Over processed images

BillN_33

BillN_33

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is there a tendency to over-process images? - in general on this forum - (maybe I'm noticing this with images of birds)

or is it that digital is now producing 40mbte images, (which have their on "style"), as normal, obviously scaled down when posted on here

what do you think?
 
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I'm the first to admit I've not always got it right.

However, I do agree that there is a trend of over processing to compensate for faults, and I think it may be down to 'auto ' and 'AI' features in software nowadays.

There is so much sharpness and detail available when things are done right that when the imagers are downscaled to such a small size as permitted here that that can also lead t some funky looks.

You still can't beat good exposure and sharpness at the shooting stage. On the odd occasion I get it bang on I'm often confused as to the lack of processing I do on an image. And they are almost always the best presented ones

Personally I think a lack of serious critique and the need to be told every crap shot is wonderful so as not to offend has led to a lack of learning the correct techniques

#bloodylikebutton !

Mike
 
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LeeRatters said:
You should join some of the "night sky" or "milky way " groups on Farcebook.... Then you will see over-processed :oops: :$:oops: :$
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From someone who knows nows the square root of zero but is still fascinated by astronomy photography, is it that bad, of just what we'd be able to see should our eyes be able to retain 5 hours of vision in one go?

Just curious as I know nothing about it. With nature its getting to the realm of really un-natural details

Mike
 
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pooley said:
From someone who knows nows the square root of zero but is still fascinated by astronomy photography, is it that bad, of just what we'd be able to see should our eyes be able to retain 5 hours of vision in one go?

Just curious as I know nothing about it. With nature its getting to the realm of really un-natural details

Mike
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I like to keep my night sky images quite subtle & natural looking tbh - and, a few of mine are borderline too much imo

But some others are contrast, clarity & saturation to +100 - and quite often with a blatant, harsh "horizon" join line between the sky & foreground blends.
 
If you/we think pictures here are over processed have a look on Ken Rockwell's site :D

I remember seeing a picture here years ago and the poster had gone for a very vibrant look and it sort of worked except for the people with purple faces. I don't tend to like the sliders to the max look and for me this counts for B&W too. I don't like to see the crushed blacks and loss of detail pictures ghat seem fashionable these days. Each to their own though.
 
I think you'll have to define "over process" and of course we see a range of processing styles on here from none to fully creative.

I wonder if it's more about monitors than cameras, I just got a new laptop with a wide gamut OLED display and everything looks over processed on it :-)
 
It would help to know what you mean Bill.

Screens make a very big difference, and although I'm careful working on a calibrated screen, when I showed some friends pictures using their TV last week then on the colours were WAY OTT.
 
IN my view the current level of technology of both the high megapixel cameras and superb lenses produce images which are pin sharp and crystal clear. I would estimate that they provide a 60/20 view of the world. Which is why they look "over processed".

Our eyes don't see that way and it does not look natural.

Artistic processing is another matter entirely.
 
LeeRatters said:
I like to keep my night sky images quite subtle & natural looking tbh - and, a few of mine are borderline too much imo

But some others are contrast, clarity & saturation to +100 - and quite often with a blatant, harsh "horizon" join line between the sky & foreground blends.
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I'm very much a novice with Milky Way shots but I guess the issue is the camera captures details that the human eye doesn't. Consequently it then moves into the area of artistic interpretation.
Having said that I'm with you on processing leaning towards the subtle end of the scale.
I also think social media drives this to a degree; bright vivid images often catch the attention of people scrolling through images at a rate of knots. Hence the nuclear sunrises that are often seen
 
ancient_mariner said:
It would help to know what you mean Bill.

Screens make a very big difference, and although I'm careful working on a calibrated screen, when I showed some friends pictures using their TV last week then on the colours were WAY OTT.
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Difficult to explain what I mean - maybe it is the software taking over the image as in "editing" to get the image as sharpe as possible or even the mega pixels produced by the latest sensors becoming less than realistic.

