Pratap J, our post processing expert who also mentors our ‘Workshop on Digital Post-processing using Adobe Lightroom‘ writes on why post-processing is an essential part of every photographer’s workflow.
Image processing using a post-processing software is common among digital photographers. There is an opinion among people that photographers who use post-processing to enhance their images aren’t good at their craft. Purists believe that a good photograph starts and ends in the camera. Here are three reasons why enhancing your photos does not make you a bad photographer.
Post-processing is essential to bring out the richness in the scene.
All Digital Photographs are Processed
Digital cameras capture information on a chip. In the first stage, the image is actually captured as varying levels of light, and has no color! In the next few stages, the technology inside the camera adds color, enhances the photos, and gives an output in a format which is useful in the real world (JPG). Most DSLRs and semi-pro cameras give you an option of shooting in the RAW format. This format contains the information captured by the sensor without any in-camera processing applied.
If you don’t shoot RAW, you are actually allowing the camera process the photo for you. When the camera processes the image, it uses algorithms based on presets that you choose. For example, if you choose a preset for landscape, the camera enhances the blues and greens assuming that you have shot a scenery which has a blue sky and some greenery.
Whether you like it or not, digital photographs can be enjoyed only when they are processed. If you don’t want the camera to process your images, you will need to shoot in the RAW format. Photos in RAW need to be processed to be printed, shared, or viewed by everyone. An unprocessed photo in digital photography is a myth.
Film Photographers Enhanced their Images Too
Photos shot on film needed to be developed in a lab. Many professional film photographers developed photographs themselves. These photographers used tools in the darkroom to enhance their photographs. For example, they varied the exposure in the lab using a technique called ‘dodging and burning’ to increase or decrease the brightness of areas of a photograph. In digital photography, we have similar dodging and burning tools which can be applied to digital photographs.
In the film era, the techniques of manipulating an image was time-consuming and difficult. Only professional photographers who developed their own image generally indulged in it. However, these photographers managed to create stunning outputs which wouldn’t have been possible without enhancing the image. Likewise, photographers enhance their images using editing software available in the digital era.
Digital Art is Not the Same as Digital Photography
Digital artists sometimes use a photograph as a starting point to create stunning outputs. However, digital art is not the same as digital photography. Every artist must be clear of this distinction. Unfortunately, there are no rules on how much manipulation can be done to an image, before it can be called digital art. This has lead to confusion and wrong impressions in the minds of viewers. Many a time, people find it hard to believe that a photograph can be real. For example, long exposure photography, star trail photography, or HDR photography produces results which we don’t see with our naked eye. These forms of photography are not called digital art, but at the same time produce surreal results.
A HDR image, created by merging multiple exposures of the same scene help bring the true colours and vividness in the scene.
Another reason why people dislike image enhancement is because the entertainment industry uses tools like Photoshop to transform the looks of celebrities and models. This is done for a reason – and in the entertainment industry, everything is about appearance! Transforming a person’s looks does not make Photoshop a bad tool, or the photographer who originally captured the image any less talented. In fact, professional retouchers charge a tidy sum to make models look glamorous!
To conclude, digital photography has ushered a new era where photographers can easily enhance their images using a computer. It is better to evaluate a photograph by the end results, rather than the tools used to achieve the end result.
Also see: Our ‘Workshop on Digital Post-processing using Adobe Lightroom‘. Visit the page to see the next workshop schedule.
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