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01-08-2018, 11:19 PM   #16
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All good points. But it truly depends on what you shoot. Artistically I will never outsource my portrait shoots. I mean they are just a couple of shots. I can spend as much time on them retouching and cropping to perfection.


But when shooting weddings, there over 100 pictures that need to be worked on in a couple of weeks. This where time is not on once side.
Most on this site are seasoned photographers, but will never want to shoot a wedding. I have seen the warnings, DONT DO IT.
We can all agree that it takes dedication and skill. So can one buy the skill from somewhere else.

This is a shot I am extreme proud of. But the RAW shot to the finished product are far apart.
But I had a week work with it to my satisfaction. So I am not afraid to be artistic. I am afraid to be artistic fast. Hence the question of outsourcing.



---------- Post added 09-01-18 at 09:37 ----------

QuoteOriginally posted by BigMackCam Quote

I appreciate your frustration with post-processing when you don't understand it. It's taken me a full three years to become (what I believe to be) truly proficient and fluent with all aspects of Lightroom (I'm now transferring those skills to Darktable, and having to learn some entirely new ways of doing things). I've barely scratched the surface of image editing in tools such as Photoshop, GIMP etc. But, learning post-processing properly, from good books or online training materials (or even courses) is time well-spent. It's almost as important as learning the fundamentals of photography, in my view.
Its always nice that to see people go to open source. Have been using darktable and gimp for years. So it was nice when you started posting about darktable.
When you do commercial work like weddings, It can be quite tedious. There can easily be a problem of consistency. Gimp for example does not have an easy batch processing feature.

Last week I bought a tutorial from Rosie Hardy who exclusively uses Gimp. Very good stuff. Her skills with the tool is simple and amazing. Artistically she uses Lightroom VSCO preset.
I think she can do the same with Gimp. But then comes the consistency issue that has been discussed before in another thread.

Culture.

01-09-2018, 04:04 AM   #17
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My wife shot a couple of weddings close together a couple of years ago and tried one of the services for those. She didn't like it very much. The thing that takes the longest is actually culling the photos and they will do that for you -- for a price -- but they don't really know what photos are important and as far as processing, they don't usually do anything special. It seems as though they just do some fine tuning of white balance and have nice presets for various situations.

Getting particular photos worked on -- say an image with glasses glare that you want fixed or a major clone job that you don't feel comfortable doing -- isn't too expensive and worthwhile for those sorts of situations. I do think post processing helps a photographer figure out what works and what doesn't work and if you off load that to someone else, you won't tend to have as much improvement in your photography over time.
01-09-2018, 06:09 AM   #18
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QuoteOriginally posted by Culture Quote
We can all agree that it takes dedication and skill. So can one buy the skill from somewhere else.
Sure, you can buy the skill from somewhere - but they won't make the same choices as you, and the resulting images are no longer entirely your own work, IMHO. It becomes their interpretation of what you were trying to convey - like a band performing a song you wrote

Plus, you become dependent on that particular outsource partner to deliver consistency. Can they guarantee to (a) always be available when you need them, (b) always have the same people work on your shots, to eliminate personal stylistic differences, (c) deliver within an acceptable time frame, (d) keep the costs manageable, etc.? Or will there be times when they can't guarantee those things and you have to use a different service and risk not getting what you wanted, when you have a client delivery due imminently?

QuoteOriginally posted by Culture Quote
When you do commercial work like weddings, It can be quite tedious. There can easily be a problem of consistency. Gimp for example does not have an easy batch processing feature.
I don't shoot weddings, nor am I a pro photographer. However, extensive editing in GIMP or Photoshop (for example), as opposed to RAW processing in something like Darktable or Lightroom, sounds like overkill and over-complication for a wedding shoot, except perhaps for one or two individual art shots out of the entire portfolio. You're not looking for absolute perfection in every shot (which, in any case, is subjective) but to achieve a very good standard for the client whilst keeping your processing time reasonable. Is that not so?

With Lightroom (and, increasingly, Darktable) I can get a photograph more or less ready in a few minutes if I'm working manually, or under a minute if I use some of the presets I've created. I appreciate that achieving consistency over a portfolio from one shoot might be more time-consuming, but not especially so, surely?

In any case, my guess is that most outsourced processing services (for digital photography) use a number of presets in Lightroom, then tweak individual aspects, with perhaps a bit of re-touching work in Photoshop for some but not all photos. I seriously doubt they'd do more than that when working on an entire event portfolio, as the man-power and time involved would become very costly both to them and their clients.

Last edited by BigMackCam; 01-09-2018 at 06:40 AM.
01-09-2018, 08:24 AM - 2 Likes   #19
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I think the keys when you are shooting a wedding are shoot enough but not too much. You want to make sure you have a photo with everyone's eyes open, but you really don't need to wade through sixteen images of the same pose. Develop nice presets that fit with your style and use them. Use your sync button in Lightroom a lot. Remember that most of the magic is going to happen before you ever open your image in Lightroom. If you can get your image really close in camera, then it will take much less editing after the fact.

Wedding photographers are focused on efficiency and learning to be efficient with post processing is important.

If you are taking hobby photos, it probably makes even less sense to pay a service. Better to figure things out, spend a little money on presets, learn Nik Effects (which is free) and you'll get there. Efficiency isn't as important if you aren't making money with your photographs. It is better just to take a single image you like and work on it and learn from it.