Just as an example - similar to what you would get from the over use of the "de-haze" function in LR

as mentioned above quite a lot of images now produced are not what we see, or can see - they are almost too good to be true - (obviously excluding "macro" images of insects etc.)
 
pooley said:
Personally I think a lack of serious critique and the need to be told every crap shot is wonderful so as not to offend has led to a lack of learning the correct techniques

#bloodylikebutton !

Mike
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Agreed - every shot is just "liked"

serious critique good and bad - that was the norm a few years ago but it resulted in a few heated arguments and insults and members, (Brash etc,), were banned particularly surrounding the "little owl" threads.

There is no critique of bird images on this forum anymore which is a pity as it is a difficult subject particularly for members new to the subject.

Apart from the odd one or two taken on holiday, I stopped posting "bird images" a few years ago as it just seemed pointless
 
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BillN_33 said:
Difficult to explain what I mean - maybe it is the software taking over the image as in "editing" to get the image as sharpe as possible or even the mega pixels produced by the latest sensors becoming less than realistic.

Just as an example - similar to what you would get from the over use of the "de-haze" function in LR

as mentioned above quite a lot of images now produced are not what we see, or can see - they are almost too good to be true - (obviously excluding "macro" images of insects etc.)
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It would be a lot easier if you posted an image of something that you thought was over processed.
 
There are plenty of over-sharpened shots posted (to the point of haloes) but that's not always the poster's fault (100%!). If you let Flickr do the resizing, it'll add sharpening to your already sharpened file and may well introduce haloes. This can be avoided by doing your own resizing before uploading to Flickr at the forum's preferred size so it (Flickr) doesn't mess with it.

At least extreme HDR seems to have fallen out of fashion, along with color pooping (sic) and the like!
 
Eucris said:
Photography is a visual art. Without an image showing what you are whinging about the thread is totally meaningless.
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I'm not "whinging" it's just my opinion - I'm really not too concerned how other people process their images
 
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sirch said:
I think you'll have to define "over process" and of course we see a range of processing styles on here from none to fully creative.

I wonder if it's more about monitors than cameras, I just got a new laptop with a wide gamut OLED display and everything looks over processed on it :)
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I've always felt that what I see on my computer, 5K Apple iMac in LR differs from what I see when I post the image on the internet, (say in this forum)- full image versus image reduced for posting - maybe it's just a combination of factors, (add lens "improvements" over the years producing sharper and sharper images - I hardly use my Nikon 600mm f4 anymore preferring the 500mm f5.6 PF)

But looking back at some of my images in LR - those taken with the D700 and D300 are as "pleasing" as those taken with my D850 ............(part of this comes from a conversation with myself "should I upgrade to the Z8/Z9")
 
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I hate overly saturated images, some great shots ruined by being overly colourful and with sharpened halos. Viewed on my 5k mac that is, other monitors will show photos differently I imagine. As long as the poster is happy thats what matters.
 
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Bird photos?
  • Over-sharpened bird on a synthetically produced background - like a vinyl sticker on opaque glass.
  • Cropped so tight that it is a virtual blur - not needed, show a bit of environment.
 
To crit properly requires significant effort and time, possibly many aren't able to explain why they find a photo doesn't work for them. The art isn't dead, but it does seem to be snoring gently.
 
I think critique is best done tailored to the persons experience / ability. I've seen it on a prior forum where the 'know it alls' would expect everything to be top tier and critiqued as such. When you're quite new that level of critique can be overwhelming possibly. Pretty sure that's why I left, it's hard when you're chuffed to bits with a photo that then gets shredded. Not saying my photos were or are top tier but sometimes I take a brilliant photo for my ability.

There was one of the 'know it alls' from amateur photographer that entered a competition and came perhaps 3rd or something and he went ballistic on the whinging about how his photo was better than the winners etc. I just found it slightly amusing he could dish it out and then blast a judge.
 
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rd6743 said:
I think critique is best done tailored to the persons experience / ability. I've seen it on a prior forum where the 'know it alls' would expect everything to be top tier and critiqued as such. When you're quite new that level of critique can be overwhelming possibly. Pretty sure that's why I left, it's hard when you're chuffed to bits with a photo that then gets shredded. Not saying my photos were or are top tier but sometimes I take a brilliant photo for my ability.

