How Much Post Processing Do You Do?

[winterminute]

As my shots get better and better exposed, I have less things to try and fix in post production. However, almost every single one of my shots looks better with a bump in constrast and sometimes a bit of saturation and I have to admit I love the "Clarity" tool in Lightroom. My landscape shots especially are in need of a bit of pop. They are correctly exposed, just not rich in color.

Like most people I'd like to spend less time in Lightroom and more time shooting photos. Granted Lightroom makes it very easy to do a couple of tweaks and move on to the next photo, but I wonder if great photographers ever get to the point where they only do post production to achieve a specific effect.

When you've selected the few keepers from a given photo shoot, do you post process each shot or only 1 or 2?

[speednut]

I'm now the "darkroom owner" whereas before I had to rely on a lab for my postprocessing with film. I love having the control back in my hands and no longer being dependent on "auto-processing". Lightroom IMHO makes it so much easier to perform minor adjustments quickly and efficently.

"Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships."- Ansel Adams

[velvet4269]

I try to keep my post-processing to a minimum, which isn't to say that every shot I take is perfect (quite the opposite, actually), but I'm not very good at post-processing, and the less time I have to spend doing anything, the saner I stay. Plus, I still feel like 'm in the "learning" process, and if I've post-processed the heck out of a particular photo, I may not remember what it was I did wrong (that said, I always keep the original, untouched image as well).

The majority of my "post-processing" consists of resizing photos, to make them upload a wee bit faster, possibly some cropping, and slapping the copyright info on it. This isn't to say I haven't done more (case in point, the orange bear that I managed to convert back to green), but I try not to if I can help it.

[wulf]

At present, the answer is rarely - probably no more than about 5% of the shots I decide to keep. Nine months into owning a DSLR, I am still excited about getting so many shots that work straight from the camera and would rather take more photos than put a lot more time into post-processing.

Wulf

[Saralonde]

The biggest thing I do in postprocessing is cropping. If my lens or circumstances can't get close enough, then I'll do it later. Once in awhile I'll try a little something, but basically I'm a straight out of the camera girl.

This is not because I'm a purist. I just have very little knowledge in that area .

[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. Raw photos almost always need a boost in saturation and sharpness. So, if you call that post processing I am at 100% of the shots that I keep.

[winterminute]

Originally Posted by wulf

At present, the answer is rarely - probably no more than about 5% of the shots I decide to keep. Nine months into owning a DSLR, I am still excited about getting so many shots that work straight from the camera and would rather take more photos than put a lot more time into post-processing.
Wulf

With your dSLR, are you getting better color and saturation than a PAS? I know that's a hard comparison to make, but I didn't think a DSLR would actually create better color than PAS.

[wulf]

The auto white balance is better, other white balance modes are easier to access, it is easier to take control of the camera to get a well-exposed picture and possible to also control sharpness and bokeh.... DSLRs give a lot more opportunity of getting a good picture than my old P&S did (Fujifilm Finepix 1300 Zoom). That may be different with more recent P&S cameras, particularly those that push up towards DSLR territory in terms of the control they give the photographer.

Wulf

[Bo_]

I am a bit lazy - so my post processing mainly consist of "I feel lucky" and cropping in Picasa. So I try to get the picture right - straight out of the camera. Sometimes I take the time with the photo in GIMP or some other editing tool.

[Jamesc359]

I always end up doing some level of post processing on my keepers. Since I use a P&S I'm only able to get so close to smaller objects, so I tend to crop a lot. Once in a while I'll play with the brightness, saturation, gamma and color balance. But not normally. My camera has pretty good color and etc.

Once in a rare while I'll apply a Photoshop plug-in. But I normally only do that when I want a B&W image. Basic B&W conversion just doesn't do anything for me.

It always amazes me though that most of my keepers don't require any significant modification though.

You'll note I don't really count resizing as a post process. Resizing is only a necessary evil brought on by the limited bandwidth of the internet and monitor sizes.