Should we post-process?

Should we post-process?

OK, that was the attention-grabbing headline. The full question is: should a good photographer post-process his own images, or should he leave it to a professional?

The question arises because I was consulting my photographic library (both books!) in response to a thread about winter reading. And in one I read that most good photographers (in the film age, long ago) sub-contracted their printing to a professional printer. I knew HCB didn't print his own, but I thought most photographers did.

And if film photographers didn't print their work, why should digi-togs PP theirs? Now I may, in this as in many things, be behind the curve, but I am not aware that professional PPers exist to any significant degree. Do they? Should they? Is it the future?

And is there something intrinsically different about digital post-processing as compared to developing a print? Is the image more about what happens after the shutter has been depressed? And if so, is it still photography?

And, moving from the philosophical to the practical, if PPers exist, where are they to be found? I have a picture of a bird that needs professional attention. Like HCB, I prefer to just press the shutter, then go for a beer. Or perhaps a pastis in his case.

G

Million dollar question George.

I do post process, as little as possible. Still believe that less is more wrt PP. Generally I straighten and or crop, curves, sharpen and border.

In the case of my K10, I also remove noise if too visible.

If I scan an old photo, then there is often a lot of work to do.

Always did my own wet developing and printing. B&W and colour and Cibachrome. Never tampered with burning or dodging though.

Regards

If you wish creative control to be taken from your hands then why not hire a photographer to capture the image for you ? Or visit a stock agency & download one ?

I had some prints done last week to enter in a local show!.....I did a little work on the contrast and lightened them a touch, when I picked them up they were nothing like how they appeared on my screen!.....By the way I had 2 first's and a second out of 4 prints!.................Ken

I always found it a little odd that a photographer could let someone else process and print his work, but I suppose it was/is no different to the hordes of people who would snap away then drop their films in at Boots, they were I suppose just paying someone to do a better job.

As for doing a similar thing with digital, I suppose pro's are doing it all the time.

Unfortunately, HCB is dead, or you could ask him that question yourself.

G

To my mind, it seems that to those who sub-contracted the printing (and it was many of the very best people, not only HCB), the art, the creative element, came before the pressing of the shutter.

There were also those for whom the developing was a large part of the creative process, but perhaps they were, in the main, pictorialists whose only aim was to capture physical beauty. Adams, Weston, et al.

G

If you want to stay on top of things, you have to PP your own work.
I cannot believe any photographer in his/her right mind would give away his files and leave PP to another. The big guys (Like David Noton) do, but those people are on his payroll. And even than, he has final control.

Sub-contracting the printing part is totally different. Wet printing and I guess digital printing is an art form of its own. You either do it yourself or let the specialist do it, by your rules and specifications.

I'm glad you answered your own Rhetoric there George. I thought it was going to be like picking teams for a schoolyard game.

your pick HCB, then I'd have picked AA, & so on & so forth. I wonder who the overweight unco-ordinated kid would have been left at the end ?

It was the wet printing, indeed the whole D&P process, that I am talking about. If that was OK for many of the greatest photographers, then why is PP different?

I suspect that many of us press the shutter without having a clear idea what the final result is going to be. Then, with a fair bit of cropping and cloning and whatever we come up with something we think is presentable.

HCB had his stuff printed "whole", no cropping. He saw the final image in his mind's eye. He only needed a craftsman to print his work, not an artist.

G

Good lunch, was it?

G

HaHa, judjing by the riposte it seems you thought that my last comment was a dig at you ? It couldn't be either of us as we were team captains remember !

Anyways, since you asked. I enjoyed a nice cream tea in place of lunch.

I think that George's question about having a clear idea when we press the shutter is at the heart of the process. I do always have an idea of what I want or intend but all too frequently fail. Then it's possible I can redeem the situation with a judicious crop for example.

However, I also accept even if I get the composition etc. spot on that to make the image sing I will need to apply some PP but only to make it look right rather than rescue a flawed image.

Generally if an image is badly exposed it's dumped, if it's not sharp it's dumped if it's out of focus it's dumped. There are exceptions but I do expect to get the subject in focus, well exposed and suitably sharp.

I marvel when people think they can recover a fuzzy image in PP.

Mike

Thanks for dragging the thread back on topic Mike.

I'd concur with your sentiments on this one. For me it's about enhancement rather than rescue. Much of the time I'll have an image in my head when taking the shot, I'll try and achieve that image when processing the image back at home. If I've stuffed it up with poor technique then it'll usually be binned.

There is a big difference now. In the days of HCB and the other icons there were a couple of films to choose from.
That and the lenses used(with their own characteristics)made it possible to create the picture in camera and leave
the printing to a craftsman and not a artist. I am also confident HCB would have sacked the printer if that person
wasn't capable of matching the final outcome to the idea of what HCB had in mind.

Now...fast forward to the digital era.

As a photographer you have to deal with different sensor types, different needs from clients,different types of light available,different types of photography much of them unknown during the period of HCB. It was mainly street,documentary, modeling and news those days. Photography was basically evolving for the few who had to make a living from it.
Nowadays the field of play is so much larger. And so are the decisions that have to be made, before the file is ready. And with Raw you simply have to process afterwards to get the picture the way you want to. And No, please don't start about Jpeg as a solution.
Because imo shooting Jpeg as your base and master file is the same as shooting negative film, print the negs and than throw away the negatives.
It's like baking a cake with no means to add flavors afterwards.