There was one of the 'know it alls' from amateur photographer that entered a competition and came perhaps 3rd or something and he went ballistic on the whinging about how his photo was better than the winners etc. I just found it slightly amusing he could dish it out and then blast a judge.
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Many of us aspire to develop and grow, and a bit of top-toer crit is very useful at times, but yes, it needs to be done for the benefit of the togger, not the one posting crit.
 
BillN_33 said:
is there a tendency to over-process images? - in general on this forum - (maybe I'm noticing this with images of birds)

or is it that digital is now producing 40mbte images, (which have their on "style"), as normal, obviously scaled down when posted on here

what do you think?
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I'll wade into this, as I "think" several things might be happening with bird photographs.

Digital has revolutionised bird photography, with high resolution sensors encouraging massive amounts of cropping into small images of birds far far away. Add to this, software that can work magic in reducing noise, enhancing sharpness and cutting through haze, and I think it's adding up to a recipe for poor quality bird photographs.

First, in relying on long lenses and extreme cropping, you are allowing the light coming from the subject to pass through large amounts of atmosphere before it reaches the sensor. So regardless of your sensor resolution or the optical quality of the lens, you can still end up with a poor quality, "low detail", degraded tonal and colour quality, starting point.

Second, despite them being useful tools, AI denoising or sharpening plus dehaze, can wreak havoc with image quality, especially if you have a low-quality starting point that you are trying to recover.

While these AI tools (and dehaze) can work astonishingly well, they still need to be applied with care, and still work best with images that start out being good quality. e.g a noisy but still bitingly sharp image will give a much better starting point for AI denoising than one with less sharpness and similar noise levels.

The defaults found on this type of software, often seem to be set far too high, which, while giving an initial amazing improvement over the original, look way over the top on closer inspection. Even turning down the defaults can still give artificial (overprocessed?) looks when critically, or even casually, inspected.

Personally, I'm becoming less and less enamoured with this AI stuff, and while I am still using it, I am also becoming more and more discerning about the when and how.

On a related AI aside, I've heard a couple of professional retouchers bemoan the fact that current job applicants seem to only know about AI masking, when the expectation is that they have the manual skills to use the pen tool, because AI masks cannot match the quality of those made with the pen tool,

And related to the above is from Paul Reiffers Capture One tutorials, where tutees seem to have dramatically increased their use of masking since Capture One introduced AI masking, but almost always, all they have done is click the AI tool and not realised how much work was still required to turn the AI results into a good mask.
 
I forgot the other thing I wanted to mention.... the milky way photo's that are purple and blue etc had me feeling I was doing something fantastically wrong until I realised the amount of editing and ''add ons' they get.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/milky-way-on-the-horizon/

Linked photo was from space, so unless the atmosphere adds the vibrant colours. I think the more dedicated astro photographers have star tracking tripods etc too the helps get good photos, better than mine at any rate. I did try stacking and noise reduction in PSP etc but lost interest
 
I think many (me) often over-process because we can. I am often so surprised when an image comes out of the camera “clean” that I think there’s something wrong and I twiddle with it. Were I to fit a penny-in-the-slot lock on Lightroom I am sure my edits would be strictly reduced.
 
BillN_33 said:
is there a tendency to over-process images? - in general on this forum - (maybe I'm noticing this with images of birds)

or is it that digital is now producing 40mbte images, (which have their on "style"), as normal, obviously scaled down when posted on here

what do you think?
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yes in a world of social media filters and ease of presets its easy to become lazy and slap some sort of filter on an image, publish it, and get every follower to declare how wonderful it is.
 
Photography can be a craft or an art form. The latter allows for many interpretations. What is okay for one person may be over-processed for another. At the end of the day, as a hobby, it's to be enjoyed by all. But if you seek 'proper' critiques, then one needs to be open-minded enough to accept input, positive or otherwise. It's also more helpful if more info is provided. In the case of processing, perhaps include a before or after comparison so that viewers can make useful suggestions. It needn't be anything complicated, just a screenshot in LR for example, will probably be a good starting point, together with some techs.

