This is my first "new topic", and it may come across as a little bit of a rant, but I hope it helps guide some newbies.

Post Processing is dismissed by some as not being pure; the detractors feel that only photos coming out perfect in camera are acceptable.
I disagree, and I base that on over 40 years of shooting (so, yes, I have shot film!).

When I got my first SLR in 1971, I started shooting as much as I could afford - it cost money to buy the roll of film and money to get it processed (no option except to post process when you shoot film).

I was usually disappointed because my pictures never looked as I remembered the scene. Mostly, at first, I shot color print film. Skies were blown out. People were weird colors, etc.
It took me a while to figure out that part of the problem was the way labs processed the photos. When I shot transparencies (the jpeg of the film world - because it was pretty much whatever you caught on that slide was what you were stuck with, ala jpeg), I found that the camera actually could produce good photos, but the issue of color prints still bugged me.
Shooting black and white, then sending it to the lab, was no better.

Over the years, I came to find out that the award winning images that we see everywhere are NOT always Straight Out Of Camera. When I made my own darkroom, I found that there were tools such as dodging and burning that were commonly applied in a darkroom to almost every good print. Test exposures in the darkroom were the norm - you didn't just set the timer for 10 seconds and expose the paper - you made a strip test to see how long you needed to expose for the best overall image, and you saw where parts were blown out or under exposed and dodged or burned those areas, maybe even applying a vignette.

Color was trickier since home processing was less forgiving than black & white, but I tried it, and had moderate success (color correction was tricky and I never spent enough time or money to get that perfect).

Ultimately, I found that certain labs (not my corner drug store) could produce excellent prints from my negatives and stuck with them from then on.

In the digital world, we apply the term "Photo Shopped" to many images (but it should be post processing, since we don't all use PS any more than all photocopier machines are Xerox copiers). It is often used in a derogatory manner, sometimes deservedly so. It is definitely possible to over process a photo and make it look unnatural. This can be done to advantage for some subjects, but if every photo you take looks "crunchy", you might be overdoing it.
It is better to keep it simple and just use the techniques that were most often used (and most easily understood) in the analog darkroom.

I contend that you MUST post process. Otherwise, you will get those blah photos that the film users among us have seen again and again.
As the photographer, you owe it to yourself and your audience to process those photos in the best lab (your own), and not just take what the camera produces.
It is rare that I have taken a photo and simply exported it as a jpeg without it first requiring exposure, shadow, highlight, white balance, and sharpening adjustments at a minimum.
There have been several, out of about 100,000 digital images I have, that were good without any adjustments, but that is extremely rare.

In the digital darkroom, we use the same techniques used in the analog darkroom - dodging, burning, adjusting for the best exposure, etc.
I am a huge advocate of LightRoom because it most closely matches the analog darkroom - terms are different, but the results and techniques are the same.
PhotoShop, with masks, becomes more complicated, but also has those simple tools embedded in it, so keep it simple and make great photos,
but don't dis' post processing - it will improve your photos immensely.

The only contention I have with this article is the use of the term post processing. It's simply processing. In wet photography one processes the film to obtain a negative, or positive. Then, it's printed. I feel it's the same with digital. One processes the image information to subsequently obtain a "print".

Likewise, in photoshop, I view ACR as developing the negative. PS as printing it.

Now, the term post may have snuck in as a migration from the movie industry where film was initially processes an then moved to post production. I've no idea. I'll still prefer to process my images, film or digital. Yeah, it's a small point, but what the hell.
--Bob

This is my first "new topic", and it may come across as a little bit of a rant, but I hope it helps guide some newbies.

Post Processing is dismissed by some as not being pure; the detractors feel that only photos coming out perfect in camera are acceptable.
I disagree, and I base that on over 40 years of shooting (so, yes, I have shot film!).

When I got my first SLR in 1971, I started shooting as much as I could afford - it cost money to buy the roll of film and money to get it processed (no option except to post process when you shoot film).

I was usually disappointed because my pictures never looked as I remembered the scene. Mostly, at first, I shot color print film. Skies were blown out. People were weird colors, etc.
It took me a while to figure out that part of the problem was the way labs processed the photos. When I shot transparencies (the jpeg of the film world - because it was pretty much whatever you caught on that slide was what you were stuck with, ala jpeg), I found that the camera actually could produce good photos, but the issue of color prints still bugged me.
Shooting black and white, then sending it to the lab, was no better.

