Reply to How Much Post Processing Do You Do?

Roland and Gerry posted a reply:

@scoti49: I respectfully disagree. ;-)



It absolutely is photography in it's purest form, the tools are just fancier. ;-) Coming from a film photography background I can assure you every image you've ever seen has been post processed in some way shape or form. If you ever look at Ansel Adams' technical books you'll notice he breaks the subject of photography down into three books: The Camera, The Negative and The Print. Even if you use an automatic disposable camera, the speed of film chosen, the chemicals your local photo processor uses to develop the film, the paper used for the print are all part of the post process. Include the fact that those big film developers with their attached computers all do automatic color correction and you can see how even point-and-shoot photographers have post-processing done for them whether they know it or not. Hobbyist and professional photographers simply want more control over the post-process so they do things like purchase fancy cameras that give them more manual control over capturing the negative. They use filters on their lenses to alter the appeance of the capture on the negative. They develop the film themselves altering the chemicals used, the time to develop the film among other variables to create a negative that suits the vision they had when they initially looked through the viewfinder. Then they use a darkroom to do things like add vignettes, mask areas of the exposure, alter colors, etc to achieve a print that again matches what they envisioned when they looked at a scene through the viewfinder. Choosing the correct paper type for the print is still part of the process.



Once you recognize this you'll see that the leap to digital is simply evolutionary and not revolutionary. We do the same things as we did with film. We buy fancy digital SLRs like D80s to handle the camera aspect of the art. Then it's up to the skill of the photographer to compose a scene, meter correctly for exposure, choose a correct ISO setting (analogous to film speed) and capture a digital negative (RAW file or other format) that can be processed correctly to achieve the vision we had when we looked at the scene. The digital negative then is taken into our digital darkrooms and we use Photoshop or some tool to do things using the same terminology as in the old days: masking, vignetting, etc. Then we choose inks and papers and printers to make a print that matches what our initial vision was when we look through the viewfinder.



So. Now you've got a D80. Fantastic. You've taken care of the Camera part of the equation. You now have a powerful tool to help you capture finely tuned negatives once you learn the intricacies of all those settings on the camera and how to take advantage of all those lenses all built to capture a digital negative. If you want to take your photography to the next level you'll need to learn how to process the negative to achieve the final image. That shot not looking as sharp as you envisioned? Sharpen it up a bit just like we used to do in the darkroom, only now you have a more effiecient tool to do it with. Colors looking a bit drab, not like you imagined when you looked through the viewfinder? Bump up that saturation until it looks the way you envisioned.



Sorry to make such a long post but hopefully I've helped at least one person see that photography is far more than composing a scene in the viewfinder choosing an aperture or shutter speed depending on whether you want to blur motion or not and pressing the button. That's only the beginning and there's far more to learn once you've practiced the skill of capturing negatives, be it digitally or on film. Part of the fun of photography is that there's always something to learn! ;-)