[WMBP]

Is there anybody else out there who has reached a point with their digital photography that they have gotten caught up in the technology of processing the image and now spend more time "fixing" images than they do "taking" images?

I think the issue is using RAW and the infinite choices and permutations of every image. I now spend a few minutes taking a shot and then hours, and I do mean hours, trying to tease the "perfect" image out of that RAW data. And of course, perfection isn't there and the process is unending. With that comes the nagging sense that the post-technology is sucking the joy out of the process and getting between me and the sometimes frustrating but ultimately more exciting creative world of photography.

If you reached this point, how did you work through it? It seems perhaps to shoot in jpeg and trust to the vagaries of the camera and your settings? This isn't a burning issue, but I'd be interested in comments,
Brian

Brian,

I understand your feelings. I also feel that I spend too much time at the computer.

Unfortunately, I think we're stuck. I can't imagine giving up on raw and going back to shooting jpegs. That makes no sense at all to me. Raw isn't just about having greater latitude to fix mistakes. It's about having more information to deal with, even in a very well exposed shot. Moreover, when you shoot digital, it's often appropriate to expose the photo in a way that requires adjustment in post-processing. (If you expose to the right to get the most tonal detail, you'll often end up having to pull back the exposure slightly in post.) So I'm not going to stop shooting raw.

I remind myself also that, when I started in photography, I was doing my own darkroom work, and did it all through high school and college. (I never had a home darkroom.) Back in those days, decades ago, I'd take a couple rolls of film, and then have to spend a couple hours in the darkroom. I think darkroom work may have been more "fun" than working on the computer. I still remember the excitement I got every time the image started to appear on the print. It was like a magic trick that I never got tired of. Now, the images appear immediately - except for the fact that it takes time for my computer to read all that data. So I spend a lot of time just waiting for my computer to do its thing.

*

How am I dealing with this?

For one thing, I'm trying to take fewer photos. Fewer, more carefully composed and more carefully exposed shots, means less work on the computer.

It helps also that I've gotten better. More of my time on the computer is spent bring out the best in the shot, instead of trying to fix the worst.

Also, now that I'm pretty confident about Lightroom 2.5, I've also realized that my photos need less post-processing than I used to think. I seldom use capture sharpening in Lightroom these days; the clarity slider seems to do about all that is needed. (I do use a bit of output sharpening when I export, especially if I'm exporting because a client ordered print.) I seldom use noise reduction. I've discovered that my K20D files print very nicely and that the noise is less noticeable in the prints than it is on my computer. I seldom use the tone curves now. For my "average" photo these days, I may apply only two quick changes: boosting the black slider in Lightroom to 6 or 7 (from the default of 5), and boosting the clarity slider to 15 or so (default = 0). Actually, I'm doing more and more of my work in Lightroom's Library module using the Quick Develop tools. I have to switch to the Develop module to crop, which I think is a design flaw in Lightroom. Fortunately Lightroom allows me to do so much with quick keyboard shortcuts. I hit R, crop, then hit E to return to loupe view in the library. Staying in Library allows me to do my keywording and caption-writing at the same time. I only wish that the Quick Develop module showed the slider values since I'm now pretty familiar with them.

I switch to Develop and really make use of its tools only when a photo is worth the trouble, either because I like it especially or because a client has placed a print order. To put it differently, for most of my photos, I am trying to lower my post-processing standards a bit. I look back at the great photos taken by Kertesz, Brassai, Atget, Cartier-Bresson et al. and realize they don't meet my post-processing standards at all, much of the time. And yet a lot of the photos taken by those masters leave me breathless with admiration. If a good reproduction of a Cartier-Bresson photo doesn't meet my standards, perhaps my standards are too high. :-)

*

To put it differently, I think we've all become obsessed with technical perfection. Personally I blame Photoshop, but actually it's the Zeitgeist and we're largely stuck with it. You see so many movies these days with brilliant special effects and an infantile story.

