Photoshop, Editing and Post-Processing

[genex]

BigD asked a question that John was going in to answer and so I'll start this thread to discusss various workflow processes as well.

I have to run right now, but will post my workflow here as well when I'm back on tonight.

[genex]

OK finally got a chance to post this.

Here's my workflow:
1) shoot
2) edit
3) post-process
4) resize for web
5) post

I can go into more details, but editing is important to me as is post-production. Generally I will look at shots and the ones I want in B&W I'll convert and if some have something else interesting I was trying to do, I may do other photoshop work. I try not to do too much though since it takes time and such.

I also have actions I've built to put the watermarks etc, that helps to automate the majority of my work.

gene

[jasons805]

So do you have to do each pic one at a time because I know how long that can take? Ok reread you have alot of stuff set to make it quicker thank god.

[John Stutz]

From the original post in another thread:

How many of you use PhotoShop on all your work? Or do you try to get your image correct when you shoot it??? Are we photographers or graphic artists? Here is an excerpt of part of my little debate on this on another forum:

as you are just entering into the photog world...trust me...EVERYONE edits...and if they say they don't. They are lying. ****, 80% of the models these days wont sign releases until after they see their pics retouched.

Unless you know photoshop or plan to sell your stuff to art house mags, you better learn photoshop inside and out.

Our camera club does not allow photoshopped images into our contests and I have been told by a few they they do not use it except for things like cropping, or a little fix here and there. But to always be sitting in front of a computer for hours changing it all to make it look really good seems a waste of time except under certain circumstances. I want to take GOOD photos with my camera!Your camera club is looney!

Photoshop is the digital equivalent of a darkroom. Remember the not-so-good ol' days when we put negatives into an enlarger, then wasted half a sheet of paper cut into strips as we tweaked with the aperature and timer to get mostly proper exposure. We slapped on a yellow or magenta filter. Then created little holes between our hands to do some burning. Or perhaps took a thin stick with a dime glued to the end and did some dodging. Perhaps we'd use fancy papers. Maybe we aggitated the chemicals a bit more than usual. These are all techniques that are standard, unquestionable practices in the art of printing negs.

I'm sure you know of a very famous photographer named Ansel Adams. He is really a master of the darkroom, moreso than a master of photography. Don't get me wrong, he knew how to take a good photo. But have you ever seen his markups for making his prints. It was rocket science!!

Here's a terrific example (http://www.f45.com/html/tech/techd.html) that I find fascinating and am completely in agreement with. This guy clearly know's his stuff. Read the text on this page and also look at his three examples. The rest of his site is worth a peek too. Essentially what he breaks it down into is "What the camera saw" vs. "What I saw."

Ok, so far all I've talked about is making prints from negs. Well, in the digital world, as I said before, we now use photoshop instead of an enlarger and chemicals. It's a completely different art, but still the same nonetheless. Know that both film and digital media have an extremely limited record of what it considers to be an image. The goal is to turn what the camera saw into what you saw.

Going back to the past, we used to preload our cameras with a specific type of film. This was a conscious choice made by the photographer at the time of the shoot. Sometimes we used b/w, other times color (or perhaps tungsten if you just smoked some shrooms). Negative or chrome. ISO 60 or ISO 1600. These were choices made ahead of time that greatly affected the output of the final image. These days, we don't make those choices before we shoot, we make them after. Loading b/w film into a camera prior to a shot isn't any more sophisticated than executing a b/w macro in photoshop afterwards. Really, how arogant must one be to suggest that converting a "color" image to b/w in photoshop is less artistic or less professional than choosing b/w film ahead of time?

In the digital age, RAW is the way to go. It's simply more advanced and substantially more powerful than shooting on a particular type of film. What the camera saw is simply varying degrees of intensity on millions of red green and blue silicon sensors. How those data points are interpreted once the "image" is captured is completely up to the photographer. Images aren't necessarily color or b/w. They're what you make of them.

How much you choose to alter an image, or the ways in which you choose to alter an image will contribute to how people interpret your art. Not that it's bad in the slightest, but significantly altering an image will usually diminish people's acceptance of an image as a photograph the more it is altered. Not that this isn't artistic in it's own right -- it's just a different brand of art. Each photographer is free to do what he or she chooses when presenting his or her art. If it's good, it'll still be considered art.