01-09-2018, 10:11 AM   #20
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QuoteOriginally posted by Culture Quote
All good points. But it truly depends on what you shoot. Artistically I will never outsource my portrait shoots. I mean they are just a couple of shots. I can spend as much time on them retouching and cropping to perfection.


But when shooting weddings, there over 100 pictures that need to be worked on in a couple of weeks. This where time is not on once side.
Most on this site are seasoned photographers, but will never want to shoot a wedding. I have seen the warnings, DONT DO IT.
We can all agree that it takes dedication and skill. So can one buy the skill from somewhere else.

This is a shot I am extreme proud of. But the RAW shot to the finished product are far apart.
But I had a week work with it to my satisfaction. So I am not afraid to be artistic. I am afraid to be artistic fast. Hence the question of outsourcing.



---------- Post added 09-01-18 at 09:37 ----------



Its always nice that to see people go to open source. Have been using darktable and gimp for years. So it was nice when you started posting about darktable.
When you do commercial work like weddings, It can be quite tedious. There can easily be a problem of consistency. Gimp for example does not have an easy batch processing feature.

Last week I bought a tutorial from Rosie Hardy who exclusively uses Gimp. Very good stuff. Her skills with the tool is simple and amazing. Artistically she uses Lightroom VSCO preset.
I think she can do the same with Gimp. But then comes the consistency issue that has been discussed before in another thread.

Culture.
nice work on the post-processing. , I think the main thing as you point out is time. some things like weddings you can batch process rapidly then you still have the option to make one or two key shots more.perfect

for any commercial work if you find a good outsource and spend some time developing the working style and relationship I think it works

Producing fine art for a show becomes a whole different thing, I can see working for final print output with a specialist but the image has to completely be where you want it first and that can be very tough to get in an outside partnership (though i have shot for one person a couple of times, she has a dgree in fine arts and photography and is very particular about certain aspects and likes to do those edits herself, I'm fine with that as I get them back then finish to my style adn send back...but that only works because we both trust each other with our rolls and these aren't for my fine art anyway
As Rondec pointed out for commercial shoots you can be economical both shooting and with workflow but you need to develop that. if you are really busy an outside source alleviates things
01-11-2018, 02:19 PM - 1 Like   #21
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QuoteOriginally posted by BigMackCam Quote
Post-processing is an important part of the creative process, and - even with subtle processing - can completely change the final result. On that basis, personally I don't see how anyone creating work for artistic reasons can rely on an outsourced service provider without compromising the integrity of their work.
Photographers up to a point are accustomed now more than before actually to perform everything by themselve. Because it is actually quite simple and easy theses days.

But that's because there no much work involved and for enthusiasts this would be simply too expensive. As many say there, some pro already do it.

But if we were in a different trade, with much higher level of expectation for the quality of the results but also a medium that require much more technique and work, then team work would be almost mandatory and the typical setup.

This is what the film industry does with many specialized jobs, a typical film being made by a team rather than a single person.

I don't think that collective work is less creative, is less art than a single person work. Is the Taj Mahal not an unique artful monument because hundred people or thousand people where involved? Are book written by 2 or 3 persons inferior? Are all films untinterresting because many people are involved ?

Doesn't make sence. We like to put brands and offen individual names to arts, but most art is derivated work, inspired by others this is even more true out of photography where we actually capture what already exist mostly.

Last edited by Nicolas06; 01-11-2018 at 02:30 PM.
01-11-2018, 02:40 PM   #22
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QuoteOriginally posted by Nicolas06 Quote
But if we were in a different trade, with much higher level of expectation for the quality of the results but also a medium that require much more technique and work, then team work would be almost mandatory and the typical setup.

This is what the film industry does with many specialized jobs, a typical film being made by a team rather than a single person.

I don't think that collective work is less creative, is less art than a single person work.
That's a very good point, Nicolas, and well made... However (and there's always a however, right? )... The skill levels involved in each and every area of film-making are such that it's *essential* to have numerous people - numerous teams, even - focusing on individual aspects, otherwise you'd never get the level of quality required. One man simply can't do it all.

With post-processing in digital photography (I'm talking about processing of RAW files to a high standard - not complex image editing), I'd argue that with a few exceptions, it's within anyone's gift to learn the necessary techniques and achieve excellent results (it's really not that difficult). Many of those techniques can then be built into presets that provide a sound basis for final tweaking. Post-processing a photograph, or a set of photographs, is - in most cases - nothing like as complicated and multi-faceted as producing a film. Can you get someone else to do the processing? Sure. Do you need to? That depends on the use case and application, but I'd suggest it's unnecessary for most wedding photographers unless the approach and workflow are somehow inefficient.

QuoteOriginally posted by Nicolas06 Quote
Is the Taj Mahal not an unique artful monument because hundred people or thousand people where involved?
Of course it is, but see my comment above. You simply couldn't do everything yourself... You couldn't have all of the necessary skills at such an accomplished level, and even if you could, you couldn't build it in your lifetime. A large workforce is essential. Again, I'd argue that an extended workforce isn't essential for wedding photography (it ain't the Taj Mahal ). Unless, perhaps, you're shooting weddings every day of the week and have no time for basic post-processing.

QuoteOriginally posted by Nicolas06 Quote
Are book written by 2 or 3 persons inferior?
Where fiction is concerned, for me they are. I tend to avoid those books. Part of the joy of reading a book, for me, is enjoying the author's creative skill (I guess you could call it his art). With more than one author, I don't know who I'm reading and when.

All of that said, I still think you raised and made a very good point, and I take it on board

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