Editing Landscape Photos

[Becndicko]

I am new to DSLR photography, especially editing. I was wondering what tips anyone has to editing. I have taken some shots and when I edit them, they are either brighter or duller than how I took the shot. I feel comforable with the end product, but I somewhat feel cheating as the edited shot doesnt look like the original. Are there rules that one should take into consideration when editing. I make the sky or water more blue, I will make the trees more green. I know this sounds like an odd question, I just am not sure yet the style I am trying to convey to my audiance. Though my photos are for myself, I want them to appeal to others as much as me. Sometimes the landscape pictures looks surreal, ie colours of the water, sunset etc...Should I focus on a more natural effect, or is enhancing exceptable.

[RichardTaylor]

A lot of decisions made during post processing, are artistic decisions, especially if you are shooting just for yourself.
I generally process them to suite my taste and if other people like them also that is good. However if they don't like them it doesn't worry me.

However, I will sometimes make PPing decisions depending on my relationship with the subject, especially people.
If I am shooting for somebody else I will try to make sure the final pics meet their needs..

[Michael_2010]

That's an interesting question. With landscapes I like to recreate the scene that motivated me to take the shot in the first place and keep the appearance natural. After I am reasonably comfortable with that aspect of the photo, I might play around with various digital effects just to see what the results look like.

This is your art and photography is your chosen medium. Do what works best for you. Of course, if you are into photojournalism, then your goal would be to present the harsh realities in life without too many artistic liberties.

[Krusty79]

If you are shooting jpgs, then your camera is already doing some in-camera processing. If you are shooting RAW, then you are seeing the unprocessed files.

Also, everyone's monitors have different settings, so there are monitor calibrators out there that try to set your colors up to a known standard. I notice my images often look darker when I upload them to Flickr, but I haven't calibrated my monitor. I should at least try one of the free websites that let you do some calibrating, although the hardware ones are more accurate and of course, cost more.

Most folks like the realistic colors, although the overprocessed look is sometimes cool. I think there is universal agreement that the processing is overboard if you see halos around objects in your images.