The First Rule of Post Processing

Preamble and a bit of a rant
People often ask photographers if they Post Process (that is, use a computer to alter their images). I find this a bit of a nonsense question - if you use a digital camera, you are using ac omputer to see an image. Nowadays the computer does the same as the lab did in the days of film ie it takes the negative (your RAW file) and turns it into a print (or a digital image to look at on a computer -usually a jpg). Even if you don't use a computer the camera turns its code into a jpg and makes choices on your behalf about contrast and saturation etc. So, we all post process, consciously or unconsciously. The question should really be "How much do you post process?". Personally my answer is that I take out movable objects (like litter and cars) but not immovable objects (like trees and buildings). Everything else I do, are simple developing decisions that mirror a traditional chemical lab darkroom. My PC is my darkroom.

Now, the blog post... HOW do you post process?

Which is a difficult question to answer with a mouthful of bacon and brie ciabatta. Every now and then I have lunch with a togging pal (we'll call him David, as that's his name) and we shoot the breeze on just about every aspect of photography you can think of.

Today's lunch , aside from being very tasty, covered film photography, shooting with instamatics to gauge your non digital skill levels, reprocity failure, chromatic aberration (the purple fringey things) and the value of motion blur in dynamic images. Oh yes, and how to digitally enhance dog fur. Interesting and varied chats we have.

Then David, who is a purist, but is starting to grasp the Lightroom nettle, asked about my (is it really?) 8 years of Photoshop experience. He asked how to process images. Talk about an open question! But at that point I was being careful not to spill gorgonzola and broccoli soup down my front and replied in a fairly non committal manner - a sort of soup filtered grunt. But it's a good question and post ciabatta and soup and post my day job office hours, I've had time to consider. And the answer is another question (or at least starts that way). The real question is "WHY do you post process" - only by asking that, can you decide HOW you will do it.

Landscapes are my passion (David likes to photograph lumps of metal birling round a wee road, I don't really know why) so I'll tell you why I typically post process a scenic image. Simply, I want to give the 2 dimensional image the same 3 dimensional feeling that I got when I took it. This means it needs something that a print or screen can't give - depth. I need to optically provide the depth of miles on a canvas that's microns thick. I've drawn a wee diagram to illustrate how ( I like diagrams even more than bacon and brie - I guess I'm a visual learner). 

I trained as a designer, so have had a tiny grounding in painting and drawing, which comes in very handy here. One of the things that you learn when you paint is that close items have very different properties to distant objects. First off, they are more vibrant, clearer and with more contrast. Now that doesn't mean you should go nuts and over saturate the foreground, but a subtle effect is to raise the saturation a little and then concentrate on the background which you can mute a little, maybe even let it fall out of focus a bit. Overall you get a subtle, but effective, feeling of depth.. 

Here's an example (finished image at the bottom of this post) - click on it to see it larger, but the explanation is... really sharp, colourful high contrast limpits and seaweed (yes it actually was that colour - I haven't exaggerated it), an interesting fairly sharp but muted middle-ground and a softer less contrasty background that happens to be quite interesting too (so the viewer looks from front to back. You might notice that I even ensured there was a "visual path" from limpits to castle, using the contrast between sea weed and dark grey rock) - lots of depth!  Note that the sharpness and it's "fall off " were achieved "in-camera", but it would be just as easy (easier?) to do this in post processing. To improve the picture it needs some emotion or a story too, but unfortunately there was no ravenous seagull handy that I could persuade to engage in a life or death struggle with the limpits. I guess lapping water may have been a more mundane "story" though.

I'll not get too technical here but the basics are as follows - if you need advice, feel free to mail me at PhotoForMyWall@gmail.com. 

To locally change  the saturation, you can mask the rest of the image and boost saturation, or select the bit you want and saturate it. Or increase vibrance. Or lift the exposure and increase the contrast a bit. Combine this with a few other wee tricks and your landscapes can really start to pop! The point is though, that there are many ways to increase depth, and within Photoshop there are a gazillion ways of doing any particular effect. So "how do you Photoshop?". Well decide what you want to do, look up You Tube, read Scott Kelby's books, ask friends, there are many ways. But answer that first question quickly, "why process?", ...before the soup goes cold.

The Best Way to Improve?

So you can take a decent photograph, but how do you move up a level?

There is one single thing that can really improve your photography - here it is. Good quality, honest feedback.

But be warned if you take offence, make excuses, find yourself saying "ah, but that's because", or if you think people don't know what they are talking about, you won't benefit from this. Every bit of feedback is valid if it's honest because photography is about 2 things
1) whether you like your image;
2) whether others like your image.
I'm guessing if you are letting others see them, then you've nailed the first of these. The hard one though is getting others to see an image they way you saw it.

Every picture we take, we are invested in to some degree - because it was difficult conditions, we had to walk a long way, we were in danger when taking it, it carries memories and emotions. And so, instantly we cease to be able to remain objective.

Here is an image I am fairly proud of - it was a grab shot, street scene, outside my comfort zone and style, taken in really difficult lighting, on the spur of the moment, while reacting very quickly to a changing scene. And I was very pleased with it! I was seduced by the edge lighting by a setting sun , the architecture, the subject and how clever I had been spotting this, and being able to react to it in time. But, it never does well in competitions and I didn't know why.

By getting strangers to tell us about our images, we finally start to see what is strong and what is weak in our images, and only by doing that do we learn. But it's not easy to get people to be open and honest - generally people don't want to hurt our feelings. It was for this reason that I started a group within the New York Institute of Photography's forums called "Rhino Hide" - for those with thick skin ie you didn't need to worry about offence being taken - all members were aware of what was coming at them and critics could let RIP! The only rules were that you had to post your own work too, you had to say at least ONE positive thing and some  constructive things, and you had to back up your opinions with reasons. The group was surprisingly popular (although with the passage of time it seems to have ceased to be public and has also softened up a bit now).

Where do you get good critique, if you don't want to start up a group? Well, here are a few thoughts:
1) Enter competitions where feedback is given (not just a score) - camera clubs are good for this.
2) Post images online (but it's hard to get comments that go beyond "nice", so choose where you post carefully
3) Join forums for industry peers - I am a member of a few linked in groups - you can get some great feedback there if you just ask people what is wrong with an image, not if they like it.
4) Take your images to a gallery or a pro togger and ask their advice on how to improve.
5) and of course, send me a message, I'm happy to tell you my opinion - I'm honest but gentle!

The key to this is to respect everyone's opinion, ask for their advice, consider the responses in an emotionally detached way and then, and this is key, make a decision on whether to take advice or reject it - you cannot please everyone and it is still YOUR image.

Here is the result of feedback that I got on LinkedIn for the Urban Florist - I was advised to crop out the foreground, remove the pillar growing out his head, make him less shadowy, boost the brightness of the plants he is carrying and reduce the brightness of the road. The florist needed to be bigger in the frame too. There was other advice too, but this was the stuff that hit a chord with me when I considered it objectively. I don't "remove" items in Photoshop, it's against my personal code, but I certainly could make that pillar a little darker and remove the contrast of it from it's surroundings, which has the same effect without compromising the integrity of the image.

What do you think, did all this improve the image? I think so (or I wouldn't have done it - the feedback is there to be taken or ignored) . I'm grateful for the feedback, the image is hanging in my living room, I'm invested in the memory of taking it, but by listening without taking offense or being overly protective of my image, I now have a stronger picture, and I have learned a few things to consider for next time.