Take TC Chang's Fit Wings imagery for example. These beautiful images are a blend of photography with computer graphics. He's an artist of both photography and animation. The end result is clearly not what the camera saw. But an artistic photograph nonetheless, and one which I am certainly not able to create since I lack that talent. But I can certainly appreciate it.

Me, well I hardly know how to use Photoshop. But I get by. I frequently adjust contrast, shadows, highlights, color, temperature, and saturation. I typically perform these adjustment on the image as a whole. I will also remove blemishes, scars, or stubble -- standard photo retouching, which even the masters did with negs. Occasionally, I'll muck with the background, removing an unfortunate branch, dust mark, or blacking out a strange shadow. And I crop every shot! Even if it's full frame, it was my decision to crop it so -- it's a rarity for me to show a full frame image though. Generally speaking, I'll spend between 5-10 minutes editing a shot. Keep in mind, I only show 3-4 images for every 100 that I shoot. It takes me maybe an hour to process 10-12 pics from a normal shoot.

Personally, I don't manipulate physiques or add muscles where they aren't big enough. Nor do I slim hips. Ok, maybe I removed an odd skin wrinkle once or twice -- so sue me. And not that I do, but even if it was my standard practice to give every model smaller boobs and super-hero abs, it would still be my decision and right to do so and would be part of my art. It's no better or worse, just different. It's up to the photographer/artist. Take it or leave it.

Do 80% of models really wait to see images before signing releases? I highly doubt that. It's more likely that 80% of photographers won't snap a single photo without first obtaining a signed model release. For commercial photographers, imagine setting up a shoot, paying for makeup and/or location, paying a model, paying for post production, and then cross your fingers and hope the model will give you permission to use the image? Right! Nevertheless, good photograpers will still post process their images because they don't want to look like bad photographers!!

[genex]

First off great info John!

I spend a lot less time per image since I have to be concerned with volume more than quality for the site.

If I were working on fine art prints, I definitely spend more time in photoshop.

Oh and if you wanna see an interesting photo shoot style, go see "The Notorious Betty Page" - I caught that last night and it's kind of interesting to see how the photography is portrayed.

[John Stutz]

Thanks Gene!

Hopefully great info will make for a great forum. I'm trying my hardest!! And I am encouraging everyone to join in.

[BigD]

Depends on the looniness. I will respond to this tonight, but great info here! Thanks



From the original post in another thread:

Your camera club is looney!

Photoshop is the digital equivalent of a darkroom. Remember the not-so-good ol' days when we put negatives into an enlarger, then wasted half a sheet of paper cut into strips as we tweaked with the aperature and timer to get mostly proper exposure. We slapped on a yellow or magenta filter. Then created little holes between our hands to do some burning. Or perhaps took a thin stick with a dime glued to the end and did some dodging. Perhaps we'd use fancy papers. Maybe we aggitated the chemicals a bit more than usual. These are all techniques that are standard, unquestionable practices in the art of printing negs.

I'm sure you know of a very famous photographer named Ansel Adams. He is really a master of the darkroom, moreso than a master of photography. Don't get me wrong, he knew how to take a good photo. But have you ever seen his markups for making his prints. It was rocket science!!

Here's a terrific example (http://www.f45.com/html/tech/techd.html) that I find fascinating and am completely in agreement with. This guy clearly know's his stuff. Read the text on this page and also look at his three examples. The rest of his site is worth a peek too. Essentially what he breaks it down into is "What the camera saw" vs. "What I saw."

Ok, so far all I've talked about is making prints from negs. Well, in the digital world, as I said before, we now use photoshop instead of an enlarger and chemicals. It's a completely different art, but still the same nonetheless. Know that both film and digital media have an extremely limited record of what it considers to be an image. The goal is to turn what the camera saw into what you saw.

Going back to the past, we used to preload our cameras with a specific type of film. This was a conscious choice made by the photographer at the time of the shoot. Sometimes we used b/w, other times color (or perhaps tungsten if you just smoked some shrooms). Negative or chrome. ISO 60 or ISO 1600. These were choices made ahead of time that greatly affected the output of the final image. These days, we don't make those choices before we shoot, we make them after. Loading b/w film into a camera prior to a shot isn't any more sophisticated than executing a b/w macro in photoshop afterwards. Really, how arogant must one be to suggest that converting a "color" image to b/w in photoshop is less artistic or less professional than choosing b/w film ahead of time?