Anyway, I remind myself frequently about Cartier-Bresson's indifference to post-processing. For Ansel Adams, processing and making the print was as important as the process of taking the photo. I admire Adams, but I love Cartier-Bresson (and Kertesz, and Doisneau and Lartigue). I can't yet afford to hire somebody to process my photos for me, so I am stuck spending hours on the computer. Maybe Cartier-Bresson, were he working today, would shoot jpeg and be happy with it. But I doubt it.

Will

Will, how many times did you wind up rubbing certain areas to bring it up faster and darker? And all the other tricks we used to get the image as we wanted it. I was fortunate that at 13 I had my own darkroom. Maybe I was a little younger. It was a long time ago.

As time goes by the old way seems easier anyway. I do recall though that the 12-14 hours didn't really seem as long as that. And I spend less time on the computer but it sure seems longer.

[Marc Sabatella]

Have you played with the K7D shadow correction?

No, I don't have that camera. I can certainly see that gives a little more control. But again, I'm talking about wanting a *lot* more finesse than that. It's not just about how much DR you get, but where the transitions between "zones" (I think I'm using the photographic term appropriately here) occur, how sharply they occur, etc. Like I said, this comes from a background in painting, where that's probably 50% of the skill involved: visualizing how you want the tones to map. It's not about maximizing DR - painters go to considerable trouble to *avoid* the mistake of creating detail in both shadows and highlights, which tends to kill the sense of light in the painting. It's about fine control of how much of the tonal range of the painting you use to represent how much of the tonal range of the subject, where you choose to emphasize contrast detail versus where you choose to de-emphasize it, how dark you want the mid-tones to be, how you want the lines between highlight and midtone or midtones and shadows to look, etc. And every artist will have their own way of representing any given scene. Even one given artist might represent the same scene different ways in different paintings. This is exactly the same sort of thing I do with the various tone controls in PP (or would have done in a darkroom had I ever been into that when I shot film). It's just not the sort of thing one can possibly expect to get "right" in camera.

As always, I am not advocating a JPEG only but I find many shots it is good enough, and the minor treeking I might do is simple enough with JPEG, so why bother with RAW.

And for the record, I'm not specifically advocating that you *need* to shoot RAW in order to do the things I am talking about. You do definitely get smoother gradients when doing these kind of curve manipulations in RAW though. But as is always the case when discussing these matters, it's just a matter of where you personally draw the line in terms of how much and what kind of manipulation you wish to do and what level of quality you need to maintain.

For my purposes, since the software I use makes dealing with RAW as easy as if not easier than dealing with JPEG, my reason for shooting RAW always is more pragmatic: I know I need it *sometimes*, and it is just more trouble than it is worth to keep switching back and forth between RAW and JPEG. If my PP software was such that RAW constituted a "bother", I could certainly see a reason to switch to JPEG when RAW wasn't necessary, but as it is, there is no no incentive for me to not shoot RAW at all times.

It is always a trade off.

Indeed! Many people aren't interested in the sort of tone manipulations I am referring to. Others would be shocked that I am willing to stop there and don't also get into burning & dodging of specific areas or other types of retouching.

[Lowell Goudge]

No, I don't have that camera. I can certainly see that gives a little more control. But again, I'm talking about wanting a *lot* more finesse than that. It's not just about how much DR you get, but where the transitions between "zones" (I think I'm using the photographic term appropriately here) occur, how sharply they occur, etc. Like I said, this comes from a background in painting, where that's probably 50% of the skill involved: visualizing how you want the tones to map. It's not about maximizing DR - painters go to considerable trouble to *avoid* the mistake of creating detail in both shadows and highlights, which tends to kill the sense of light in the painting. It's about fine control of how much of the tonal range of the painting you use to represent how much of the tonal range of the subject, where you choose to emphasize contrast detail versus where you choose to de-emphasize it, how dark you want the mid-tones to be, how you want the lines between highlight and midtone or midtones and shadows to look, etc. And every artist will have their own way of representing any given scene. Even one given artist might represent the same scene different ways in different paintings. This is exactly the same sort of thing I do with the various tone controls in PP (or would have done in a darkroom had I ever been into that when I shot film). It's just not the sort of thing one can possibly expect to get "right" in camera.



