Photo Editing Question

[Backpack Hunter]

So I am pretty doggone new to photography, and am leery of photo editing for one main reason I guess. Keep in mind this really is a serious question....not a slam by any stretch, and it's one I struggle with a little bit, not life threatening obviously but a little thought always in the back of my head.

How far down the editing hole do you go before you lose your original photo? In other words how much editing happens before your picture becomes something you created vs. a picture you took?

Follow up question, how much editing on a particular picture generally takes place by an average to an above average photographer?

 

[Larry Bartlett]

photoshop is a good tool. just click on "undo" and you move back one step....if you work for five or fifty changes and want the original back, just close out the program without "saving" your work. The original stays the same as long as you dont save any new changes between edits.

 

[tipsntails7]

This is actually a really good question and I beleive a lot should be considered but at the end of the day is up to you. I will say I was a die hard 35mm snob up until at least 2010 maybe a bit after. I dismissed digital photography as a lazy way to get photos. For people who did not understand ISO or f-stops. But I've since changed my tune. I beleive digital lets you enjoy the hunt so much more because your not worried about all the technical stuff, or digging in your bag for a different filter. A lot of why you can do in photo shops can be attained in hand at the moment of the photo, it just takes more energy, time and know how. You can also alter photos when workin with a photo in the dark room. That being said it is much more enjoyable now knowing you can tweak the shot later and not get caught up in wether you got the shot or not. Also the best thing in my eyes about digital photos is you can immediately see the photo you've taken. You don't have to take 5, or run an exposure bracket to make sure you got what you need.. And you don't have to deal with those damn film cans.

I also think that some situations call for different types of photos. When it's photoshopped to the point everyone knows it and it takes away from the photo in my eyes, but everyone's opinion is different. But I also believe some affects are really really cool and you would never be able to attain it with regular photography. But taking a photo and sharpening it or running a filter over it to me is no different then what people have done for ages.

There are a couple guys on here that take amazing photos, Aron is obviously very talented but some of my favorites have been from stid and Luk as well. He has photos that I swear are photoshopped they are so good but are just shot in raw format ( I beleive) .

So really in the end the photos are for you. It's what you want and what you are comfertable with. Because they are all "created" by you wether you edit them or not.

 

[martin_shooter]

I generally do very little editing with lightroom. A little bit of color correction or light shifts if the exposure is a bit dark or light. Occasionally I will change one to black and white but I never spend more than a minute or two on each photo.Personally I really dislike selective coloring so I never do it. Ive used photoshop a few times on a professional photographer friends computer and it really is helpful to remove branches/ grass that you didnt get in the field.

 

[Lukem]

Very rarely does the camera take the picture as I see the scene. The picture is never as sharp, never has the same color tone and contrast, the shadows are always too dark and the bright spots are always too bright. It ultimately makes you ask "what is a picture"? Is it just what the camera "sees" or is it what you see and how you remember it? For some a picture is just a method to remember things, for others it's a medium for a work of art. Can pictures be taken too far? Yep, but that's only in one person's opinion, we each have our own tastes, we each see things differently. Beauty in photography is one part photographer, one part camera, and one part post processing. We each have different skills and talents in each of those areas and our photos show that. IMO no photos are "taken". That's too passive, I'm a part of that moment, they're all created, some are just tweaked a little more than others to make them like I saw it.

 

[Aron Snyder]

Some photos I take (on purpose) look horrible without editing them, but I know they'll look pretty cool after I tweak them in lightroom.

 

[Backpack Hunter]

Some photos I take (on purpose) look horrible without editing them, but I know they'll look pretty cool after I tweak them in lightroom.

You might need to explain that to me a little more. Feel free to talk to me like a three year old.
In my small mind if you take a good photo it can be made better, but why purposely degrade the initial quality?

 

[Aron Snyder]

A couple examples

 

[Aron Snyder]

Both were taken directly with sun in background. ...bad photo without editing. ...cool photo after editing.

I like them anyway.

 

[AndyB]

Great pics Aron, I'm going have to look into this 'lightroom' as I've got lots of 'crap' pics......may be able to improve some with editing.

Might be a dumb question but is lightroom far superior to microsoft picture manager?

 

[greyghostnw]

you may want to shoot raw rather than jpegs if you do so. not an expert but just a thought. i mainly shoot jpegs because of my time for now but loose much potential in the photo imop because of that. most i know use adobe products with great success.

