The Post Processing Conundrum
Ok let me start-When I was growing up, (15 in 1994) I was hooked on the Amiga computer. I loved doing everything on it. Video work, to DTP to graphics work. I sat for hours rendering pretty cool 3D animation. I was kinda heading toward a career in graphics but could not draw for the life of me. So I gave this up and became a cartographer., which I love. I get to travel the world, meet great people and see wonderful things. This has only heightened my interest in photography. I have always loved photography and my dad (Geoff46) does also. My technical skills have improved with practice and I take enough photos that just by the law of averages, I have to get a nice one eventually! My problem now though is this-post processing.
I used to be big into web design, and hence Photoshop. Now however i dislike the thought of playing around with my photos. Its almost cheating. I am gradually forcing myself to start using it a bit (Suburban Lifestyle), and have liked my results. However I still do not want to spend hrs I do not have playing around with an image. I feel that many of my images are lacking the final touch to make them much better. I suppose part of the issue is that I dont know what to do. Im sure many of my photos require better cropping, saturation enhancement etc.
I have picked up Adobe Lightroom and trying to at least do some basic develop tools. Does anyone else have the same issues as me? What can I do? How many hours do you guys spend post processing? How do you feel about it all?
Mark Ramstead
I work on my photos in photoshop. I was trained as a painter and feel the negative is a starting point. Professional photographers often represent the untouched negative as the ideal. That is because they have spent there time waiting for the perfect shot. Time that they get paid for eventually. I don’t get paid for it, and don’t ever really expect to. I do however want to see in my finished work what I felt I saw when I took the photo. Often that means emphasizing what you like about the picture. After doing this for awhile you will get better at it and develop “your” style as well. Good luck.
Ian James
Chris,
I know exactly where you are coming from. I love taking photos and try to take the best pictures I can using only my camera.
I look around on this website and see alot of images which have been heavily photoshopped and its hard to decide when an image is no longer a photograph and becomes a piece of graphic design.
The one thing I find interesting is that people can develop a style which can be instantly recongnisable. I don’t feel I have this in my work I suppose its about being consistant with the processing.
Its maybe a good idea to read magazines and internet stuff there are lots of tutorials or maybe just experiment.