Hi… I’m Matt… and I LOVE to edit photos.
I love to spend time on the computer in Lightroom and Photoshop, working on creating the image I want from a photo I’ve taken. Sometimes it’s an hour and sometimes it’s many hours. And I love it!
There! I said it! But why?
That first paragraph was written in response to a comment I read when I announced my newest course on Luminosity Masking. Someone had taken the time to write (you know, in that snotty internet way, that’s unfortunately all too popular these days), that they prefer to get it right in the camera, and don’t care to spend any time on their computer, and went on to write how much they hated Photoshop.
Now, I’ve been at this teaching gig for almost 20 years. I started in my late 20’s and… well… do the math 🙂 And I’ve heard that whole “I’d rather get it right in camera” thing, more times than I can count. And way back, years ago, it used to bug me a little. Like someone was trying to take me down a peg, because I used Photoshop. But I’ve totally gotten over it (a long time ago) because I now realize where those comments come from.
Nobody ever says they hate something that they’re good at. Instead, they just say how much they dislike it. They don’t like it… because they’re not good at it… which must mean whatever that action/skill is, is not worth it.
Here’s an analogy. My son comes to the gym with me. And every single time we do bench press he tells me how much he hates it. But he never says that when we jump on a rowing machine and row for 2000 meters. Ya’ know why? Because he beats me, and many of the other people around us (well, sometimes me), when he’s on the rower. But he’s just not good at bench pressing yet.
Once I realized this years ago, I’ve found it holds true in so many areas of life. Ever hear someone who’s awesome at golf say they hate it? How many times do you hear “I hated Math in school!”. My guess is if you could look back to their math grades, they weren’t stellar 🙂
But, I Like To Get It Right In Camera
Back to the whole “I like to get it right in camera thing”. You know why I don’t mind when people say this any more? Because it’s total BS! I now know what they mean by that. How can I be so sure though?
Because NOBODY loves to get it wrong in camera.
Seriously folks. Have you EVER heard any of your photography friends say “I really like to screw up my photo as much as possible in camera. I get enjoyment out of it, and I can’t wait to spend hours fixing dumb things on the computer, that I could have fixed in 10 seconds in camera”. No! People don’t say that. And just because someone actually likes editing on the computer, doesn’t mean they like getting it wrong in camera or are any less of a photographer.
Now, I have to set an audience here. I’m not talking to the professional photographer who is maybe editing a wedding, or event, or photographed a thousand separate kids for school photos. Most of those people, don’t enjoy the computer part of this because, mostly, it’s production work. It’s not art. It’s not creative. Adding keywords really isn’t fun. Organizing really isn’t fun. I once photographed the entire University of South Florida’s sports program (over 300 athletes). They wanted 3 poses of each and I totally screwed up my composition in-camera, not realizing it because I had a little remote in hand when I was shooting and wasn’t looking through the camera all the time. That meant I had to go in and crop over 900 photos individually. That’s “production” work, and not many people are really inspired by it.
But for those of you/us that shoot because you love it, and not for a job (which is most of you reading this), many of us actually like editing on the computer.
We like to get into Lightroom and Photoshop and start “crafting” the photo we want. Brushing, dodging, burning, adding detail, light, accentuating things or adding special effects, textures, playing with Blend modes. We enjoy what I call…
“The Art of the Edit”
That doesn’t mean we don’t love shooting. I don’t know about your world, but in my world there’s room for both. As I write this, I’m getting ready to go out to shoot with a buddy in the morning. And I’m just as excited about getting to edit those photos, as I am going out to shoot. One does not have to cancel out the other.
I know what you’re thinking. Yeah yeah… he teaches photo editing for a living. Of course he has to say editing is good and he likes it. And, well, you’re right in a way! But this didn’t become a job for me before I got good at editing. I got good at editing, and realized how much fun and enjoying it could be that I wanted to share it with other people and help them get good at it.
And those other people are out there. Whether you’re already good, and sometimes afraid to admit that you’ve edited a photo. Or you’re not very good, but wish you were better because you think it would indeed be fun to edit your photos if you felt more comfortable with it.
