Do you ALWAYS PP?

[shutterflies]

Lately I find I'm spending SO much time editing photos and I really don't have the time (who does?). Occasionally I can get away with a few tweaks and a sweep of the clarity brush but for the most part I sit there for hours....Is this just part of being a photographer now?

I shoot in RAW, except for personal, then I'm lazy and will shoot JPEG and, *gasp* just leave them as they are or shoot film, get it developed and printed and put it straight into an album. Is there some secret fast editing tips I'm missing out on? Help!

[zona5101]

I guess it would depend on what adjustments you're doing. If you're doing a lot of exposure adjustments then thats something you could reduce on the capture side. If your making the same color saturation/contrast adjustments, check some of the other camera built-in color schemes and see if one of them gives you something closer to what you want. Depending on your post software, you can also create a preset that can be applied across the board on import. ...or a preset that you apply to a selected group of images. If you're doing mostly custom tweaks to each, then there are not alot of shortcuts...in which case you have to ask yourself where the diminishing point of return is.

[OsmosisStudios]

Yes, always.

However, not on all images.

I sort through my images twice to only choose the best ones, then I process those. The rest dont get processed, but I keep the JPGs

[RichardTaylor]

Yes always (I shoot RAW)

Normally for every full day of serious shooting I budget an 8 hour day of PPing (I am retired)

[Photologyst]

I PP every RAW photo that I think is worth something, some just a tad, others a lot, depending on the need.

If you are spending a lot of time PP each photo then you probably should consider actions, batch processing and using a very efficient program such as Lightroom or Aperture to get things done quickly. In either of the foregoing one can cull, crop and adjust about 100 photos in an hour. Photoshop or GIMP, etc. take much longer.

[shutterflies]

I use Lightroom already. I mainly photograph children and that's the main drain on time, removing snot, dribble etc even though I try and make sure the child has a clean face. How do I batch edit with Lightroom? I normally lighten all the pictures a little and bump up the saturation.

[lputman]

You can sync in LR or, like zona5101, you can create a preset that will do the some of your adjustments upon import if you do the same thing repeatedly.

George Jardine on Lightroom - The Synchronize Command | Adobe TV

[Photologyst]

Originally Posted by shutterflies

I use Lightroom already. I mainly photograph children and that's the main drain on time, removing snot, dribble etc even though I try and make sure the child has a clean face. How do I batch edit with Lightroom? I normally lighten all the pictures a little and bump up the saturation.

Use the “sync” function. Correct the first shot, with the same lighting conditions, and sync the rest. If you find yourself using the same adjustments over and over, then make a “preset.”

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 * Applying Develop adjustments to other photos

[jml79]

I shoot Raw and PP everything, I batch process the whole thing based in sections as the light changes and then go back and manually tweak the shots I am posting online etc. I use RawTharapee, UFRaw and GIMP because sony's software is so-so, I use Linux so it doesn't work anyway and I can't justify expensive Adobe products yet.

Hey at least I am legal....

[inkista]

Originally Posted by shutterflies

...Occasionally I can get away with a few tweaks and a sweep of the clarity brush but for the most part I sit there for hours....Is this just part of being a photographer now? ...

What makes you think it wasn't part of being a photographer back then? I used to spend more time in the darkroom than I did shooting. I loved playing with the paper and the enlarger and masking and dodging and burning and how long you left it in the developer and.... It's always been this way. It's just that until the advent of digital, most people didn't have access to the equivalent of a fully-equipped color darkroom.

If you look at early 20th century photographer geeking, you'll note as much attention is paid to darkroom processing methods and chemistry, papers and developers and fixatives, as are paid to cameras, lenses, and film. When you read Ansel Adams, he'll not only tell you the lens, camera, and film he uses, but also the developing chemistry, method, and paper he prints on. Also, sometimes the print development process. Go read The Negative and The Print sometime.