Post Processing

[Richard Annable]

My aim as a wedding photographer is to get as much correct in the camera as possible. Some of my best images have required less than one minute in post.

When I go through (on average) 1000+ images after a wedding, the less I have to do the better.

[Travis]

My aim as a wedding photographer is to get as much correct in the camera as possible. Some of my best images have required less than one minute in post.

When I go through (on average) 1000+ images after a wedding, the less I have to do the better.

Hey Richard ... welcome to the forum!!!

Your statement is somewhat refreshing to hear..... On another forum I post, it seems there is a growing number of people who no longer do this.... the general concept is just to get everything on the sensor and fix it later.... the flexibilities of shooting RAW have allowed for this.... you can drag over/under exposed images into range that are out 3 stops....you can adjust white balance...

It's up to the individual how they want to shoot.... I see no problems with both techniques.... even with 1000+ images you can still make bulk adjustments to white balance etc....but I'm with you... I prefer getting it right in camera... I think it's from my JPEG shooting which is not as flexible...

[tirediron]

My aim as a wedding photographer is to get as much correct in the camera as possible. Some of my best images have required less than one minute in post.

When I go through (on average) 1000+ images after a wedding, the less I have to do the better.

You sir, are a man after my own heart! I hear of people spending hours in post on one image, and then think, "Hmmm, I only spent a minute or two on that one... what am I doing wrong?" The answer is nothing; they spent 1/125 of a second composing and exposing the image, and an hour in post. I spent ten minutes setting up the shot and two minutes in post. Mebbe it's just me, but I like that math!

[kiley9806]

TiredIron & Richard - you make good points! If youre not interested in getting the shot right in the camera, why not just become a good graphic artist or something, instead of a photographer?
Just wanted to point out that this thread has had over 1600 hits...
Nice debating Tegan & Travis!!

[tegan]

TiredIron & Richard - you make good points! If youre not interested in getting the shot right in the camera, why not just become a good graphic artist or something, instead of a photographer?
Just wanted to point out that this thread has had over 1600 hits...
Nice debating Tegan & Travis!!

Kiley, it is virtually impossible to get the shot right in the camera, but you need a good eye to recognize that simple fact. You have not carefully looked at the same number of photos that I have, yet.

Tegan

[tegan]

You sir, are a man after my own heart! I hear of people spending hours in post on one image, and then think, "Hmmm, I only spent a minute or two on that one... what am I doing wrong?" The answer is nothing; they spent 1/125 of a second composing and exposing the image, and an hour in post. I spent ten minutes setting up the shot and two minutes in post. Mebbe it's just me, but I like that math!

That is the simplistic view. No serious pros spens hours on one image in post processing, for the simple reason that time is money. Workflow and the speed of workflow is important.

On the other hand, a lot of photographers who do little postprocessing have a poor eye and don't see the weaknesses in the technology or their work.
Few shots produce the colour and detail that was present in the scene when you looked at it. Postprocessing can also bring detail out of the close to pitch dark, depending on the ISO used.

Setting up the shot is also not always possible. Try setting up a shot of a wild animal on the move. At dawn the light changes so fast that even shots taken within a few minutes are totally different in the quality and colour of the lighting.

So basically any serious pro does postprocessing and with a good eye recognizes what needs to be done and what is not necessary. It is as much an integral part of photography as work in the darkroom.

Tegan

[Mad Aussie]

My aim as a wedding photographer is to get as much correct in the camera as possible. Some of my best images have required less than one minute in post.

When I go through (on average) 1000+ images after a wedding, the less I have to do the better.

I'm only going to comment on Richards comment above and simply concur ... sort of.
I don't shoot weddings, I shoot Mountain Bike events and similar.

Two weekends ago I shot an all night race and returned home with almost 1700 photos. Quite obviously I'd like to just upload those and sell them without spending days post processing (PP). Needless to say that although that's always my intention the reality is I spend a lot of time PP and after 5 days I finally had 998 photos I think it was. With dark and dust to deal with there was a lot of work.
I finished them just in time to race out last Friday night and shoot an adventure race around the streets of the Brisbane CBD ... 500 more photos and back to the PP for a couple of days.

If I could avoid PP I would. But in the end if I expect people to buy the photos I need to do my best both at the event with my compositions etc and afterwards with any PP I think is necessary.
I do accept some photos as 'good enough' and don't PP them in these cases.

It's a matter of time/effort versus the odds of selling that photo.
Out of 998 photos from the MTB event I've sold about 60 so far and I suspect it won't be a lot more than that. That doesn't sound like much but it's actually the most I've ever heard of selling at such an event in this area and it's certainly well above my previous efforts.
The sad thing is that event represented about 60 hours of work all up and the financial return isn't enough to cover that. However, we also put in flyers and business cards into the competitors racepacks and the commentator speils on about us from time to time during the race also so it's an advertising opportunity as well.
In the end though when I write an article and supply photos of a few events for a national mtb magazine over here I can get a similar financial return for far less work. Although I still had to be there to take the photos.
So getting back to PP ... it's hard to decide how much is warranted sometimes.

[Iguanasan]

When I go through (on average) 1000+ images after a wedding, the less I have to do the better.

What I find interesting (and maybe a little off topic) is the quantity of photos that people take these days. Please don't take this as a criticism as it's only meant as an observation. I notice that most people shooting a wedding are taking 1000-3000 shots whenever I hear wedding photographers talk about their work.

When I hired a photographer to do my wedding 19 years ago (and yes, this dates me a bit) he had a planned shooting schedule and shot exactly 60 shots on his medium format camera. There was one where he had the chauffeur hold the flash and it was not positioned correctly, however, the other 59 came out perfectly. No closed eyes. Exposure was perfect.

Again, no point really... just an observation...

[Mad Aussie]

It stunned me that Richard took 1000+ for a wedding and apparently that's common practice.
At an event like an MTB event I'm trying to get a shot of all the riders ... 300 - 500, some of whom are in teams and might not ride more than once every 2 hours or so. It becomes necessary to shoot a lot of photos to get everyone.

I'm sure your wedding photographer still had some post processing to do IG

[kat]

It' s funny. When I first got my camera and started taking photos I was one of those people who really stood by the fact that the photo isn't great unless it came out that way with no pp.

I've found that the more I take..the more I realize that in most cases..that isn't going to happen. Ha ha..now that may be because of the photographer :P but I can take a shot a million different ways and it seems there is always that one thing.

I also have feelings about too much pp. I'm not one for adding an element that wasn't originally in the photo. I guess the basics I'm all for. Unless it's for artistic value..but then I still think it's not the photo but an image created from a photo...