Ugh!!! NOT Another “Is It Okay to Use Photoshop” Article
If you’re wondering, isn’t this just another “Is it okay to use Photoshop” article, it’s NOT. Definitely not! We already know it’s okay, so PLEASE don’t leave comments about why and when you feel photo editing is okay, and whether or not you think it becomes a photo or “digital art”, and when you feel it’s okay to use Photoshop, blah blah blah. I’m SOOO over that conversion and it’s been done to death. I’m not trying to convince anyone when or why to use Photo Editing tools at all, and if it’s okay.
My main point here is to relieve some of you from the whole “I prefer to get it right in camera” or “I prefer to spend my time out shooting” comments. I know you’re out there and I know that a HUGE number of you like photo editing because I run into you all the time. My goal here is to help maybe, in some little way, try to focus your efforts and put into words what you may have been thinking. To give you some vindication that it’s okay to like what you like, and ok to maybe even do more of it.
And honestly, sometimes we can’t get out shooting as much as we want. Whether it’s because of jobs, weather, physical limitations, etc… So learning new techniques to use on old photos keeps us motivated and keeps us inspired and moving. It’s a way for us to enjoy photography in a different way, other than the physical act of shooting itself. And is that such a bad thing? I never spent much time in the darkroom, but I often hear from people who did. And many of them enjoyed that time, and even miss it in a way. Isn’t this the same thing?
A Personal Story
To wrap this up, let me leave you with a personal story. A few months ago I had done a course that concentrated mostly on using tools in the raw editor (LR, ACR, ON1). And I spent a while working on that course, so most of my photo editing revolved around those tools while I was creating the course. And while there’s plenty we can do with those tools, none of them really offer the intricacies (and time commitment) of what we can do in Photoshop.
But recently, while working on my Luminosity Masking course (the course that spurred this comment that inspired this post), I found that I fell in love with Photoshop all over again. I found myself going through old photos in my library and editing them in a different way. Doing things with areas in the sky I had never done on those photos before.
And I realized something very important (to me at least). Sometimes it’s not always about the end result. If I put my old rendition of the photo side-by-side with the new one, would most people be able to see a difference? Probably not (maybe those with an extremely discerning eye, but those are my least favorite people to share photos with anyway) 🙂 So what I realized was that it’s not always about the end result, but sometimes about the way we get there.
I play golf every once in a while and I’m definitely not shooting my highest scores these days. Owning my own company has definitely taken its toll on that! 🙂 But sometimes, when I play, I have a good game for that specific day. Meaning, maybe I hit a shot I don’t always hit. Maybe I took a chance, and it worked. Maybe I nailed a 20 foot putt. Is it my best game ever? Nope. But I had a good day, and (most importantly) I’m happy with the way I got to that final score.
Wrapping Up
The older I get, I realize that what life throws at you, and what you consider success, is a moving target. Five years ago, I worked for a company where I traveled all over the place – constantly. It was great… and it was draining at the same time. But, I got to shoot in many places that others dream of. And my photography was much better then, versus right now. Not because I’m a worse photographer today, but because (back then) I was putting myself into great places over and over again. Something that I choose not to do right now because I have more pressing things to take care of at home with my family and business.
What this means for me, is that I have to take the opportunities I get right now, and make the most of them to stay inspired and moving forward. And for me, sometimes that means that it’s not always about the end result of getting to the most amazing location, and making the most incredible photo ever. But sometimes it’s about the process I went through to create that photo.
As the old saying goes, “It’s about the journey, not the destination”
And when it comes to my photography, I’ve realized the journey of the photo capture process itself is sometimes very simple. But sometimes, some of the things I do while editing that photo bring me happiness as well. And years ago, I decided to OWN IT – and not let anyone take away from me, the very fulfilling act of spending my time bringing to life and crafting a photo I have in front of the computer.
My hope for you is that if you’re one of those people too, that you own it. And if you’re one of those people who may not feel they have the skills, but have always wanted to, then at least try it. My latest course dives in to a really fun way to edit and craft your photos in a different (and more detailed way). Maybe that course is for you and maybe it’s not. I just hope you find something to help you improve and give it a try. Perhaps you’ll learn to love the computer part of photography, and maybe you won’t. But at least you’ll have an educated decision about it, rather than being that crotchety person in your camera club that just says “I hate Photoshop, and I prefer to just get it right in camera”.