 

[Aron Snyder]

I'm in front of my computer now and can elaborate a bit more....

To answer your first question, I feel that the photo is always mine, no matter how much I edit it. I may tweak it a bunch in post processing, but the end outcome is a photo that I prefer over the original. That doesn't mean someone else will prefer over the original, but I do and I'm the one that needs to be happy

As far as taking a crappy photo as an original and making it look cool, it's simple; blown out backgrounds, lens glare and other issues can be made to look "cool" in post processing. These issues can't be faked in after, so I will look at different photo ops with post processing in mind. SO SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE THER TO EDIT IT.

 

[colonel00]

you may want to shoot raw rather than jpegs if you do so. not an expert but just a thought. i mainly shoot jpegs because of my time for now but loose much potential in the photo imop because of that. most i know use adobe products with great success.

Definitely shoot in RAW or at least RAW+ (RAW and .jpeg). RAW+ will eat up space on your SD card and computer but you will have a RAW file you can edit later and a quick .jpeg that you can look at immediately. Also, if you get a processing program like Lightroom, you can automate quick processing of RAW images.

 

[Travis Bertrand]

It's like this, you buy a new truck, get it home and put on a set of cool wheels and tires, maybe a small lift kit, tonneau cover and tint the windows. You just added to the appearance your truck and most people will like it.


Now You buy a crappy truck that's seen better days and do the same to it, it's still a crappy truck just polished up. While some people might be into polished up terds most are not.

Editing is a big part in photography for every professional photographer plain and simple. Remember photography is a form of art and you can be creative on many levels.

 

[tipsntails7]

A couple examples

These are the photos I was talking about, they are obviously edited but the tone these photos are in is amazing.

 

[Backpack Hunter]

I'm in front of my computer now and can elaborate a bit more....

To answer your first question, I feel that the photo is always mine, no matter how much I edit it. I may tweak it a bunch in post processing, but the end outcome is a photo that I prefer over the original. That doesn't mean someone else will prefer over the original, but I do and I'm the one that needs to be happy

As far as taking a crappy photo as an original and making it look cool, it's simple; blown out backgrounds, lens glare and other issues can be made to look "cool" in post processing. These issues can't be faked in after, so I will look at different photo ops with post processing in mind. SO SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE THER TO EDIT IT.

In other words if you don't take the photo there is nothing to edit, so better to take something and edit it than take nothing, and have nothing to show for it?

 

[Backpack Hunter]

Is it safe to say that most of you guys are looking at photography as an artistic expression vs. capturing what is exactly there at that exact time?

 

[Craig Van Arsdale]

I think Aron's comment on making himself happy with his photos is spot on. If others like them as well you know your doing something right and it's an added bonus.

 

[Aron Snyder]

Exactly

In other words if you don't take the photo there is nothing to edit, so better to take something and edit it than take nothing, and have nothing to show for it?

 

[Yellowknife]

As far as taking a crappy photo as an original and making it look cool, it's simple; blown out backgrounds, lens glare and other issues can be made to look "cool" in post processing. These issues can't be faked in after, so I will look at different photo ops with post processing in mind. SO SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE THER TO EDIT IT.

I'm going to mildly disagree with this part. I'm not much of a photo guy, but my wife does it for money, so I've learned a few things. Much of the washed out, blown out, lens flare stuff you see in professional photo IS actually faked in. My wife shoots heavily back lit photos all the time, but with pro quality DSLR and glass, plus some serious skill, the photos still come out sharp and clear. Then if she is doing a creative edit, the lens flare usually gets added back in artificially. That way the parts she want's sharp are sharp, but the artistic effect still comes through.

A couple of examples. Can't use her good professional work, so just some family photos. This candid snap of my sister picking berries is pretty realistic, but I know that sun haze is all Photoshop....



My 3 yr old daughter dancing in the driveway is a more extreme example, and was done strictly for my wife's amusement and not really meant to be realistic. Look close enough and you can see the actual sun was just off to the left of the photo.



Anyway, just a random comment. One thing I've learned being married to a photographer, is how much camera skill and editing goes into making a photo look like the mind would perceive it in real life. Our eyes can refocus, and adjust to light/darks quite quickly and what we see is often more of a flowing impression I think. Capturing that isn't easy.

Yk