In the digital age, RAW is the way to go. It's simply more advanced and substantially more powerful than shooting on a particular type of film. What the camera saw is simply varying degrees of intensity on millions of red green and blue silicon sensors. How those data points are interpreted once the "image" is captured is completely up to the photographer. Images aren't necessarily color or b/w. They're what you make of them.

How much you choose to alter an image, or the ways in which you choose to alter an image will contribute to how people interpret your art. Not that it's bad in the slightest, but significantly altering an image will usually diminish people's acceptance of an image as a photograph the more it is altered. Not that this isn't artistic in it's own right -- it's just a different brand of art. Each photographer is free to do what he or she chooses when presenting his or her art. If it's good, it'll still be considered art.

Take TC Chang's Fit Wings imagery for example. These beautiful images are a blend of photography with computer graphics. He's an artist of both photography and animation. The end result is clearly not what the camera saw. But an artistic photograph nonetheless, and one which I am certainly not able to create since I lack that talent. But I can certainly appreciate it.

Me, well I hardly know how to use Photoshop. But I get by. I frequently adjust contrast, shadows, highlights, color, temperature, and saturation. I typically perform these adjustment on the image as a whole. I will also remove blemishes, scars, or stubble -- standard photo retouching, which even the masters did with negs. Occasionally, I'll muck with the background, removing an unfortunate branch, dust mark, or blacking out a strange shadow. And I crop every shot! Even if it's full frame, it was my decision to crop it so -- it's a rarity for me to show a full frame image though. Generally speaking, I'll spend between 5-10 minutes editing a shot. Keep in mind, I only show 3-4 images for every 100 that I shoot. It takes me maybe an hour to process 10-12 pics from a normal shoot.

Personally, I don't manipulate physiques or add muscles where they aren't big enough. Nor do I slim hips. Ok, maybe I removed an odd skin wrinkle once or twice -- so sue me. And not that I do, but even if it was my standard practice to give every model smaller boobs and super-hero abs, it would still be my decision and right to do so and would be part of my art. It's no better or worse, just different. It's up to the photographer/artist. Take it or leave it.

Do 80% of models really wait to see images before signing releases? I highly doubt that. It's more likely that 80% of photographers won't snap a single photo without first obtaining a signed model release. For commercial photographers, imagine setting up a shoot, paying for makeup and/or location, paying a model, paying for post production, and then cross your fingers and hope the model will give you permission to use the image? Right! Nevertheless, good photograpers will still post process their images because they don't want to look like bad photographers!!

[jasons805]

I even re-tweak pics thaht I printed myself because photoshop is so great.

[BigD]

John, the club isn't looney at all if you think about. We have pros, amateurs and even photography and art professors in the club. A VERY good photographer in the club who makes around 5-6K per month, has won numerous contests, does not even own PS and shoots very well out of the camera. The club rules for our own contests prohibit the use of PS to keep the playing field level since some still use film, some digital and some shoot slides. If one REALLY wants to know how good his or her photography is shoot slides!

It would not be fair for some to use film without the benefit of software to manipulate photos. Everyone has the same chance and they are judged by art profs and other from around the state.

Now, what I am more meaning is that I use PS to crop, clone some areas, learning to saturate, burn or dodge and to put on my watermark. What I am referring to is those who use PS to excuse sloppiness in shooting. I have heard others say they don't have to worry about shooting a good image because PS can make it all good! When are we good photographers and when do we actually become graphic artists and software experts???

I disagree that PS is the new darkroom. Sire, it can do some of the same things but it can also manipulate images to look like they never did from the camera. Practice shooting FIRST, become a good photographer, THEN learn software.

[John Stutz]

I guess my issue is that anyone would consider a photoshopped image less artistic than one "straight out of the camera". I'm fairly positive most masters of photography did not, or do not consider their art complete once the shutter is clicked.

Just out of curiosity... for those in your club who shoot film, may I assume that their enlarger must be configured with no filters, a predefined aperature and fixed timed exposure, and that all chemicals mixtures are perfectly calibrated, and that no aggitation is allowed during the development process? After all, any such variables will alter the image and comprimise the integrity of the photograph (and photographer).

Btw, I hear ya on chrome. I'll leave that to the masters of the trade. As I always tell people, "I'm not good enough to shoot film!" Honestly, I'm not.