Oh… and if they do say it, well now you at least know where it comes from 🙂
Let’s Change the Discussion!
I know many of you will still leave comments about why it’s ok to edit, even though that’s not the point I’m trying to get across. My goal isn’t to start yet another article that comes to the defense of photo editing. It was to change the discussion altogether, and help people see that editing isn’t something we “have” to do… it’s something we “want” to do. And maybe, rather than trying to turn some one who is set in their ways (we all know that’s not going to happen) toward something they’re not comfortable with, we can take the approach, “Hey photo-editing-hater-person… you’re missing out! We have a whole other area we love in our photography, and if you gave it a chance, it may open up an even deeper love of photography for you too!”.
Have a great weekend everyone!
NOTE: I invite you to join in on the conversation below, but PLEASE PLEASE don’t make this another comment-fest on when/why it’s okay to edit our photos, and the limits of the camera or the ethics of retouching and all that 🙂 Thanks!
Thanks. I’m not a pro, just a hobbyist with my camera and phone camera. I “treat” my favorite photos so that they look the way I want them to. This is for myself. Up against pros, I used to feel guilty about treating my photos. Now I do not feel this way. It’s a constant learning process for me to give some of my photos a little extra sparkle, and I enjoy it.
Thanks Matt. I couldn’t agree more. …’nough said!
The problem is that we try to see Photography, Photofinishing, and photo compositing as a single skill and a single art form. They are not only separate skills but also, when done properly, 3 different art forms. Do artists that use claim to be better than those that use acrylic or water color. Some do. I had an art teacher who told me to look at the canvas “White on White” by Malevich as a sculpture and see how he layered the paint and used brush strokes instead of color to give his message. That gave me a different view of art in general. The work is an abstract painting not a sculpture, but looking at it in that light gave me a fresh opinion of what the art work is all about. It took a skill that most painters use to enhance color and used it for a whole different purpose. The skill is the same but the art form is different. In the same way the three art forms I mentioned use similar skills, but the are different forms.
As a photo compositor I try to get it “right in the camera”, but “right” is different for me that for someone who calls themselves a photographer. For example I am concerned with angles and perspective than with background. I may intentionally blow out the sky in order to make compositing easier.
Further, I must do more work developing shots taken with may Alpha 65 than my A7Riii. it has nothing to do with my skill but the ability of the camera. Choosing to emphasize one skill over another is choosing one technology over another as much as one being a better skill. Its a big world. There is room for all skills . At 70 I can no longer hang upside-down from a tree to get the shot I want but I can take the sot I get and combine it with another shot to get as good the impact I want. So there is both skill and technologies involved. Choose the one you like the most to be your main art form.
Thank you for this article. I am new to photography, and have heard that “get it right in camera” comment many times already. To a newbie, it can be very disheartening, pointing out what I already know – I’m NOT “getting it right in camera”. But, hey, you know what? I’m learning, and finding the people to teach me how to get it *as right as I can* in camera. But, as a newbie, with this phrase echoing in my ears, I found it so frustrating when I would get my focus, exposure spot-on, DoF yada yada yada all spot on, and yet on screen the picture didn’t look like what I had seen in the moment.
That’s when I started hesitatingly venturing into LR. I felt like I was cheating, because of what these people had said. I hadn’t got the picture right SOOC, and so I was a fraud.
Now, I’m beginning to realise that’s not the case, thanks to people like you spreading your knowledge. That I shouldn’t apologise for enhancing the colours, the clarity, or whatever else in my images. That time is limited and sometimes I can’t return on a better day with a better sky. That my otherwise perfect photo has an annoying fly that I want to remove…
And you know what? I’m learning so much more about how to take better photos in camera by going through the editing process! To play around with cropping to work out what composition works best for a particular scene. To see the things I am trying to heal that I could have made easier on myself by changing my settings. If I denied myself the ability to play around in the editing software, I don’t think I would learn these lessons as quickly.
