Photographic Post Processing
Quite often I read posts on Facebook, or hear in camera clubs, from folk who loudly and proudly proclaim that the photographs that they show on here ARE STRAIGHT OUT OF THE CAMERA AND HAVE BEEN NOWHERE NEAR EDITING SOFTWARE! It is as if they have to prove some point or other and almost as if no-one ever, in the world, processed their work in a darkroom or a photo lab.
I have shown below a shot I took in the Brecon Beacons yesterday; one untouched and in its RAW format, and the other, processed to bring the shot to life.
RAW, as you may know, is what it says and there is minimal editing in camera. It therefore needs some processing to bring it back to what YOU saw when taking the shot. The second shot has been processed. Does it look odd to you?
I fail miserably to understand what the point is here – if you shoot in RAW it is because the files are larger, no pixels are stripped out and we are able to use the captured ingredients the way we wish to – be it as faithful a representation of what we saw as is possible, or an opportunity to be a bit creative with our work. Either, or indeed both, are OUR personal choice.
I do wonder if some of the proclaimers are just plain missing the point or shoot in .jpeg, failing to realise that IS editing, albeit in the camera 🙂
Would love to hear your views.
RAW file, untouched and as came out of camera
Post processed to bring out an image closer to what I saw when taking the shot
Mark Mullen
I hear it a lot and laugh, people don’t seem to understand that a JPEG has all the same choices applied as we apply to a raw file, but instead of the photographer choosing how much contrast, saturation, noise reduction etc the camera, or rather an algorithm set by the manufacturer, has chosen.
Look at Ansel Adams work, he was processing shots just like we do (albeit better!) with film, those shots certainly weren’t SOOC.
Nick Jenkins
I totally agree Mark.
David Jenkins
I also like the comments that ‘there’s no way it could have looked like that you must have messed with it’ when you did some minimal adjustments to an amazing scene.
Nick Jenkins
Sometimes we just can’t win David 🙂
Gerald harbour
Hi Nick, I was wondering where your rant was going until the last paragraph. We cannot look at a raw file as such so your caption needs to be more precise though it has a conventional interpretation. Remember also that what you ‘saw’ was the consequence of your eyeballs working with your brain. As soon as I look at your photos with my eyeballs and brain I am corrupting your experience. Basically I take no notice of the phrases you refer to and just look for my own pleasure or otherwise.
Nick Jenkins
Rant Gerald? Rant? Reasoned, finely honed, perfectly balanced logic for sure. But rant? 🙂 I do totally support your last comment too.
Ginny Cobley
Hi Nick~ I’ve been shooting in RAW for a number of years now, and agree with you that it’s the way to go. I don’t want a machine running things for me, esp. when, as you say, they don’t capture why you saw, which is one reason why people are often disappointed with an image-‘it didn’t turn out like I thought it would!’
If one is inclined to artistry, .jpeg limits that as well; and even taking happy snaps can be disappointing if you cannot alter white balance etc.
Cheers
Ginny
Barbara Fleming
I so agree with you Nick. So many pictures are taken with phones and people think they are brilliant. I find I have to be very quiet sometimes when I am shown these images. I picked up and saw your photograph just when I was trying to print an almost identical picture I took in Scotland last Autumn, I thought I was going ‘dotty’!!
Nick Jenkins
You? Dotty? Absolutely not Barbara 🙂
JUDITH LION
Very interesting and very true. The last speaker we had at Midhurst CC commented on just the same thing, wondering why people thought it was a badge of honour to proclaim they hadn’t done any post-processing. In her opinion they are just “lazy photographers”.
Nick Jenkins
Interesting point, if a tad contentious!! 🙂
To be honest, folk can take their photos just how they please – if they are happy then I am happy too (cue song). But I just don’t understand what point they are trying to make when they pronounce.
Jan McCann
Is all photography, to a greater or lesser degree, manipulation? You choose one particular camera, and lens, one particular view, one kind of depth of field or length of exposure over another. Those are your choices, and another person, or you on another day, will probably choose differently. There is, to my mind, no such thing as an ‘unbiased’ image. And no such thing as the ‘reality out there’ independent of the viewer/photographer. And consequently any subsequent fiddling about is all part of the same process of (very personal) selection and manipulation.
Nick Jenkins
I agree Jan – to my mind the purist approach as declared is flawed, again to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the photographer’s methodology.
Richard Bingham
I entirely agree with the comments above. I only ever shoot RAW.
The other point you can make about RAW is that it is like having a film negative which you can redevelop in a different way. In the darkroom days you had to decide in advance which developer for how long, and usually experience had you choosing a good combination. But just occasionally it was way out and then you had a neg that was very difficult or impossible to print, and of course there was no going back to redevelop. With RAW files you can decide later that you need to revisit some of the decisions you took when first opening the RAW file, and you can simply go back and do it again differently.
Nick Jenkins
That’s a good point Richard, especially the ‘re-working’ of a worked negative!!
edwin phillips
if you shoot in raw I see no other way than to post process your image to the way you like them so well ranted Nick
Nick Jenkins
Nothing like a good rant Edwin, although, in truth I didn’t think it was a rant!!
