Photoshopping - How much do you do?

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How much photoshopping do you do?

I use lightroom and generally tend to stick to sharpening, cropping and noise reduction. I occasionally tweak white balance or convert to black and white. I have elements 9 but have never really got into it. It seems to draw away from getting the right picture in the first place and seems a little to fake for me.

Am I missing out on something? I often see the free cd’s that come with the magazines giving tutorials on shopping to get these really outlandish pictures. I tried to blend two images together the other day and it was more hassle than what it was worth, it just didn’t look right.
 
I don't do that much for normal digital photography at all. The problem with Lightroom is I don't think it has a layers option which would be pretty useless to me for the photo retouching I do, and I still do quite a bit.

There's nothing cheating about processing - it's the final result that matters. The idea that getting it right in camera is some sort of pinnacle to be achieved is really a bit daft. Processing has always been part of finishing an image- even in the film days many of the adjustments we now make in Photoshop et al were made in the darkroom - unless you did your own processing you just wouldn't realise that as the adjustments were made by someone else so you just got your film back and assigned an integrity to it which it never really had.

Digital processing is an essential part of photography today and you really should persevere with Elements. How much or how little post processing you choose to do is entirely down to you.
 
I try if possible to avoid too much PP,ing

I have Photoshop CS5 and am still a novice at PP - use it mostly to crop or convert RAW images to mono

Les :thumbs:
 
Until this forum brought my attention to the wonderful piece of software that Lightroom is I never really did any PP, with the exception of the odd cloning out of unwnated items in photoshop or when I just felt like "having a play" with an image.

Now I shoot in RAW pretty much all the time and PP everything. Most of the time it's just a case of cropping/straightening, exposure/WB tweak, NR if required and applying lens correction.

OK, that sounds like a lot but the beauty of LR means that you can automate a lot of the tweaks :)
 
I try to get images right in camera as much as possible, I'd rather be outside creating more images than sat at my Mac.

I use Lightroom almost exclusively, although for some changes that need layers I go into Elements. In Lightroom you can still do quite a bit of processing, exposure, saturation, vignettes etc, but if you like the results you are getting keep doing what you're doing!
 
Haven't used PS for yonks. Pretty much everything gets a bit of treatment in Aperture, usually just some minor shadow/highlight adjustment or croping and straightening, or converting to B&W.

I seem to process less these days, Im either getting better with a camera or just getting lazy.
:)
 
Interesting replys, thanks.

I have always lumped heavy photoshopping in with the graphic design end of things. I'm not against photoshopping, its one further area of creativity I should probably get more of a handle on.
 
For most images, I will make basic tweaks in Lightroom - most raw images require a little boost in terms of contrast, etc, and will always require sharpening. If I've used my 16-35, I may well make some adjustments in CS3 to correct for lens distortion.

For some images that are more than just a record of what I saw, I will do a lot of work on in photoshop, converting to black and white, burning in skies, to provide an interpretation of what I felt.

Best example of that is this http://www.theviewfromthenorth.org/photo8155106.html requiring multiple layers and all sorts of stuff. And no, it's not a Photomatix HDR, all done in Photoshop. Sorry, can't link diectly to the pic, no access to flickr at work.
 
Me and the other half will usually only do photoshopping when we feel the image needs it. Mostly unwanted background objects such as signs, posters, lamposts, passers by or just simple things like bits of litter or dodgy grass that could look better.

We've had a few clients asking to remove bruises or scars and even had one woman who was brought to tears because we fixed a severe eye defect she had in the photo. Makes no sense to me as it made her look like someone else but she was happy.
 
I use Lightroom3, just for sharpening, or noise, etc
I find it the hardest part of photography :lol:
 
CT said:
Digital processing is an essential part of photography today and you really should persevere with Elements. How much or how little post processing you choose to do is entirely down to you.
Click to expand...

Post processing has always been an essential part of photography, the method as simply changed from analogue to digital along with the capture.

As I argue in this thread though, any image manipulation over and above that available in Lightroom (and arguable much that Lightroom can do as well) is beyond the realm of photography and into the world graphic art.

I do very little in Photoshop as I have little enough time for being a photographer never mind becoming a graphic artist too.
 
PP plays a massive part in my own photography, less so in my work photography.

I've used PS since V3 but it was only from v7 onwards where it really became powerful for photographic purposes in my case, probably because it tied up with me finishing my degree around the same time, just as digital photography was become accessible.

These days though PS plays a minimal part in my photography; for pixel-level alterations it's still very relevant, especially when those adjustments require layers. I also do text-based design in it, alongside Illustrator, but that's probably one per cent of what I do.