As I said, I’m still very new, and so the learning curve is steep, but it’s wonderful to see how the combination of the right photo and the right editing can work together to create something really special. It’s exciting to be at the start of this journey, and I’m not going to let the words of the nay-sayers get to me anymore, to make me feel like a failure. What’s it got to do with them, anyway? I’m creating my photos for me, and how I achieve something that I find beautiful is none of their business 🙂
I have worked with LR classic, LR cloud and Photoshop. I stopped that and switched to ON1, I never regretted it. Your tutors were perfect, learned a lot, thanks for that
My dad was a photographer and I had a new 35mm camera in my hand when I was 10. I spent a few years in the dark room with my dad processing photos. As life gets busier as you age, I took less photos as time went on. Now that I’m retired, I’m hooked again. I have the new iPhone 11 Pro, purchased a tripod and some Moment lenses\filters and off I go. I have dabbled with Photoshop, but I have purchased ON1 and absolutely love processing my photos. I purchased a couple of your courses to get me up to par and have listened to hundreds of YouTube videos on photography. I used to think that the photo should be processed so it didn’t look like it was very processed. Thanks to you, Matt, I have decided that I can start to be creative when processing my photos and I’m having great fun doing it! Oh, of course Matt, I’m careful not to over sharpen. ? Thanks for your article. It gives me more confidence to do creative processing.
I love ‘getting it right’ in camera. But I don’t take that to mean there’s no editing needed. By getting it right in camera I feel like I got the raw file I needed to get what I saw in my head when I edit.
Wow! Your portfolio is stunning. Images so sharp and beautiful!!!
Let it go. Be free to edit to your heart’s content! 🙂
So well said.
Amen! I shoot theatrical productions. Before the first shoot my mentor looked me in the eye and said “Dancers don’t stop”. Thirty seconds into the first number his saying went from obvious to profound. There is one fleeting chance to catch a high kick or a turn. Sometimes the framing is off or the light changes. Handing the client just the images that were perfect out of the camera isn’t what I was paid to do.
It’s a bit like skeet shooting. Reloading hulls and gun cleaning are nothing like shooting clays, but it’s part of the experience. Culling, cropping and highlighting at my own pace is at least as rewarding as capturing the original image at the production.
I attended Photoshop World two years ago and took a class on Landscape editing in Lightroom. It was a hands on class where the instructor was to help us. It was taught by Moose Peterson. He walked in and his first comment was “ If you can’t fix your photo in 30 seconds, you’re wasting your time”. Right away, people starting leaving. Then, he was talking to someone next to me and I asked a question about shooting to the right on the histogram and he dismissed this as mumbo jumbo nonsense. I realize that from his perspective, yes, he has a point because time is money when you’re a professional. But I’m not. Most of my photos are taken on vacation with my family and I can’t make them wait while I get it right on every shot. I need to edit.
I realized after the class, that “shooting to the right” was exactly what Ansel Adams did. If anyone manipulated images, he did. He even did what you do Matt, he’d come back to certain images years later and try again. Darkroom work is image manipulation without computers. Adams loved it. And his work was certainly on a par with Moose’s, if not better. I built a darkroom when I was 15 and I loved it.
How many photographers have said they fell in love with photography when they pushed the shutter? The story I’ve heard most is the one where that magical moment comes as the image forms on the paper in the developer tray. That’s the moment I’ve heard about most from photographers when they talk about getting hooked on photography.
But, in the end, what others do or feel, doesn’t matter. It only matters what you feel and and what makes it work for you. No matter what some may say, there isn’t only one way.
BTW-Matt, I love golf, but I’m never going to be good at it. But, when you play, it takes your mind off of everything, including running your own business and all that goes along with it. Usually, I hit enough good shots to keep me coming back, but it’s enough that it cleared my mind and let me start over from a fresh perspective.
Great article, the developing process for me is at least as important as the shoot itself.
Around ’71 or ’72 I started ‘earnest’ photography with an old russian SLR camera without built in light meter and later a very slow old handheld selen lightmeter.
You always had to go to the darkroom if You wanted good prints, there was no way around it.
It has always been a very important part of the creative process, a lot of the time more important than the image out of the cam.
The path to learning darkroom work was very long and frustrating. You never had an ‘undo’ function. But it was worth it and very fulfilling.