Dan Minto.
Post processing was new when I took up digital photography about 3 years ago. I learnt with B&W, then colour then Slide film and didn’t really have cause to use darkroom techniques. When I started at a Camera Club, my eyes were opened to the options available to photographers with Lightroom, Photoshop and others. It has made a difference to the images I submit to competitions. However, when I’m shooting sport pictures and need to get them off to the paper, I don’t have time to do a lot of editing (maybe straighten, crop and sharpen) so need to get them as close as I can in camera. Horses for courses really and I can see both sides of the argument. (Sorry for sitting on the fence!)
Nick Jenkins
Hi Dan, I completely agree. If you don’t have a fast buffer/pass from camera to card speed on card/camera and you shoot sport or moving wildlife it may well be that you shoot jpeg anyway for sound practical reasons!
Alan Coles
Interesting blog Nick. For me it is all about conveying your feelings towards what you see / perceive the view in front of you to be like. Recently I was up in the Nec and watched a small talk given by JC. Along with a few people from permajet he went out in the filed with a camera, a generator, print ad a laptop and produced a print “the in the field” He *worked* what came off the camera in LR or Capture I think to enhance the raw file to what the image looked like. Even working in the light he shot in he wasn’t able to produce the exact image although he said it was pretty close. The interesting thing though was he set about working the raw 3 months later back in the studio. His *recreation* of the said prints was a lot warmer when he had time to reflect on the scene he remembered. My point is even the greats like Ansel or JC produce something different to what they see at times…. so why not us mere mortals 🙂
Mike Warburton
I only ever shoot jpeg and although the images are processed in camera (to a degree) I have always put them through an editing programme to get the best from them. My Wildlife work just needs a few tweaks but Landscapes in particular do require work, especially if there is a large dynamic range that cannot be captured in one shot. In this case I will work with several bracketed layers as I dont use filters. I find I have more control over the end result working this way and can get it as close to what I saw at the time of capture. I have tried RAW on several occasions and although I understand the benefits of the format it doesnt work for me personally as I dislike the extra processing involved before converting the image to jpeg.
Bernard C Williams
I work with a bridge camera at the moment… That has a tiny sensor.. I have to edit to drag out the detail and crop the unwanted… There is huge joy to working with a pic to create something special and do the subject justice… Or try to.
Alan Santillo
I agree with you on this Nick, I always shoot in RAW in order to bring out the best in the image. Furthermore I believe photography is art and as such the use of colour and light allows each individual to express what they saw and felt at the time of taking the photo. The result can be a spectacularly unique image of a scene which has resulted in a mediocre photograph, hundreds if not thousands of times previously.
pursec312
I can’t make up my mind whether I should keep shooting in RAW and Jpeg fine. Do I take it the main advantage in working in RAW will be for say landscapes and portraits? Do you ever shoot in RAW and Jpeg – then edit both images and compare time taken and outcome? Would be curious to know. Many thanks
Nick Jenkins
No, I don’t actually. I GUESS RAW is better for considered shots whereas .jpegs are better for when you need to capture a precise moment – wild life or sport for example. My point was really why make a point of it when it’s very much horses for courses?
lezbailey
One missing point is that a jpeg is degraded every time it’s opened, and the original image does not hold anything like the data captured in a RAW file. OK, so you need to spend money on software to post-process RAW files, however it is a given that the processed image will be a higher ‘quality’ than a jpeg could ever be. To limit time spent in front of a monitor, get it right in camera, and perhaps develop presets in Lightroom if you tend to shoot to a similar style for particular photographic genres, eg landscapes in a storm, landscapes at sunset, sunrise and so on. It’s perfectly possible these days to shoot raw + JPEG in camera and use the JPEG for perhaps guide or to whack off on the internet straight away. Then maybe process the raw file at leisure.
Richard
I heard a similar comment in the pub only recently. The ‘argument’ (aka position) related to the possibility of joining our camera club. The primary reason for not doing so was that in competition he would be up against people who ‘messed about’ with the pictures and they were not ‘real’ or as the scene really looked. Now this is a sensible normally rational guy.
It got me to thinking and I came to the conclusion that, yes, there was an element of lack of understanding here. There was little point in a social setting of getting into RAW v jpeg and that some processing is already done in camera to produce a jpeg image. That’s fine with him because ‘the camera did it’. As well as the perception that it’s cheating, there is the hesitancy that comes from not understanding how to do post processing and that’s it’s some sort of dark art.
So, on balance, I veer towards not giving people a hard time over this.
I also hear people in the camera club muttering when the ‘usual suspects’ win competitions regularly because they’ve done a lot of work on the image and taken shots from three continents to make one composite image. There are also members who rarely take photographs but come for the company or just to hear speakers and see interesting images – they’re not bad people either!
So, I’m not going to go all evangelical about this. If people show interest I’ll try and answer questions fairly but I’m not going into battle for RAW. In fact one of our most successful club photographers always shoots in jpeg and just does a bit with ACR sliders.
Oh yes, like you Nick, this is not a rant just a different perception!