[jasons805]

OK now this is stupid but places like walmart sell b/w film that uses a color processing.(tired of paying more for the right film) so I have to take it to get developed and it can come out green. I use ps to fix that color problem

[George]

John, the club isn't looney at all if you think about. We have pros, amateurs and even photography and art professors in the club. A VERY good photographer in the club who makes around 5-6K per month, has won numerous contests, does not even own PS and shoots very well out of the camera. The club rules for our own contests prohibit the use of PS to keep the playing field level since some still use film, some digital and some shoot slides. If one REALLY wants to know how good his or her photography is shoot slides!

It would not be fair for some to use film without the benefit of software to manipulate photos. Everyone has the same chance and they are judged by art profs and other from around the state.

Now, what I am more meaning is that I use PS to crop, clone some areas, learning to saturate, burn or dodge and to put on my watermark. What I am referring to is those who use PS to excuse sloppiness in shooting. I have heard others say they don't have to worry about shooting a good image because PS can make it all good! When are we good photographers and when do we actually become graphic artists and software experts???

I disagree that PS is the new darkroom. Sire, it can do some of the same things but it can also manipulate images to look like they never did from the camera. Practice shooting FIRST, become a good photographer, THEN learn software.
I couldn't disagree with you more. I and perhaps a lot of other photographers subscribe to American Photo and Popular Photography magazines. There is, IN EVERY ISSUE, articles on "fixing" photos...using photoshop to fix photos is standard practice in the commercial photography industry...purists will argue it trickery or some other rubbish...I on the other hand see it as just the same as the development process...fix color saturation etc...and yes...even remove blemishes....the truth is almost anyone can point and click...and they do a great job of it...if on the other hand you have to worry about you client's image (not the picture...the image the client wants the public to see) then there is a lot more involved than point and shoot....there are also photo contests in these mags....where both print and digital images are submitted...don't think for one minute that anyone shooting film doesn't manipulate the process....thinking otherwise is just plain naive IMO.... I do however agree that one must perfect his or her craft (shooting)....but again...just my opinion...that's only half the job...the bottom line...the proof is in the pudding....

[John Stutz]

I linked to a specific page on this site earlier, but here's a prime example (http://www.f45.com/html/tech/techc2.html) of what a gifted photographer does during the film print process. I've seen this type of markup from all sorts of mastermind photographers.

If one can capture an image straight out of the camera exactly the way it was envisioned, more power to you. But the art of photography covers the entire process from conception through rendering. imho.

[BigD]

And here I agree and disagree. We aren't talking commercial use in a camera club contest. There is no way to PhotoShop a slide that is entered. So this keeps the playing field level for all entrants. None of us point and shoot, we shoot on manual and experiment in many ways doing so. We do not want it to be a case of who is better with PS as some don't even have it. None of us are against it, it is just contest rules.

Commercial use would be different, obviously.


I couldn't disagree with you more. I and perhaps a lot of other photographers subscribe to American Photo and Popular Photography magazines. There is, IN EVERY ISSUE, articles on "fixing" photos...using photoshop to fix photos is standard practice in the commercial photography industry...purists will argue it trickery or some other rubbish...I on the other hand see it as just the same as the development process...fix color saturation etc...and yes...even remove blemishes....the truth is almost anyone can point and click...and they do a great job of it...if on the other hand you have to worry about you client's image (not the picture...the image the client wants the public to see) then there is a lot more involved than point and shoot....there are also photo contests in these mags....where both print and digital images are submitted...don't think for one minute that anyone shooting film doesn't manipulate the process....thinking otherwise is just plain naive IMO.... I do however agree that one must perfect his or her craft (shooting)....but again...just my opinion...that's only half the job...the bottom line...the proof is in the pudding....

[George]

And here I agree and disagree. We aren't talking commercial use in a camera club contest. There is no way to PhotoShop a slide that is entered. So this keeps the playing field level for all entrants. None of us point and shoot, we shoot on manual and experiment in many ways doing so. We do not want it to be a case of who is better with PS as some don't even have it. None of us are against it, it is just contest rules.

Commercial use would be different, obviously.
I understand about the club issue....but slides don't come right out of the camera....there is processing involved....development/processing of a slide can be manipulated to produce the best looking slide....it's done all the time...a "little thing" like temperature variences can produce different "looking" slides...