Maybe the ‘right out of camera’ people have forgotten that.
It’s the same nowadays, even with the whole gadgets inside the camera.
Learning LR / PS etc. is much easier but it still is a lot of work.
Your comments to this article are spot on and well inline with my feelings. Especially back in the day of working in the darkroom. Thats where it all happened. I look at Lightroom and Photoshop as a modern darkroom with endless creative possibilities.
At the beginning of photography, there was (and for some photographers, there still is) a chemical process to produce the end result, a print. There was no avoiding the darkroom, unless you used a professional photofinisher–think one hour photo or a custom lab. A perfectionist like myself wanted to control the process so I had my own darkroom. There’s no difference with digital–only an infinite choice of final results and myriad ways to distribute an image. To optimize an image–to realize your vision–requires post-processing, whether it be digital or analog. I try to get it right in camera, because I know a properly exposed and composed capture will be easier to process and the expression of my vision assured. Editing cannot be avoided, so I agree with Matt that there can be as much joy in the processing as in the camera work. Attitude is everything.
Finally someone who admits to enjoying editing ! I have been photographing seriously since 1969 and have used PS for 10 years, LR for 7. I enjoy using them both and an IT person had a pretty easy time adjusting to computer editing. I probably use LR 75% of the time and PS 20%. The rest of the time is spent on Nik editing.
I enjoy spending time outdoors but I also enjoy enhancing the images that I took to make them look like what I saw, or even better if conditions weren’t right.
Great article; it absolves my guilt ! Thanks!
Thank you Matt !! I am a 70 year old late comer to photography. I have been a photographer for 9 years. I have progressed from snap shots to winning contests in the “pro division”. I even teach a few classes on photographing birds in flight for a local camera store and my camera club. I “love” to “get it right in camera”. Thanks to what I have learned from you and one other person on line I am learning to “love” to create a different artistic vision of the image I got right in camera using Light Room. Yes I avoid Photo Shop because I find it confusing and intimidating just as Light Room once was. I have your PS System, compositing and now the luminosity masking training packages. In between all my volunteer gigs, photo shooting and learning LR I have not gotten to your PS training yet but I am actually looking forward to learning more about that form of art that I love seeing from some members of my camera club and others. Thanks for the inspirational nudge 🙂
When I hear remarks like that it makes me think the individual doesn’t understand photoshop and how to operate it. By making a comment like that it creates a barrier anti blocks the individual in learning PS. They get frustrated with it and figure it is stupid. Instead if they could just relax and enjoy the journey they will find with some instruction it isn’t as hard as they think it is. Just my 2 cents
Finally someone who admits to enjoying editing.
WOW Matt thanks so much for this.
I am 60 years old and for many years have played with Lightroom and Photoshop. I feel I have got quite proficient at using them and get a huge amount of pleasure from using them with my photos (that are not always perfect at all).
I have many times doubted my self when others would say things like, “why are you changing it”, “It doesn’t look like it was when you took the photo”, “it doesn’t look real”, “Are you still playing with that photo” etc etc. It got to me so much that I actually stopped editing, but then I hated just taking the photo and nothing else when I could see so much more in it..
This post has absolutely confirmed for me that I am ok doing this and other photographers also do it and love it, and that I m not weird or a bad photographer.
I know this may sound a bit strange but I feel like a huge load has come off my shoulders. From this point on I will never feel guilty or un-proficient again but just enjoy what makes me so happy and to hell with what everyone else thinks.
Thank you soooo much
Steven Sharp
Great Blog Matt, and it is about time that some one killed off the non-productive argument. I like to get photos right in camera, because it is much easier to make a good image from a good raw file. Sometimes I will do little more than just a few adjustments, and a ‘big softy’.
Other times I have gone out planning to take a series of photos, to HDR, and then cut and paste them together.
Both approaches are fun, and that is what it is all about. Can I make something good, out of this?
I’ll confess though, that at one time I would have been the Photoshop is cheating type. But, that was before I started using ON1’s products and learnt how to use layers and filters. i.e. I would have said it was cheating, simply because I had no idea as to how it was done.
