jimmya Loc: Phoenix

I'm a Canon owner and loyalist but one thing I noticed about all my Canon dslr cameras is that at factory settings they appear a little flat... not bad but just enough to bother.

What I did was boost the contrast two points in the camera and that really improved the product straight from the camera.

I'm not much on PP either, I prefer to see what the camera actually saw so I do very little PP.

Good luck.

boberic Loc: Quiet Corner, Connecticut. Ex long Islander

Unless Clapton is playing an acustic guitar off mike. Every other way is musical PP

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

Clapton never goes on stage with a "garage sale" guitar, because he knows that better tools produce a better product, particularly in the hands of a skilled craft person.

The same is true in photography. If you have few skills, better tools won't be as useful. But if you aspire to making great photographs it is worth your while to obtain and learn to use the best tools available. That is true of cameras, lights, editing programs, and printers.

architect Loc: Chattanooga

I also come from film experience. With my 2-1/4 TLR, using B&W and processing it myself, I could manipulate in the darkroom what the camera captured. When I went to 35mm color slides, you had to get the exposure right and there were many subjects you simply could not successfully take because of limitations in the film's tonal range, and the speed of the film. I am one of those here who love post processing with digital photography, but I still try to get it right in-camera. I shoot in RAW and use HDR bracketing when necessary to achieve my vision. That allows me far more creativity than I had with film.

But for those willing to accept the limitations of SOOTC shots, that is your choice. After all, millions of snapshooters on Facebook do exactly that.

smith934 Loc: Huntsville, Alabama

So, are you saying that when you used film, if you did your own printing, that they were simply straight prints? No manipulation? No dodging, burning? No 'post processing'? If so you were one hell of a lot better photographer than most of the known greats who spent a lot of time in the darkroom post processing. Digital PP is simply the digital equivalent of the techniques we used in the darkroom.

architect Loc: Chattanooga

:thumbup: :thumbup:

smith934 Loc: Huntsville, Alabama

Or would you prefer the camera recorded what you actually saw? Currently, it doesn't if for no other reason than lack of dynamic range of the sensor vs. your eye. Hence one good reason for getting the best exposure, then PP, to at least narrow that gap.

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

The OP was talking about a FREE photo editing program (Gimp) and there are others as well. Some of us have never been satisfied with images out of the camera and improved them in the darkroom when shooting film. Digital PP is a natural extension of that, and it is hardly a conspiracy to sell photo editors.

architect Loc: Chattanooga

In a comparison between what shooting film costs and what digital costs, I have saved a fortune shooting digital, certainly enough to afford my Photoshop. That does not mean that trying to get the best image in-camera is passe. I still try to do that.

twowindsbear

Who is 'mike' - the person selling that guitar at the yard sale???

stan0301 Loc: Colorado

If you leave your cameral set to JPEG the image will always look better than one taken in RAW--but starting in RAW you can--with effort-- create the best image your capture is capable of producing--but, inside your camera converting the captured image to JPEG does a lot of the things you will be doing with RAW in Bridge (or whatever)--and often the result isn't bad

Weddingguy Loc: British Columbia - Canada

They do, but you would have to learn to make all settings manually and use an incident light meter to get perfect exposure. You would also have to learn to set the contrast, brightness, white balance, black point, white point and sharpness for each individual exposure in-camera.

Most choose to just let the camera do the guessing of correct everything by using Automatic settings like Auto, Shutter priority, aperture priority, auto white balance, auto ISO, or other auto settings, then make the adjustments to perfect it more easily while sitting at the computer.

joer Loc: Colorado/Illinois

The camera can't do anything on its own. Its you that can't get it right.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

:thumbup:

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

Actually, lens quality CAN be faulted. Some have coatings on their internal glass elements that increase contrast, color saturation, etc. Some don't. Some are better glass than others and create a crisper and sharper image. Some have more shutter blades than others. All of this is discussed on here regularly but that's not the point you're trying to get at.

Every kind of camera has technical and physical limitations that your eyes don't have, no matter what you pay for the camera or lenses. Film had limitations. Digital has different limitations than film.

I'm sure everybody on here is tired of hearing the old saw that Ansel Adams created wonderful prints but he also used advanced darkroom techniques to get what he wanted because what came out of the camera wasn't it. GIMP, PaintShop Pro, Photoshop, Lightroom, Elements, and all the others are essentially just digital darkrooms to edit and improve what you shot so you can override the limitations of digital and actually see what you saw at the location when you took the shot. Or editing software can be used creatively to make wild and crazy art out of reality.

Personally, I think HDR and Fusion is the best thing that's happened to digital photography so far. These allow the camera to capture a much wider range of light that wasn't possible until HDR came along. Minimalists claim all HDR is cheating, but HDR and Fusion shooters know that when it's used conservatively HDR is amazing because it actually can capture the light range that your eyes saw.

Give me a nice camera that can shoot an HDR auto-bracket set of at least 5 exposures, a tripod, Photomatix, plus PhotoShop and a nice monitor and I feel unstoppable!