[K McCall]

I'm a world-class procrastinator, and I'm just getting around to going through a bunch of photos I took this summer. A couple of them I'd already started playing around with, but even in the past two months I've developed a new (hopefully better) way of post-processing, so I discarded those ill-thought edits for my new ones.

That got me to thinking....I'd probably process photos I took ages ago (a.k.a. last year) a LOT differently if I'd taken them now. And since I shoot in RAW and finally have access to my those photos (a long story, but just imagine a computer hard drive wrapped in bubble wrap and shipped overseas in a plastic container), I started going through them....

And all I can say is that I was a total noob back then, and it shows!

So have any of you gone through and re-processed photos you took a long time ago and had written off as finished? Have you saved any photos from the never-never-land of forgotten parts of your hard drive? Most importantly, what did you do differently the second go-round?

And if you haven't done this and want to use this as an excuse to, I would heartily recommend it.

[Gooshin]

i know that i still have alot to learn, but i dont bother going to old photos because they in themselves are not that great, so i just go out and make new photos.

however post-processing is a slippery slope

there are so many different ways you could process a digital photo nowdays, its a matter of taste (some better than others), but with respect to your own work, i wouldnt really worry so much, whats done is done.

[Parallax]

I do not sharpen, bump contrast, or lighten as much as I used to.

[Kerrowdown]

I still play about with all the sharpening tricks in CS3, just to see if I can see a difference.

Most times not that much, considering the time put in.

[davemdsn]

I do find that I process a lot differently now. In some ways I do more and in some ways I do less. I recently redid my online portfolio so I did go back and reprocess a bunch of old images to improve continuity in the flow of images. It was interesting to see which images I didn't really have to do much with to update it, which ones I didn't like anymore after new scrutiny, and which ones look completely better (or at least way different) now.

I have lived a little while and one thing I have learned is that every time I think I have finally grown up and come into my own, I eventually find that I was wrong. We never really stop changing. That goes for our art as well. Not only do we learn more as we do more, but our tastes change. The changes aren't even necessarily linear. We find ourselves going full circle fairly often. Life is interesting to say the least.

I think it's good to review earlier stuff, it's a good way to track ones progress. It's also good to revisit some of them as well. Many people start off not realising their monitor needs calibrating so corrections can be made. More advanced software and editing knowledge is also another reason to revisit.
We all keep our pictures for various reasons but 'memories' is probably the primary one. We're fortunate with digital technology that we can go back from time to time and improve the look of some of those memories.
There's also the possibility of finding a hidden gem every now and again.

[Ash]

I'm with you Keitha.
Good shots I managed to get earlier on - usually by luck - I have found very useful to go back to for a PP redo - and shooting RAW made this possible for me.

Definitely learning new PP stuff as time goes on, and enjoying the process...

[K McCall]

This is one shot I just re-did:

Original:


New processing:


The second one is obviously moodier and darker, but it's more like how I remember the scene: it had been raining all morning, and then there was a break in the rain. My best friend has an awesome garden that she'd wanted me to take photos of, so I drove to her house and took a few; this is one of those. It started raining again while I was there...

The first was probably done in Photoshop, and probably a hard light layer or two. The second I did in Lightroom tonight.

[jsherman999]

Interesting concept, I'm sure I've evolved in a couple minor ways...

One thing - I used to hate shooting in harsh sunlight, liked the morning or late
afternoon colors, or the glow that came from light overcast. Lately, I've learned to
embrace the shadows of the harsh mid-day - spending more time shooting in those
hours and not trying to 'mitigate' in PP.












Instead of shadow recovery, push the shadows even more, while tweaking colors
toward the cast instead of away from it. Giving in to the light!



.

[NaClH2O]

I've often thought of doing that, going back and re-processing photos I took a couple-three years (or more) ago, but I'm so behind with current processing that I simply don't have the time. Getting to shots taken earlier this summer, is being up-to-date and current for me , I've still got shots taken last fall that haven't seen the light of day yet. But it is true, I process much diffferently than I did several years ago. Like you, my images have gotten a bit darker (in the emotional sense) and moodier. Part of that can be contributed to the 60hr weeks I've been putting in over the last year or so and part can be attributed to getting old(er). So while it might be fun to go back and re-process some shot I took several years ago, I doubt it will happen anytime soon

NaCl(let me catch up with the ones I haven't even opened yet)H2O

[Parallax]

jsherman999, those are great! I like your "giving in to the light" philosophy. After I thought about it realized that just about every picture I take it is because that scene, at that instant caught my attention, so it is probably best not to alter it too much in PP.

[PeterAM]

I eased my way into digital photography by scanning and printing 35mm negs and slides (selectively);some were/are 35 years old. That was about five years ago. Since then, my pp skills (maybe taste more than skills) have changed, as have my printing skills and equipment. I'm about to go back and revisit some of those scans and originals to see if I want do them differently. I have some shots on film that stick in my mind and was never quite able to get the digital print the way I wanted it, the first time around. Sometimes, after time has passed, you see the picture differently based on your current mindset. Obviously I think this is a good exercise, but on a very selective basis.

[Alfisti]

Since I have been using LR the real boon for me is control over each colour and it's hue/sat/luminance ... really has solved 99% of my needs to use selections which i absolutely stank at.

[MJB DIGITAL]

For me is a different story. I don't shoot digitally for personal stuff. So all of my digital shooting has to have a quick turnover, and I always have something new to work on. I can tell when I LOOK at old stuff, that my shooting and processing gets better with every single shoot.
I just don't want to go back and revisit old work again....for no pay.

I did just get finished with a reedit. I totally made a bonehead mistake (thats all anyone needs to know) and I had to go and reedit a wedding that I was about 75% done with. Since then I had shot two weddings and edited a fair amount of stuff. I was really pleased at the quality of the new reedit....

I would prefer to show improvement with every single shot, but I can't micromeasure like that.

peace out to ya mama

[K McCall]

@ JSherman: I've come back to this thread a few times since starting it, and every time I scroll down past your first photo, I scroll back up to see it, then scroll down, then scroll back up. It's a really awesome perspective you nailed there!

@ MJB: You bring up an interesting point to all this: the idea of improvement with each shot we process or - if only we were so lucky! - each time we press the shutter. I guess there was the implicit idea that we either improve as time goes by and, as davemdsn said above, that our tastes change. And the question becomes how much that should or could affect a shot we took years ago....

Thanks for sharing your comments, everyone! When it's 4am where I am and I don't have light to shoot by, thinking about photography is the next-best thing