Well said and Best wishes, David Price
Great article! Even if everything is perfect in the camera, the camera can’t duplicate what the eye sees. Therefore there needs to be some sort of “processing”. I like working on my photos – sometimes to get them as realistic as possible – and sometimes to have some creative fun.
Interesting article. I am probably in the minority, but I enjoy the editing process better than actually taking the shot. There are so many different looks that can be given to each shot that it makes it a challenge to see what I can come up with.
I totally agree, Norma. I love seeing the photo take on a whole different dimension and feel from the slider I choose to use. Matt has been a big part in helping to making them even better than I could alone. I look at edits as a sort of art and even go back as I learn things and redo some of the photos…for fun!
Matt – This is a fantastic article that speaks to my soul. I gave a presentation at a local camera club a few months back and was just invited to create a five-hour class from the presentation for a local business that provides photography classes. The title of my presentation is “Going Beyond SOOC: From Basic Editing to Creating Art.” (SOOC for newbies is Straight out of the camera.) Here’s a line from the description of my class, “For me, taking an image one step (or many steps) further to create art is a practice that lights up my inner fire.” It most definitely is about “wanting” to take my images one step (or many steps) further, versus “needing” to work on an image because it’s not a good image. I use my best images when creating something more from the original file. I would love to quote you in my class! Thank you for speaking out!
Hi Matt – Spot on with this article. I started my photography with film and working in a darkroom. Most of the techniques I have use in Lr/Ps have their origin in techniques that originated in the darkroom. People who have an aversion to using editing software are just selling themselves short or have some self-defeating aversion to editing (IMO). “Getting it right in camera” is, and always has been only the first stage in making good images.
Great article, thanks Matt!
Besides photography I’m producing music. And there is a principle which applies to both genres: if other people are happy with the result you’ve obviously done it right!
No one these days (at least very few) complains about their favourite music, which was most likely recorded track by track in the studio. Sure, some say music is only “real” when the whole band is playing together. But hey, if the result brings joy and good emotions – so what?
I love taking photos, I love tracking songs instrument by instrument, I love editing photos, I love mixing music. And – the most important – I love to see other people smile because they enjoy the result!
Keep on your good work Matt!
Thanks Matt. Great blog. At first I was even suspicious of Digital photography – nothing could be as good as the film version. Boy! Have I changed. Love digital, love getting it right in camera and LOVE post processing. Now retired and spend hours with PS, On1, Topaz and your courses. Thanks for sharing.
As someone involved in photography since B&W film was dominate, I can say “getting it right in camera” was a concept not a reality. Every good photograph was a combination of capturing the image as well as possible, darkroom manipulation, and retouching. Why do I like LR & PS? because I can do two of these tasks ten times faster.
Hi Matt
I know exactly where you are coming from… although I do feel you took the scenic route to get there.
As Ansel Adams is quoted as saying… “The negative is comparable to the composer’s score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways.” He also said… “You don’t take a photograph, you make it.”
Editing has always been an integral part of photography and creating good/great photographs… whether in print or digital forms. And while we can do lots in software to create out vision of what we envisioned when we took the image, it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try our best to capture the best image we can, when we press the shutter button.
Good photography still requires the shooter to consider composition, exposure, focus and depth of field, to capture the best starting point possible, because all the editing skill in the world will not save a poor image. Think silk purses and sow’s ears!!! However, a good knowledge of your equipment added to good photographic technique, will help you create you vision, when you get to the editing stage. It will also help you achieve that vision a little easier and save you some time.
Don’t get me wrong, I love taking photos and creating something special with the software I have (DxO, Photoshop, ON1, NIK, etc.), but I also know the best images come from having a great starting point to begin with.
I AM so glad you wrote this article! I once said to a friend ‘I want to be able to get every shot right like the professionals.’ He said ‘they don’t get every shot right. They know how to edit right.’
I am a self taught professional photographer (I get paid for something I love to do!) who studies all the time to improve my editing skills.
To me learning how to use the tools in both LR/PS are a huge benefit to my image output.
Great blog Matt. I agree with you and you ideals 100%.
