Let’s end it off on a topic that is a little bit controversial.
See there are two camps in the photography world. There are those that believe that post-processing (using software to edit your images after they’ve been taken) is at best a waste of time, and at worst a perversion of reality.
The other camp believes that post-processing is a tool that a photographer can use help their images more closely resemble what their eyes witnessed as they took the photos, or go further to enhance the mood or tell a story. It’s a creative technique that has been around for as long as photography itself.
Any guesses which camp we belong to?
Post-processing is an essential skill for a digital photographer. (Gasp! Even film photographers do post-processing!) It’s a simple fact that straight out of your digital camera, your images don’t look anything like the original scene they captured. They’re dull, flat and lifeless. Post-processing helps bring back that beauty by adjusting things like contrast, brightness, sharpness, and saturation.
Then you can go even further. With programs like Adobe Light room you can do things like dodging and burning, which means to selectively lighten or darken parts of an image in order to direct your viewers’ attention where you want it to go.
These aren’t new techniques. Dodging and burning goes back to the beginnings of photography, but originally they were done by painstakingly exposing different parts of the print for different amounts of time. Very difficult, and if you made a mistake you’d have to start all over again. This image by W. Eugene Smith apparently took 5 days to dodge and burn!
Nowadays, with Light room, you can do it in seconds, and fine tune as much as you’d like until you get things perfect. Don’t you feel kind of lucky? I know I do!
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