Dr.Nikon Loc: Honolulu Hawaii

Well .., well .., well .., a touchy subject matter .., like Democrats and Republicans .. Religions ..pro Choice .. , one color over another , endless pros and cons regarding post processing and editing …it’s endless ..

For some like Rlamarz.., he spends a lot of time to set up for a shot .., location planning and great detail go into each shot , he’s one of the masters on this blog .. and there are many others like him .. a breed all their own .. Yes Ansel did some tricky processing in the dark room to achieve his works .., but he too took a lot of time to set up and locations and time of day … The Film guys resisted the Digital guys .., then had no choice to convert .., they’re still arguing to this day ..

In today’s world of Digital Photography .., It is trying to keep pace with the lightening fast pace of life .., quick and hurry and there is no stopping it .., it’s a run away train .., heck .. most of the youth today use their cell phones loaded with some of the best processing software there is ..

The rest of us me included .., are stuck on this run away train .., where’s the next station where we can get off ..I use extensive post editing and love it .. It’s my favorite thing to do .., I underexpose most of my work purposely to achieve what I want in post with RAW
.., but that’s just me ..and dare I say .., it has made me some $ ..

The world turns on the almighty $ …, digital cameras and expensive cell phones and expensive photo editing programs is a huge business ..Masters of Photography are getting fewer and fewer replaced by The digital age and post processing junkies like me ..’ in IMHO .., this blog would hav 2/3rds less posting of good shots if it weren’t for Editing software of some kind ..

Curmudgeon Loc: SE Arizona

High speed life? I think it depends on who and where you are. Just an aside, I thought the Pacific Islands were supposed to be laid back places. oh well another myth exploded.

IMO great pictures are developed in several ways.

Some great photographers wait for days, weeks or even months to get that outstanding shot. Then spend days, or weeks in the darkroom, or at the computer, making it great.

Other photographers take hundreds or even thousands of high-speed shots to get their outstanding shot. Then they spend hours or days at the keyboard, using a myriad of software, to make it great.

Then there are the Picture Takers, like me, who don't plan ahead, take relatively few shots and only rarely get an outstanding shot. We lack that special something that the Photographer has. A lot of us work to get there, and a few of us succeed. We use various Post Processing software to make good photos better and that outstanding shot great.

What we all recognize, though some may not openly admit, is that camera skill is no more than half the equation. All great pictures are finally made in the darkroom or at the keyboard. I find it interesting that back in the "Old Days" picture takers I knew bragged about their darkroom skills and how they were able to "save" some poor shots sometimes showing me a contact sheet to prove their point. Relatively few people today brag about their digital Post Processing skill like it's somehow it has become shameful.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

This is an interesting topic. I have been a raw shooter for many years and of course if you shoot Raw then post processing is an absolute necessity. However, a year ago I acquired the then brand new Nikon Z fc and as an exercise started shooting in both raw and jpeg again. I shoot mostly with fast prime lenses, and very often in low light.

While I still do a lot of editing of my raw files, especially those in low light situations in which I need to recover deep shadow detail, I find that a significant number of my jpegs meet my requirements for sharpness and contrast straight out of the camera. I attribute this to my new camera's sensor from which I get significantly better results SOOC than I ever did from my Canon 7D Mark II.

In any case, the only sharpening I use in my raw post processing is in DxO's PhotoLab software. DxO develops optics modules for supported lenses which optimizes and corrects lens issues and subtly maximizes the inherent sharpness of the lens itself. Canon does something similar with lens sharpness in their Digital Photo Professional program. I add no other sharpening to my raw files. For my JPEG files no sharpening is necessary at all.

I have tried Sharpen AI, as I do all available post processing software, so that I can speak somewhat intelligently about the various programs when the subject comes up in discussions.

In my personal experience, Sharpen AI's most important use would be to fix very soft and even slightly out of focus and blurry images to make them usable. It actually excels at that. It can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but if you have a blurry or out of focus photograph which is important to you and is one of a kind, then sharpen AI maybe able to acceptably save it from the recycle bin. More than that I do not find it particularly useful tool.

Looking at photographs posted on UHH, I often find there is way much too much sharpening applied. I was guilty of that in my own earlier raw processing. I think for many people it's a question of if a little sharpening is good a lot of sharpening must be even better.

Today if I add additional sharpening, it is usually done purposely to meet a specific visual goal rather than because I don't think the lens is sharp enough. Of course, not every image I capture is sharp, and that is my fault. However, if an image is otherwise a keeper, I may add a bit of sharpness to compensate if I find it necessary.