Post Processing?

A question was recently asked about how much post processing people do with their photos. Being an old film guy I do very little post processing. The photo above is probably about the most I ever do to a picture. The “before” photo is below, taken with the Pentax K-01 at f3.5, 1/160, and ISO at 100. This is what I started out with.

And here (below) is the intermediate step before I magically changed it to black & white.

I guess the reason I don’t do much post processing is the same reason I never did much darkroom work.

Oh I had a darkroom back in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. I developed my own film and made my own prints. If you didn’t do your own darkroom work after all, you weren’t a “real photographer.” It didn’t take me too long to realize that I liked taking pictures a whole lot more than not messing around in the dark with foul smelling chemicals. Fortunately I was able to pay others to do my darkroom work and back then there were plenty of quality photo labs to choose from.

These days I consider photo post processing the 21^st century equivalent of darkroom work. I have heard photographers agree that post processing takes 30 to 60 minutes per photograph for the best results. Now I am no stranger to computers. In fact I spend a fair amount of my day on a computer, every day. That, in and of itself, may be one reason why I don’t like post processing my photos. After spending most of my day at the computer the last thing I want to do is spend more hours there trying to make my photos look like they are supposed to look like. Besides, that just takes away more from time I could be out taking pictures.

I shoot a lot of film and when you shoot film most of the “post processing” decisions are made when you select which film you’re going to use. When I do shoot digital I don’t shoot RAW (because then I would have to do post processing). I shoot jpegs. This is likely why it is only recently that I have come to appreciate digital cameras. The early ones just were not capable of producing excellent pictures without a lot of post processing. The latest versions have amazing “in camera” capabilities including multiple exposure modes, filters and special effects that can produce beautiful jpegs right out of the camera. They even have HDR and panorama modes!

Now I know that for complete control over the finished product post processing is essential just as the darkroom is essential with film. But I also know that life is all about choices and I choose to sacrifice a little control for a lot more time to do other things – like take more pictures!