How long do you spend editing your images?

How long do you spend editing an avarage image?

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stu_the_flat

stu_the_flat

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Name
Stuart
Edit My Images
Yes
I was round having dinner with a pro make up artist last night, (the dinner was lovely thanks for asking!) I was saying how I hate photoshopping my images and I like them to look as natural as possable, She said that she would not accept a photo in her portfolio if it had not been through photoshop as she conciders an unphotoshopped image unfinished,

but then I relise that I do photoshop my images but all I do is go to a quick menu the allows me to quickly ajust the birghtness highlights, shadows, colors and sharpning, I then some times play with cruves, contrast or Channels if I want to make a black and white. Oh and I really enjoy cloning things out of photos! :D

I don't concider my self a photo editor for two reasons, The frist and most important is I am scared that photography will stop being fun, Because I like being out and about with my camera rather than stairing at the computer,

The second is for every time I take a photograph I know what I want that photograph to look like. the depth of feild, shrapness and colours. I find I can normally get 90% of the way there by using the options in the camera.

So how long would you spend on an avarage photo?

Cheers Stuart
 
If it was an image for my portfolio, or one that I knew would be viewed by many people, I will happily spend many hours editing it until I am completely happy with it.
 
depends on the image but on average I would say between 1 and 2 mins max...

Any longer than that and I start to get bored.....

MD:thumbs:
 
Hours and hours. I think of photoshop as a digital darkroom, that doesnt smell.
If someone wants a set of images quickly then Ill just do quick edits on them. If I have the time and especially if its going to be printed, Ill happily spend a few hours on one picture.
 
At a guess 3 to 4 mins maximum.
 
I use LR3 and for the majority of images I do - all for publication - it takes much less than 60 seconds. I wouldn't make any money at all if it took hours.
 
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As long as necessary but as little time as possible!

Surely a makeup artist should be confident in her/his ability to hide blemishes, wrinkles etc rather than relying on a PP person's skills to do it for them, hence the relatively new guidelines concerning disclosure in adverts etc?
 
..MD.. said:
depends on the image but on average I would say between 1 and 2 mins max...
Click to expand...

:thumbs: 1-2 minutes which you missed in your pole

If you got the shot right in the first place, i.e. right exposure, settings etc, then processing shouldn't take any time at all (levels, curves, unsharp mask etc). If you taking more than 2 minutes on a standard image, then personally its not worth rescuing unless you're playing with the non standard features in photoshop and going HDR or arty.
 
stu_the_flat said:
...She said that she would not accept a photo in her portfolio if it had not been through photoshop as she conciders an unphotoshopped image unfinished...
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:lol: I've shared this same instance with a good friend of mine, only it was more like, "A jpeg conversion from a raw file without any process whatsoever is the more natural, more pure way"...

Whereas I agree with your colleague = it's unfinished.

The nature of raw format is the assumption that a process is going to be applied afterward, an intentional omission of any post is questionable IMO.

stu_the_flat said:
...So how long would you spend on an avarage photo?
Click to expand...

Whilst I understand the topic (very well) it's far too general a subject to give such a short or simple answer.

Editing processes depend greatly on not only the nature and the intent of the author but also the genre or category of photography.

For example a sports photographer may not have the luxury of spending as much time on the editing processes as they'd like, the industry demands that the goods are with the client/picture desk moments after conception so workflow will be minimised to meet demand.

Then take photo journalism for example, echo the same principals as above but maybe a much stronger emphasis on a very specific/limited post production technique for moral and ethical reasons.

Then take portraiture, whether it's fashion or glamour etc, there's a little more room to breath in the artistic sense, post process and the duration can willingly fall to the mercy of the creator (in theory, deadlines are usually the boss :)).

Even the most natural of 'looks' can involve a far more advanced and layered post process. Composites, hi profile ads, movie promo's for example = aren't quick.

Although I totally respect those who spend as little time in post production as they physically can, (as I have to adopt this approach too) it does grate however when it's suggested that any longer then a few seconds or minutes is fundamentally unnecessary, unjustifiable or the presumption that the photographer and the quality of their output must be crap.
This is a conclusion drawn only by those who have no experience of a world outside their own or simply do not understand the mechanics behind the 'machine'.

It largely depends in which field of the photography world you work or play in :)

For sports and journalism = however long I have, usually seconds or minutes.

For my portraiture (corporate/promotional/editorial) = seconds, minutes, hours or days. Whichever is required :)
 
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I use LR3 for nearly everything, and that takes well under 60s. However, my pre-auto-sensor-clean body leaves nice dust bunnies which take another couple minutes to get rid of.

There are some exemptions which I would take through photoshop, including fixing problematic skin, and things like that when they are really needed.
 
As mainly a landscape photographer, it takes considerably more than a few minutes for a good conversion, and I'm referring to RAW files, I don't bother with jpegs. To suggest anything more than a few minutes isn't worth rescuing is naive in my opinion. Digital conversion is no different than working (dodging/burning) a print in a digital darkroom.

Ansel Adams didn't blast out a print in 1-2 minutes and abandon anything that took longer. The processing is an important part of the art, and takes as long as it takes.

For sports, or time-sensitive images, it obviously doesn't allow much time to be spent, but photography as fine-art should take as long as it takes to produce a fine art print. With landscape and similar work, it's sometimes impossible to get the 'image' with just a click of the shutter, there is a lot more work needed to create the 'image'.
 
Im new to Photoshop so for me there isnt even an option for how long i spend. This is mainly due to even the simplest task taking me forever!:lol: There are the odd ones where i just use the Auto settings like Auto Contrast so a few are only a few mins. Speaking of cloning out parts of a photo Stu, i had a dark shadow and one little cloud on my lighthouse photo you seen on AO and i spent bloody hours trying to figure out how to remove them to no avail. Im sure its very easy but when youre new to it..........:bang:
Phil
 
It really does all depend on the subject matter and the final use of the picture. There is no suggestion that taking longer than 60 seconds is in any way a reflection of the photographer's abilities.
 
