coco1964 Loc: Winsted Mn

As much as it takes to get the photo to look like I want it to look and appear to others. Many times only myself but I must admit it's nice to receive a compliment once in awhile........

budrakey

Ansel Adams was a master of post processing... in the darkroom.

CanonShot Loc: Lancaster County, PA

Here's a dying wish story, true--I swear, that reaches into "When is enough... NOT enough".

A close retired friend with a passion for "just" as-is photography was faced with the impending death of his father-in-law, a long-time biker. The family and the man facing his mortality squarely in the mirrow sought one last ride around the neighborhood on the back of my friend's motorcycle.

Quickly arranged for the first fair weather day, Jack and his father-in-law took that leisurely ride around the block with his grandson capturing some hi-res pix as the twosome passed by. The dying gent and everyone involved were all smiles when the best of the photos was shown. Mission accomplished... UNTIL the grown grandson, a PhotoShop wizard, quietly suggested a parting gift for his grandpa.

Hours later he returned with an 8x10 with one PhotoShop manipulation. He switched the heads of the two riders so that his grandfather's smiling face showed him at the controls with "his" flying swispy hair just behind the handbars.

The grandfather died just days later but not before he and family members shed tears and cheered the look of him "at the wheel".

This is one example of going beyond a dying man's wish for a last ride. "Enough" was not enough in the eyes, mind, and heart of the grandson. The grandson had a vision and the pp tools to step back in the past for his grandpa.

fotkaman Loc: Earth

Well done, lighthouse, indeed!
One more thing I'd like to add: If you have to work the crap out of the picture, then it is most probably not worth saving and spending the time on p-p. But, again, as long as the resulting image still looks as a photograph, rather than a graphic rendition, than why not. I, personally, love to take the challenge to figure out the best camera setting to get as close to how the eyes see it. I still post-process, like horizontal/vertical balance, contrast, saturation, cleaning out chromatic aberration, sharpening a cropping. But HDR, for example, is too much for me, I don't touch it.

rick Loc: Cape Cod, MA

Digital cameras made today do some level of post processing on the digital data unless you are shooting raw. This applies from the most basic point and shoot to the most complex, expensive dslr or medium format. raw is a straight digital representation of the sensor data, everything else is digitally processed by the camera to some extent, whether it is white balance or saturation or contrast.

Is what the software in your camera does automatically good enough? If not, why is further PP not acceptable? And if you do *any* level of PP outside of the camera as most have admitted to, who decides the limits of acceptability? And then someoned decides that his white balanced, sharpened image is more "photography" than the other guy who decides to touch up his saturation levels - how pretentious.

BTW, I shoot raw and rarely touch up.

Rick

Wellhiem Loc: Sunny England.

A lot of the difference between an older camera and a newer one, is the way the image is processed inside the camera, after the shutter is fired. If you're happy to let that processor take control, then fair enough. It's a bit like in the days of film. If you were happy to take your film in to a one hour developing store, then that was your choice. But you would never have been called a "purist". You would have been a "snapper".

nolte1964 Loc: Des Moines, Iowa

You say you shoot RAW and rarely touch up, I find that hard to believe since the RAW image straight out of the camera needs to be tweaked to get the best image. If you are leaving your RAW images as is then your missing getting the best out of your images you can. It is kind've like having a negative but not really processing it.

scootersurfs Loc: Buckeye, Az

I like your rule; I try to do the same thing.

Nevada Chuck

I understand your point, and to a certain extent agree with it. I to am a seasoned citizen (71 last Nov.) and remember the days of wet darkrooms, colored filters and a minimal amount of manipulation possible (I'm thinking of Ansel Adams or Edward weston).

However, I also have to remain tolerant of something I would call "artistic license". When we spend a day, or a week, in the National Gallery or the Louvre, we don't stand before a DaVinci or a Rembrant and question the shade of blue he chose for the sky. Indead, we have no right to such questioning. We study the work overall, we assess what we believe the artist's intent was, ask ourselves if he succeeded, and move on.

To demand a higher level of a photograph, when the photographer's intent was clearly artistic rather than documentarian, is simply unfair. When we look at an HDR photo where the limits have been pushed to cartoon-like levels, and our reactions are "ugh!", then that's out reaction, and we are intitled to it. But the photographer is also entitled to his artistic licence in making the grass a bit greener than was actually the case (when we know that the grass shouldn't be visible at all, buried under a foot of snow.)

Look at the Mona Lisa, decide that her smile is really a smirk, and move on.

Slick50il Loc: North central Ill L-P area!

Come to my area, you will find some snow and a whole lot of very green grass!

scootersurfs Loc: Buckeye, Az

Well said Nevada Chuck.

:thumbup:

texaseve Loc: TX, NC and NH

As good as the latest and greatest cameras are, they do not "see" or capture what the human eye sees. Post processing allows us to bring out the details and beautiful colors that we saw to begin with. It certainly can be overdone. I believe some people truly don't see as well as others and some are color blind and may not realize something is too processed. As there are so many different people so are there types of expression. I have so much fun experimenting with all of the different ways to PP, and never knew my photos could look as beautiful as some of them do.

Mike from Point

I agree. Sometimes I see pics that are so overhyped they look awful.

russelray Loc: La Mesa CA

I have not heard of Edward Weston and have not yet Googled it, but you might want to quit thinking of Ansel Adams in terms of minimal amount of manipulation. As we continued to find out more and more about him, turns out he was the master of manipulation.

rick Loc: Cape Cod, MA

Oooh, a snapper, heaven forbid. If we can get past the juvenile labelling, the question had to do with post processing. The answer is everyone post processes to some level, whether it is in camera, in some PP standalone software, as a snapper who runs his film through a one hour processsor (how gauche), or a highbrow purist photographer who has an expensive lab massage his film and picture in a darkroom to his liking.

It has been said in this thread that each individual photographer decides what his art is and how far to push processing, but reality is that this limit is really determined by the observer, after all, isn't that why most of us do it?