How Much Post Processing Do You Do?

[waffles]

Everything that I submit to the paper goes through some work, but that's only about 15% of the ones I took. Even then it's only cropping and saturation, maybe some noise reduction.

Of course there are times when I take a picture with the intent to play with it, but that hardly counts.

[Isilwen]

I keep most things SOOC, though have had to resort to lots of lighting corrections since going to the S3 IS. It just doesn't cut it indoors unless every single lamp is on. I've played around with some post processing since starting the 365 project but more as a learning experience.

[Teewinot]

I always crop, no matter what, so that's the minimum amount I post-process my keepers. But usually I also play around with color/contrast a little on most shots. I would say I do more substantial post-processing on about 30% of my keepers...but I think this number is growing as I learn more and more about editing techniques. I for one think post processing is a blast!

[wulf]

Originally Posted by Teewinot

I for one think post processing is a blast!

I certainly don't disagree with that. I fully expect that I will reach a point when I have a lot of photos to store, at which point I will slow down from keeping an average of 3-4 a day to 3-4 a week or less. Part of that will be deliberately being even more selective about what avoids being trashed; however, it will probably also involved resuming more intensive post-processing to take even more control over the final image.

Wulf

[aadam_21]

Originally Posted by kirbinster

I guess you could say I post process every single shot since I shoot in raw. Every photo gets imported from my card into Lightroom.

Yep, same here. I also find that even when my white balance looks really good, it could almost always use a slight tweak. So, if processing RAW files and exporting to JPEG is post processing, I do every one of my shots.

[PLouie]

Even when my photos come out good straight from the camera, I like to give it some punch. At the very least there would be some contrast adjustments. Maybe saturation/desaturation, and sharpness. I love contrast so that's almost a sure thing.

I'm a very artsy person because I'm an art student and I'm still learning new things so I like the images with obvious moods and color. That usually means me color correcting the image with a certain color palette. Most of my photos don't end up color correct in the way our eyes see because of that choice.

[yokolok]

PP just to make sure that the lab prints it the way i want it...some levels adjustments, hue & sat, unsharp, crop/resize, color, brightness & contrast...as needed...

[shazzt]

Used to be that it depended how I felt but now that I am mostly shooting RAW I have to do basic processing on everything. Mostly I enjoy it - I just wish I was better at it!

[winterminute]

Originally Posted by yokolok

PP just to make sure that the lab prints it the way i want it...some levels adjustments, hue & sat, unsharp, crop/resize, color, brightness & contrast...as needed...

I've got the constrast and saturation down, but levels scare me. Mostly because I'm (getting) comfortable in Lightroom and don't like jumping out to GIMP. Also, I really need to bite the bullet and learn USM.

[PLouie]

winterminute,

Don't be afraid of levels and USM. It's actually very simple to use. All you really have to do is try it.