Over the years, I came to find out that the award winning images that we see everywhere are NOT always Straight Out Of Camera. When I made my own darkroom, I found that there were tools such as dodging and burning that were commonly applied in a darkroom to almost every good print. Test exposures in the darkroom were the norm - you didn't just set the timer for 10 seconds and expose the paper - you made a strip test to see how long you needed to expose for the best overall image, and you saw where parts were blown out or under exposed and dodged or burned those areas, maybe even applying a vignette.

Color was trickier since home processing was less forgiving than black & white, but I tried it, and had moderate success (color correction was tricky and I never spent enough time or money to get that perfect).

Ultimately, I found that certain labs (not my corner drug store) could produce excellent prints from my negatives and stuck with them from then on.

In the digital world, we apply the term "Photo Shopped" to many images (but it should be post processing, since we don't all use PS any more than all photocopier machines are Xerox copiers). It is often used in a derogatory manner, sometimes deservedly so. It is definitely possible to over process a photo and make it look unnatural. This can be done to advantage for some subjects, but if every photo you take looks "crunchy", you might be overdoing it.
It is better to keep it simple and just use the techniques that were most often used (and most easily understood) in the analog darkroom.

I contend that you MUST post process. Otherwise, you will get those blah photos that the film users among us have seen again and again.
As the photographer, you owe it to yourself and your audience to process those photos in the best lab (your own), and not just take what the camera produces.
It is rare that I have taken a photo and simply exported it as a jpeg without it first requiring exposure, shadow, highlight, white balance, and sharpening adjustments at a minimum.
There have been several, out of about 100,000 digital images I have, that were good without any adjustments, but that is extremely rare.

In the digital darkroom, we use the same techniques used in the analog darkroom - dodging, burning, adjusting for the best exposure, etc.
I am a huge advocate of LightRoom because it most closely matches the analog darkroom - terms are different, but the results and techniques are the same.
PhotoShop, with masks, becomes more complicated, but also has those simple tools embedded in it, so keep it simple and make great photos,
but don't dis' post processing - it will improve your photos immensely.

The only contention I have with this article is the use of the term post processing. It's simply processing. In wet photography one processes the film to obtain a negative, or positive. Then, it's printed. I feel it's the same with digital. One processes the image information to subsequently obtain a "print".

Likewise, in photoshop, I view ACR as developing the negative. PS as printing it.

Now, the term post may have snuck in as a migration from the movie industry where film was initially processes an then moved to post production. I've no idea. I'll still prefer to process my images, film or digital. Yeah, it's a small point, but what the hell.
--Bob

This is my first "new topic", and it may come across as a little bit of a rant, but I hope it helps guide some newbies.

Post Processing is dismissed by some as not being pure; the detractors feel that only photos coming out perfect in camera are acceptable.
I disagree, and I base that on over 40 years of shooting (so, yes, I have shot film!).

When I got my first SLR in 1971, I started shooting as much as I could afford - it cost money to buy the roll of film and money to get it processed (no option except to post process when you shoot film).

I was usually disappointed because my pictures never looked as I remembered the scene. Mostly, at first, I shot color print film. Skies were blown out. People were weird colors, etc.
It took me a while to figure out that part of the problem was the way labs processed the photos. When I shot transparencies (the jpeg of the film world - because it was pretty much whatever you caught on that slide was what you were stuck with, ala jpeg), I found that the camera actually could produce good photos, but the issue of color prints still bugged me.
Shooting black and white, then sending it to the lab, was no better.

Over the years, I came to find out that the award winning images that we see everywhere are NOT always Straight Out Of Camera. When I made my own darkroom, I found that there were tools such as dodging and burning that were commonly applied in a darkroom to almost every good print. Test exposures in the darkroom were the norm - you didn't just set the timer for 10 seconds and expose the paper - you made a strip test to see how long you needed to expose for the best overall image, and you saw where parts were blown out or under exposed and dodged or burned those areas, maybe even applying a vignette.

Color was trickier since home processing was less forgiving than black & white, but I tried it, and had moderate success (color correction was tricky and I never spent enough time or money to get that perfect).

Ultimately, I found that certain labs (not my corner drug store) could produce excellent prints from my negatives and stuck with them from then on.

