More Photo Nerd Talk

The previous post, The Camera Always Lies, was an observational post. The camera does lie, but so what? It doesn't matter.

Once you see the image, whether on the camera or computer screen, you either like or you don't. Whether you post-process or not, if you like it, you may choose to share it in some way, even if it is just to show the camera screen to the person who is with you.

Since I shoot in RAW, I do post-process, and when the image is before me on the screen, I am not usually all that mindful of how exactly the conditions were. Indeed, I was mindful for the previous post because there was such a huge difference between my eyesight and the camera's interpretation that I decided that I wanted to document the phenomenon. However, this is normally not the case. In most instances, I doubt that anyone totally remembers conditions anyway. I mean that's why we take pictures, or one of the reasons -- to have a memory.

When the image gets to the computer screen, the typical photographers wants to optimize it. Does it require cropping? Does it need more or less contrast? Is it too light or too dark to your editing eyes? What about saturation and sharpness?

When the camera processes the image, it makes all of these decisions for you. However,  when you shoot in RAW, you develop the photo according to taste. When I say, develop, I mainly mean that you nudge the image in directions that appeal to your taste as in the list in the preceding paragraph.

Of course, photographers attempt to get the image as right as possible in camera by keeping an eye on exposure, focal point and sharpness. Beyond that, however, you almost always need to optimize the image in post, even if it just adding sharpness (which the camera doesn't do much when you shoot in RAW). 

You usually don't think how it was exactly, even if you could trust both your eyes and your memory, but what looks right now on the screen.

In this first case, below, I cropped the image to move the fence closer to the bottom of the final image. While it might have been optimal to get the composition exactly right when taking the picture, you very often can't get to the best vantage point with the optimal lens. Now, the fence is in the immediate foreground without wasted space in front of it.

I do like how the rain shows up in the sky.

This photo of the boarded house on our main street seemed to call for a conversion to B&W. I also did some cropping at the bottom since there was more road than I wanted in the original image.

I do play sometimes. The original blank sky bothered me, so I composited another sky that I think fits well enough.

More play: I had a photo of the dam and building with a reflection. I didn't like the outcome, so I cropped the top half and then flipped the reflection to the top. It's much more interesting to me this way.

While I do play (aka photoshop) sometimes as in the previous two images, most post processing is pretty standard stuff. I really didn't do much to the next and final photo aside from adding a bit more contrast and I softening the foreground road up to where the leaves lay. The dirt road was quite rough (pebbly) which I found somewhat distracting. I think it still is a little bit, but that's reality for you.

Okay, I get it. I will get off this topic now. I think I make it sound more involved and complicated than it is. Basically, you look at your image and decide if it requires little adjustments here or there. This is different than what people call photoshopping, which tends to mean significant manipulation. While I did that in the replaced sky photo, that is not usual, whereas cropping or sharpening is pretty standard.