the rest. That can take five minutes for that one shot, or an hour. All the others are done in seconds.

Then there are shots I work at for hours and then redo everything the next day and again two days after. In the end I often hit delete since the processing was more fun than the shot is worth.
 

WayneF

Senior Member
I always assumed there must be one incandescent bulb in Japan somewhere that matched on WB. :)

But I really think you may just not be recognizing the need to get it better. Pictures seem to really snap in when WB and exposure are right.
 

sonicbuffalo_RIP

Senior Member
I am never completley happy with my shooting. I haven't been at it as long as others, but I will say this. My satisfaction rate grows according to my improvements and knowledge in post processing. I think a monkey can pretty much mash the trigger, but it takes a human to know how to pp. I have lots to learn in that regard, so I will still be struggling for a while. It's pretty time consuming getting the pp right. White balance isn't a problem. I experiment with which settngs will give me the best image all the time in LR. I think Sparky hit the nail on the head with his answer. :cool:
 

Anco

Senior Member
Since I'm learning all the time, I get happier with my photography every day. The only catch is, the happier I get with today's effort, the more critical I become of yesterdays shots
 

Rick M

Senior Member
I think I became the happiest during my first show. Acceptance and praise of your work by strangers is very empowering (especially when they buy :)). My latest injection of happiness is the realization that I don't need a big camera or the highest rated sensor to produce decent pictures.
 

mikew_RIP

Senior Member
When i came to terms with what level of photographer i am,like most i want to do better work but at my age my main aim is to enjoy my photography and produce results that make me happy,pleasing someone else is a bonus.
 

STM

Senior Member
Happier? Maybe around 1978 when things really finally started to click after 6 years.

Happy? Never, and I hope I never get to that point. If you are never really happy, but not discouraged enough to quit, with your images then you will always strive to be better.
 

Moab Man

Senior Member
I enjoy my photography, but I'm never happy. The more I learn the better I get the more I realize how little I know. Where I find happy is teaching someone new to photography how to take off their training wheels and spread their wings. The excitement in their face is where I find happy.
 

Rick M

Senior Member
I think I would be very discouraged if i never got happy with a shot. I Know it rarely all comes together, but i hope you guys are exaggerating. I know none of my shots are perfect but some made me happy at least. Maybe its more of a surprised feeling for me.
 
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480sparky

Senior Member
Truthfully, I got happier when I got back into photography after doing it for a living back in the 80s.

Today, I absolutely refuse commissioned work. Flat-out. You can't pay me, regardless of how much you offer. Keep your money, I don't want it.

If you like one of my shots, sure.... I'll sell you a copy. But I will not click a shutter for pay.
 
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