In the digital world, we apply the term "Photo Shopped" to many images (but it should be post processing, since we don't all use PS any more than all photocopier machines are Xerox copiers). It is often used in a derogatory manner, sometimes deservedly so. It is definitely possible to over process a photo and make it look unnatural. This can be done to advantage for some subjects, but if every photo you take looks "crunchy", you might be overdoing it.
It is better to keep it simple and just use the techniques that were most often used (and most easily understood) in the analog darkroom.

I contend that you MUST post process. Otherwise, you will get those blah photos that the film users among us have seen again and again.
As the photographer, you owe it to yourself and your audience to process those photos in the best lab (your own), and not just take what the camera produces.
It is rare that I have taken a photo and simply exported it as a jpeg without it first requiring exposure, shadow, highlight, white balance, and sharpening adjustments at a minimum.
There have been several, out of about 100,000 digital images I have, that were good without any adjustments, but that is extremely rare.

In the digital darkroom, we use the same techniques used in the analog darkroom - dodging, burning, adjusting for the best exposure, etc.
I am a huge advocate of LightRoom because it most closely matches the analog darkroom - terms are different, but the results and techniques are the same.
PhotoShop, with masks, becomes more complicated, but also has those simple tools embedded in it, so keep it simple and make great photos,
but don't dis' post processing - it will improve your photos immensely.

This topic in one form or another is a perennial chestnut! I make the following observations:

Anyone who uses a JPEG straight from the camera is using post processing. The post processing of the camera is very extensive to take the RAW data and turn it into a JPEG. That post processing is pre-conditioned by choices the photographer made - picture style, colour balance, exposure compensation to name a few. Similarly the moment someone just crops, straightens, or changes brightness (exposure) they too are post processing. Perhaps the least in-camera modified is from a smart phone?

More seriously though, there are many genres of imagery. It would be unforgivable for a photojournalist to deliberately modify an image to mislead the viewer. Similarly a Documentary photographer is surely bound to show as best s/he can the truth of the subject matter they are trying to convey.

But a fine art photographer - be it landscape or fashion or whatever, is free to portray as best they can, using whatever tools at their disposal, what they experienced or is trying to show. In that, they are no diffierent from a painter, its just there toolkit is a camera instead of a brush and paint. Adams is a past master with film. David Bailey, one of the most successful fashion photographers of recent times, seems to turn his hand to any genre and meium with ease, and has said something like he would have been just as happy to use brush and canvas but that it took too long to dry.

In our own way, some of us want to be journalists or to document what we see, others aspire to fine art to convey a mood or emotions. And many just want snapshots of events as reminders of a great day out/ party/ trip to the lake or whatver. None is right or wrong. Decide what you want and go for it is what I say.

I wish I was good enough to be fine art photographer, not for money but just so others enjoy some of my images like I do. Much of my photography is by my own definition, snapshots and is post processed with Fastone viewer for crop, shadow and highlight exposure, straightening etc in a few seconds. Every now and then I get a good one which deserves a lot more attention to turn it into something I want to hang on a wall as in this example from Bryce Canyon. Most of my photos look almost identical to tens of thousands of others and a a personal reminder of a great day out. As I was walking back to the car after the sun set carrying the tripod with camera still attached, I glanced to the left, immediately set up the tripod and took this shot. Less than a minute later, once I had 4 or 5 in the bag, I then positioned to better frame etc and the moment and light was gone. This one image had more photo-shopping than the rest from that day together: layering and masking to isolate and change exposure and contrast of the tree; masking to increase contrast and vibrance in the sky; some spot dodging; cropping, straightening; some cloning to remove litter left by another visitor etc. About the only thing not touched was colour balance and overall exposure. I ended up with an image which as near as I can remember is what I saw and experienced.

If you like it then great, if not, never mind. if it's too processed for your taste I don't care

Very cool picture. Good job. ALL of my keeper pictures get some pp and a select few, get more, just as you stated.

It is because of this forum that I now shoot raw, subscribed to Adobe cloud, pp my images, upgraded my gear and really learned how to be a better photographer. Of course, I try to get it right in the camera first, but all RAW images require some pp.

Like you say, it doesn’t matter if others like my images...and like Linda (from Maine) says, “It’s your image, do what you want to it”.

Good “RANT” by the OP and I really like his photos. The people I shoot for like the images I produce and that’s all I really care about.

Isn’t pre-processing in the camera (like selecting white balance and exposure compensation) still pp?