Originally posted by tabl10s Where does Picasa rank among the PP crowd? I haven't really done any PP stuff yet, but I might slip to the darkside.
This presents and interesting opening. This thread is very interesting. I wasn't sure how it would develop when I started it, but I'd like to open up the discussion a bit and hope people will join in a productive manner. Since initiating this thread I have been thinking about the fact that what interests me most about photography continues to be the camera...the fundamental expressive tool of the art and craft of Photography.
Lately, I haven't been thrilled with many of the shots that I've taken with my K-5 (not the camera, but the photographer). They just seem flat much of the time and I don't know why. My immediate fairly uninformed reaction was to say "it's because I'm shooting JPEG and I only use Picasa for tweaking and monochrome conversion. Then I began to look into the debate of RAW vs JPEG raging among all levels of photographers shooting all kinds of digital cameras. At the same time, I've been thinking about my serious interest in learning the nuts and bolts of proper exposure (been reading much and practicing as of late). When my exposures are spot on (which happens infrequently I admit) the photos seem to have a life to them that I cannot achieve when the exposure is off and I post process in Picasa to try to make it better. I'll be upfront, I don't enjoy post processing, I don't like sitting in front of my computer for hours...it's not what photography means to me (this is not a judgement and I'm not implying anything at all). What gets my blood pumping is seeing a great exposure from my camera that needs a nudge here and there.
It seems that the majority of shooters who post on sites like 500px, etc. are shooting RAW and are doing amazing things in PP. In that regard, I think this kind of advanced PP is an art form, albeit one that I'm not particularly interested partaking in other than as a viewer. However,I think it is a continuum. At some point, I think, PP becomes something other than what I consider Photography (I think we each have our own definition of it). I understand that photos cannot be produced without PP, I realize that depending on if you shot 35mm color negative or transparencies, you had greater or less wiggle room when shooting and processing. But in those days (and I'm not from those days), as I understand it you could never do what can be done with RAW data and a computer...you had to make the camera work for you, use it and push it and then make some tweaks in the dark room.
Look, if it were cost effective, I'd be shooting film...but it's not. What is difficult for me is when I'm on 500px and the like, I'm bombarded with amazing feats of PP...things that make me stop in my tracks. But is it fair to compare those works to more traditional, if you will, renderings? This is not intended to raise the RAW vs. JPEG debate, that's not what this post is about.