These days the 'full monty' programs like Aperture and LR, where cataloguing, archiving and processing all fall under the same canopy, are so much more useful for me. I use LR3 after a brief flirt with Aperture, simply because it is more intuitive to me, plus it has the link back to PS that brings some form of familiarity to the editing process. As a catalogue tool it's brilliant, especially when it comes to metadata. I prefer it to bridge in this sense because you can flit between the archive and develop settings in one click.

For processing images then LR takes some beating for ease-of-use; import and image and within two or three mouse clicks you have an image that is sharpened, tweaked and outputted and more importantly, as imagined when you pressed the shutter.

I do basic tweaks for work - NR, sharpening, bit of colour correction, plus contrast tweaks - but for my own work I use everything from the vignette tool, to the luminance sliders and pretty much everything inbetween. I have always took photographs with an intention of making changes, for no other reason than I have never felt that an image straight from camera is how I want it. Some images come close, and those are the ones that require minimal work, but many (especially the multiple flash shots) really need work to maximise the effect of putting light to good use during the shoot. I do believe that getting it right 'in-camera' is essential but you can only do so much within the parameters of what the sensor can do....
 
specialman said:
...I have always took photographs with an intention of making changes, for no other reason than I have never felt that an image straight from camera is how I want it. Some images come close, and those are the ones that require minimal work, but many (especially the multiple flash shots) really need work to maximise the effect of putting light to good use during the shoot. I do believe that getting it right 'in-camera' is essential but you can only do so much within the parameters of what the sensor can do....
Click to expand...

I agree. I always try to get things right on the shoot but to achieve what I visualise, post production is required in most cases.

It depends on what I'm shooting, though it's usually people for me. For fashion and beauty, I do quite a bit of retouching - skin, hair, colour, etc. so photoshop is essential.

For other stuff like children and wedding/bridal I normally just edit in Lightroom unless heavier work is requested.
 
Unfortunately I'm stuck with the pretty awful screen on the D3100 so quite a few of my images require some kind of editing. I usually like the colours to 'pop' too so a quick pass through lightroom is a must!
 
I fit into two camps.

With most of my pictures (the ones I want to edit) I will crop (one of the key things I do TBH) and then do a bit of Levels / Shadows etc.

Then, with certain pics I will really screw around with them - cross process, Holga, de-saturate etc. These are often the ones I like the most TBH. I'm not bothered if they are to anyones taste but mine :-)

I find it easy within to make the distinction between the two types of editing but when I see other peoples images I'm often not too keen on the over processed images!! LOL - especially landscapes, yet portraits I find PP just an integral part of the image.

Perhaps I've just seen too many MAD skies :-)
 
I do the bulk of my work in lightroom, batch processing things like white balance and contrast, I will also do things like add a slight vignette, lens correction, adjust brightness etc. depending on the image but again most of this is done on batches of shots and then maybe tweaked a little. I will also sometimes do black and white conversions in lightroom.

Pretty well every shot makes it into photoshop but thats because I like to do any output sharpening etc. there and sometimes I will add a couple of finishing moves. Photoshop is also where I do anything like cloning out exit signs, portrait retouching etc. But I also like to use photoshop to batch all the photos out to a print folder, sharpened for print, and a resized version for the web with a border and signature out to a web folder. That way I can use them on my site, facebook, blog etc. plus I give clients both folders so they can use the web versions for their facebook etc.

I've got a pretty good workflow set up now and I average 3 minutes per image from start to finish with a file ready for print and a version ready for the web. Still, thats about 15 hours post on 300 images which is an average wedding for me, so I wish I could get it down lower. And the trouble is that doesn't include selecting which images to use etc etc.
 
I always crop my images - But then I've always done that long before I was using digital anyway, because I would print every individual negative in the darkroom, so any minor crops / straightening etc was just a matter of course.

Likewise, from my darkroom days I was used to selecting the grade of paper I used to alter contrast. Every picture would be treated to selective use of my hands to shade light,and tools for dodging and burning. I'd give more exposure to burnt out skies and so on.

as a result, I see the use of software in the same way. I usually dodge and burn images, almost always sharpen a bit, and am happy to use any other tools to get a result I'm pleased with.

I'm no expert with it, but don't see it as soemthign to avoid.
 
I'm a bit like you, I have elements as well as lightroom, but don't really use it as LR is normally enough. I try and get as much right in camera, and don't have the time for lots of pp, but what I've found is that most pics need a little bit of treatment to give them some "pop". Mostly small quick changes - add a bit of contrast for punch, a small vignette to draw the subject out a little, or bumping up exposure around the eyes with a quick local adjustment - that sort of thing. Always as bit of output sharpening as well. I find it all makes a difference and doesn't take too long.
 
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