And for the record, I'm not specifically advocating that you *need* to shoot RAW in order to do the things I am talking about. You do definitely get smoother gradients when doing these kind of curve manipulations in RAW though. But as is always the case when discussing these matters, it's just a matter of where you personally draw the line in terms of how much and what kind of manipulation you wish to do and what level of quality you need to maintain.

For my purposes, since the software I use makes dealing with RAW as easy as if not easier than dealing with JPEG, my reason for shooting RAW always is more pragmatic: I know I need it *sometimes*, and it is just more trouble than it is worth to keep switching back and forth between RAW and JPEG. If my PP software was such that RAW constituted a "bother", I could certainly see a reason to switch to JPEG when RAW wasn't necessary, but as it is, there is no no incentive for me to not shoot RAW at all times.



Indeed! Many people aren't interested in the sort of tone manipulations I am referring to. Others would be shocked that I am willing to stop there and don't also get into burning & dodging of specific areas or other types of retouching.

marc

great response

maybe that's why I'll stick to wild life,

your process although logical, sounds like a lot of work, and could drive someone to insanity

[alohadave]

If you reached this point, how did you work through it? It seems perhaps to shoot in jpeg and trust to the vagaries of the camera and your settings? This isn't a burning issue, but I'd be interested in comments,

I don't do a lot of PP on my pictures. I'll do basic stuff like auto-adjust, white balance, maybe use an exposure brush, but I try to get the pictures to look good in the camera so I don't have to tweak them later to get them perfect.

Besides, chasing perfection and spending multiple hours per picture is insane unless you really love using Photoshop. Since I switched to Lightroom, I spend far less time on PP because the extra stuff that Photoshop can do isn't available, so I never feel the need to experiment with a filter unless I'm trying to do something specific.

[Marc Sabatella]

your process although logical, sounds like a lot of work, and could drive someone to insanity

It would if I had to do this to all my pictures :-). As it is, I generally pick just a few of each musicians to custom process this way, then just batch copy the basic settings to the others that are worth keeping at all. And really, while it sounds excruciating, with the right tools, it's just a couple drags of the curves, highlight recovery, fill light, and/or local contrast enhancement tools. So not a ton of time invested, but pretty big rewards on these sorts of shots. And of course, as I said, most basic outdoor shots I don't bother with any of this.

[*isteve]

Anyway, I remind myself frequently about Cartier-Bresson's indifference to post-processing. For Ansel Adams, processing and making the print was as important as the process of taking the photo. I admire Adams, but I love Cartier-Bresson (and Kertesz, and Doisneau and Lartigue). I can't yet afford to hire somebody to process my photos for me, so I am stuck spending hours on the computer. Maybe Cartier-Bresson, were he working today, would shoot jpeg and be happy with it. But I doubt it.

Will

A really excellent post Will, which sums up my feelings precisely.

However, comparing Bresson (who I much admire) with Adams (who I like in a more studied kind of way) is comparing a story teller with a painter.

Adams was obsessed with conveying the sense of wonder and drame he experienced when he saw the scene in his head. Its all about the scene but the scene itself is timeless and eternal. In his case, the key is the balance of light and dark, and the sharpness which conveys the sense of scale.

With Bresson, he captures one frame of a continuum leaving the watcher to invent the past and future as they look at the picture. As long as the shot is properly exposed the key to the shot is choosing setting and the precise moment of maximum tension and drama. Too much technical perfection actually distracts from the dynamism of the shot.

Of course, this escapes some people completely.. you should find this Flikr thread alarming/amusing....read the description then the comments....

Mario's Bike on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

HCB would have been fine with JPEG I think....

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Last edited by *isteve; 11-07-2009 at 08:00 PM.

[janosh]

JPEG is fine if that's all you need. If instead you're into making beautiful big prints, you'll want to post process (just as you would have with film, including color...assuming you were fairly skilled or used a fairly competent lab), which immediately rules-out JPEG.