Below was taken at 24MP with a rotational crop (-20%), at 500mm, f4, f6.3, 1/1000th, ISO1100.

Screenshot.jpg
 
Can you illustrate your findings with examples Bill? If you are afraid of offending anyone you can use my photos, I would be happy to receive constructive criticism. All of them have undergone heavy photoshopping, even those taken close up with a sharp lens. https://www.flickr.com/photos/konstantin_kanin/

If you allow me Chris, I can give one piece of advice to the site administrator: When publishing a photo, add a checkmark to indicate whether the author wants criticism.

I've never resized and didn't know there was a difference on flickr, Nod. Lately I've noticed that the site has started limiting the size of my photos because I'm not a "pro". Can you give an example of the same photo with and without resizing, please Nod!

Our eyes see differently than the sensor, Wayne. They create a three-dimensional image, the image is refracted through the psychology of perception, and the color sensation is different. To imitate three-dimensionality, you can use background blurring, toning the color difference between the background and the object, enhancing the contrast and sharpness of the object, etc. Another technique for imitating human vision is increasing the dynamic range, as Des showed. As for a colours, it is necessary to add vibrance to show all the beauty, for example, like birds of the Glossy ibis or Rosy starling species. Because a person mixes two points of view via 2 eyes of refraction and shine of feathers, while the camera has only one.
 
trk2 said:
When publishing a photo, add a checkmark to indicate whether the author wants criticism.
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This already exists by forum design - all photo forums except "Photos for Pleasure" are open for critique.
If someone doesn't want critique they should post their photos in "Photos for Pleasure". :)
 
gramps said:
This already exists by forum design - all photo forums except "Photos for Pleasure" are open for critique.
If someone doesn't want critique they should post their photos in "Photos for Pleasure". :)
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Thanks for saving me from posting this.
 
Another factor that plays a role is the aesthetic of an image. In the example below, the original unedited image is on the left, while the right was processed to my personal preference. To my eyes, it is more pleasing, but it may be ‘unnatural’ to others.

Screenshot2.jpg
 
Like with all things art ( or music etc.) "over"processed it highly subjective. Every tool in a software is just that. A tool.
Just like cross processing in the olden days, for example. It would make some pictures great and others would be "overprocessed". I personally particularly disliked all this aforementioned "HDR look" when it was new (and still do) but that doesn't mean it's impossible to produce an aesthetically pleasing HDR look image. Overprocessed on one image but just perfect on another maybe?

I relaxed a lot over the years and tend to separate images into "I like" and "I don't like" and I can try to explain why. But it is very subjective and hence I try not to get too absorbed with the question of how it came about. I will look into that only if I want to emulate it or because somebody asks me to elaborate.
 
I agree with the comments above, noting that honest critique (or any ither sort for that matter!) is largely absent from these forums.

I am very new to lightroom, and have posted a good few images over the last 3 months, asking for critique, but have recieved little (Mike @pooley has left helpful comments). As such, I may well be amongst @BillN_33 'overprocessed images brigade. I appreciate that it takes time, but I would love to learn and improve. Sadly, it seems TP is not the place to do this.

'Likes' are nice, but they don't help you improve.
 
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whyone said:
I agree with the comments above, noting that honest critique (or any ither sort for that matter!) is largely absent from these forums.

I am very new to lightroom, and have posted a good few images over the last 3 months, asking for critique, but have recieved little (Mike @pooley has left helpful comments). As such, I may well be amongst @BillN_33 'overprocessed images brigade. I appreciate that it takes time, but I would love to learn and improve. Sadly, it seems TP is not the place to do this.

'Likes' are nice, but they don't help you improve.
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Maybe. If it was that sort of forum I, for one, probably wouldn't be here. There's always a balance to be struck, and personally I think they have got it about right. We don't all have ants in our pants, and some of us have achieved that Zen like state of knowing what we are capable of and are happy with it.
 
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