Nod said:
Surely a makeup artist should be confident in her/his ability to hide blemishes, wrinkles etc rather than relying on a PP person's skills to do it for them, hence the relatively new guidelines concerning disclosure in adverts etc?
Click to expand...

There's probably another side to it. The MUA is working in a market where all photos are re-touched, normally to a very high standard and some to within an inch of their lives. It's the norm in that industry and if she turns up with a portfolio of un-retouched images for an interview and her competition all have retouched images then she has no hope. All she's after is a level playing field.

Personally I hate spending any time in photoshop, that's why I love my darkroom so much.
 
Really depends on the market you are shooting for.
All of my images are put through C1 where I do the colour balance and levels, then a quick 100% check in PS and thats it for the editorial market, guess around 10 secs per image.

Advertising, well that's totally different, longest I've spent is around 40 minutes, and that was waiting for a Tiff to upload to my retouchers.

My 5x4 film scans probably take the longest, retouching out dust which is left, even after an infrared clean.
 
I think the answer really is whether you can make money on your retouching, so many photographer appear to make good money on wedding and portrait but endless tinkering cost money...I wondered whether or not some are in fact working for close to the minimum wage?
 
One thing to remember, is that if you have spent 5-10 mins or so taking out dust, and adjusting exposure, these setting can then be applied to any number of pictures, so for wedding togs, I'd imagine that once one or two are sorted, it's pretty easy to spread that across the entire set (as the dust on the sensor doesn't change area, its safe to sync the changes across multiple images, as is exposure/contrast/colour if a consistent look is required).
 
Nod said:
As long as necessary but as little time as possible!

Surely a makeup artist should be confident in her/his ability to hide blemishes, wrinkles etc rather than relying on a PP person's skills to do it for them, hence the relatively new guidelines concerning disclosure in adverts etc?
Click to expand...

Oddly, I did a shoot for a young lady make up artist recently, she wanted some portfolio shots. Most of her models were near-perfect but she still wanted a bit of editing of the photos, pointing out some serious make up artists online portfolios that are PS to 'ell and gone. I did some simple degrunge and tidied up where needed, but I heard myself asking the self same question. "There's only so much make up can do" was the reply ...
 
I voted 2-5 mins, but it does depend. If I'm editing footie shots for the web, then as little time as possible. If I'm selecting an image for competition, then sometimes hours :)
 
It depends on what you have to work with in the first place.

The use of the image also has to be considered as does the brief from the client.

So my answer would have to be as long as is needed. 2mins to 2 hrs.
 
Apart from rotating images (my camera doesn't do it automatically) I don't spend any PP time anymore. Can't be bothered.
 
As many have said I get bored after a minute or 2 on a photo. Sometimes if I really really like the shot, but there's something just not right about it I might spend up to 20/30 minutes editing it. But that's rare, and it's usually a major clonage job or something. Like once I took a shot of a model and somehow managed to get a massive chimney in the background to look like she had a huge penis. When I saw the resulting photo I was thinking... lord, I probably should give up this photography lark if I'm missing things like that :lol:
 
I must admit I have managed to streamline my processing somewhat in the last year but I still can't see it taking under 5 mins unless I'm doing a batch using the same settings.

One thing I have started to use in my processing is the lessons I learnt years ago when painting water colours, namely don't overwork it, there is a point where even though you know you could carry on, you should stop.
The other lesson is quite often, less is more.

When I look at the photo's I have taken and processed, the ones that stand out to me are the ones that have had less processing done to them.
 
Very little. Shoot jpeg save jpeg. In my opinion the money these cameras cost we shouldn't need to spend hours in front of a computer, I try to get mine right in camera. (Although according to recent comments I fail miserably)
 
most of the time 1-2 minutes on lightroom and that's it.

Sometimes though I do the editing on ps in a more elaborate way and can easily spend couple hours on 1 shot :D especially if I am doing b&w conversion
 
I used to spend a long time.

Now my whole workflow is in Lightroom, backed up by a handful of presets that I've created over the years. Maybe a few minutes to make any small adjustments.

Yesterday I processed a wedding, 200 shots - 5 hours work. That includes going through all 800 images.
 
As much as its bleted out ll over these forums. I do try and get most of it right in camera. If its wrong - i take it again (not applicable for all types of photography but for what i do, i can mostly reshoot the shot.)

I will spend no more than 5 mins on one photo to get it looking the way i want it. However thats from hours spent getting used to the software and how to apply effects.
 
It depends what the shots are.

Typically, my nightclub stuff that is never going to be prefect any way, i try to spend no more than 30 seconds per shot. Over say 300 odd shots from one night, that's still 3 hours gone.

General stuff for myself, a couple of minutes i guess.

Where as at the moments i am going through some fashion show shots. It's a first for me and i'm quite happy with the results so far so i'm happy to spend a bit longer on them getting them as good as i can.
 
Bearing in mind my images are just for me and my family, the average one gets around a minute. Basically the quick corrections described above. If it needs more remedial work it gets as long as my poor skills allow me!
 
Average per photo I take isn't going to me much more than a minute.

Average per photo I share is probably nearer 5 minutes

However for the right shot I will spend a couple of hours on it should I feel it justified.
 
I voted over an hour, because if I'm doing a portrait, I can spend hours on the skin. Some pictures though just need a quick 2 minutes to fix levels/curves. Depends on the subject of the picture. Personally I find photoshopping as much if not more fun than the actual taking of the picture.
 
60 seconds or less generally, for going onto my online galleries. As long as it takes if going to print or in an album.
 
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