Does everyone edit their pictures?

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Tisdale on January 13, 2011 at 3:17pm

I try to do as little editing as possible. Mostly just cropping etc. I try not to photoshop as I believe that if I put it out of my mind that I can just edit the photo to make it look good then I learn to expand and build my skills as opposed to relying on a piece of software to make my photos look good.

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Permalink Reply by Greg maklae on January 13, 2011 at 4:44pm

I shoot everything in RAW, and in aperture priority mode, so the image comes out of the camera unprocessed, as opposed to jpeg, where the camera makes best guess correction. Typically i crop to either 5x7 or 8x10, set the white balance, the black and white points, contrast, clarity, saturation, hue and sharpness. I may also play with the curves some. If the image lighting is beyond the capacity of the camera, I will take several images and create an HDR photo. Also, if the depth of field I want is beyond f/16, I set the f/stop to 11, the sweet spot for my lens, and stack two,  three or more images, to create a crisp focus, from 3 feet to infinity. My goal is to create an image, the way the eye saw it.

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Permalink Reply by sherryl on April 7, 2011 at 8:25am

This sounds like a complete course in dark room techniques, makes me long for this ability to obtain something extra out of my photos

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Permalink Reply by James Elliott on January 13, 2011 at 6:01pm

I edit every single one of my photos, but only to a small degree. I don't clone out or add anything to my images. I only do color corrections, cropping, and sometimes applying vignettes. 98% of my editing is done on color correcting. Cameras can not provide a 100% accurate reproduction of a scene that was photographed, so color corrections are important if you want to accurately portray what the eye saw. I will also play with the colors if I want to give a shot a bit more drama with the lighting.

I think editing a photo only adds to the creativity of the photographer. By editing a photograph, you put your own style or stamp on the photograph. So i fully support photographers editing their work.

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Permalink Reply by ashley linville on April 1, 2011 at 1:29pm

100 % agree! :)

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Permalink Reply by Dora Williams on October 6, 2011 at 4:38pm

:)

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Permalink Reply by Alex Perez on October 18, 2011 at 8:13pm

Well said Dora. Of course planning your shot is always considered. 

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Permalink Reply by Heather Marie Smith on October 8, 2011 at 8:51am

I completely agree here.

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Permalink Reply by CameraClicker on January 13, 2011 at 7:37pm

It depends on what you mean by "edit".  Edit, in the dictionary, is to prepare and arrange, or to supervise or direct preparation and arrangement.  You are editing when you compose the image before you release the shutter.  If you shoot raw, there is some processing that goes into getting a JPEG or a print.  Some cameras have a 95% viewfinder so you have to crop a little to get back to what you saw in the viewfinder, does that count as editing? 

 

You can make a huge difference in some photos just by setting the white balance then the white and black points.  Sometimes adjusting the contrast will make a huge difference.  In the days of darkrooms, this was all done with exposure times, paper selection, chemical mixtures and development times.  Now, it is done in a computer.

 

Some images look really good with almost no work, other images look really good after a lot of work and some are composites, the computer will let you build double exposures, add or remove elements with relative ease.  The answer to your question is that some photos were taken that way and almost nothing was done to them, others had perhaps much more help.

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Permalink Reply by David on April 30, 2012 at 6:02am

Great question Nicole Brush.  Great answer CameraClicker.

Thanks.

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Permalink Reply by Hannah Wilding on January 19, 2011 at 1:18pm

I only do a small amount of editing, to just make the colour and the lighting pop alittle more. 

It's not really down to how much the photo has been edited as you are only trying to get the best quality out of your photo as you can.

It depends down on the photo, a great picture will always be that. A not so great shot will show even with a lot of editing. 

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Permalink Reply by nathan mccreery on January 19, 2011 at 2:09pm

What difference does it make?  Why is it a bad thing to edit a photograph.  I've done the same thing in a darkroom for many years, both in color and black and white.  I don't see a virtue in doing a lot of editing or a little bit of editing.  It's the final image that is the expression.  If you get what you're after and it takes a lot of editing, so what?  If you get to your final image with a little editing, so much the better.  There is no virtue in doing a little bit of editing, and if you limit the editing you do then where do you draw the line?  "I can go this far, and do these 20 manipulations, but I have to stop here because 21 isn't virtuous"?  I don't see a circumstance where I wouldn't edit a photograph unless it was to be used as evidence in a legal proceeding.  Adams used to say that the negative was the score and the photograph was the performance.

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