Increasingly, I found this posted this week. Good read and thoughts on a master: https://puxpix.com/8-lessons-ansel-adams-can-teach-you-about-photography/
Mick
Well said Matt, glad to know that my view on this is the same as yours! I go back to the days of film photography and developed and printed my black and white images! Using Photoshop to dodge and burn is much less messy and that’s why I use it.
I’m actually a bit of a dinosaur, and still have film stored in a table top fridge and some classic Olympus bodies/lenses which occasionally get a trip out. My pride and joy is an Olympus 35 SP rangefinder, or “poor man’s Leica”. I may need to reduce my collection as I no longer get many opportunities to shoot anything much as I’m full-time carer for my husband.
People have asked me a variation on your theme frequently “why do you bother to take photos on film?” – simple answer is because I can, I enjoy it, and it allows me to continue using my photography brain to make exposure and DOF judgements. I did find some issues in getting prints, but finally found a reliable company to give me the quality I wanted.
I am trawling through my substantial digital archives to play with some in PS, as my editing skills have improved since the really old ones were taken. There are periods of every persons life where you have to be satisfied with the things you are able to do, rather than resent the things which are no longer possible.
BTW – I would really love to see these images which these people think are “perfect in camera shots”
So glad you stuck your neck out, Matt and spoke the truth! Many of us are sick of being patronised by those faux purists who claim to have made a perfect image with one click.
Well articulated Matt. I grew up in the dark room developing b&w photos. When I shot in colour I typically had to wait until I could afford to have my prints processed, sometimes months after shooting. Often I’d be disappointed with the results but typically there’d at least one photo that encouraged me to keep trying. I got back into photography seriously 5 years ago when I retired, by then everything was digital. I embraced this new technology and all the advantages it offered. The essence of photography hadn’t changed ie. f-stops, shutter speeds, composition, ASA was now ISO. The end result for me was to invoked an emotion from the viewer. Yes there was a long learning curve to become familiar with photoshop, Lightroom and various other photography programs but what an exciting journey it has been. Thanks to you Matt, through your courses, I have found it really enjoyable.
I have actually been fairly successful at selling many of my photos at local art shows. Recently at one I met a young man (early twenties) who said he wished he had learned photography during the “film days” because it placed more emphasis on “getting right in camera”. In the decades I have been involved in photography I have learned to accept that despite the technical advancements in camera sensors they will never be able replicate accurately what the human eye sees or capture the emotions experienced when witnessing a beautiful landscape. If photoshop or other programs can help capture that emotion I’m all for it. Cheers.
My story is similar to yours, although I never really stopped using film until I got my first digital model in around 2000. Totally agree with you, I could never afford a colour enlarger and had the same problem with waiting to get prints back. Digital sensors are improving all the time but there is still a need for Photoshop to drag the best from the images in my view. Another common argument I have with younger people and digital cameras is the one about “the more MP the sensor has, the better your images will be” – WRONG – if the person using the camera does not know any of the basic relationship between aperture/shutter speed/focal length/ISO together with good composition skills, all they have are bad images at a higher resolution 🙂 Maybe I should make a run for cover now, also realised I posted my first reply without changing my display name …. duh!
Wow Matt!! I don’t have to feel bad or less of an artist anymore lol! Personally I love editing my photo’s. I also love going out taking pictures of really cool places. Just got back from the Grand Canyon and Mesa Verde. I wasn’t always on the right side of the sun but in the back of my mind I knew I could fix that problem. I love being creative. I use my mind to learn new stuff, I use my body to carry my camera and last, I use my soul to bring out the artist in me. All three hang out together!
Sharon’s comment about the digital darkroom reminded me of earlier times. In the 1960’s while attending university, I worked as a photographer and darkroom technician for a special bureau at the university. As photographing similar events over and over became tedious, I tended to enjoy working in the darkroom more – editing was a very hands-on process and seeing images gradually come into view as the print developed in the tray never lost its fascination for me.
Using On1 or PS isn’t the same – thankfully I no longer need all the space and paraphernalia a darkroom entailed – but the ability to do more after exposure is so much greater. I guess I like editing almost as much as being behind the camera – it is organizing photos that I dislike.
Thanks so much for your great blog Matt! I agree with you totally. I enjoy shooting very much but I look forward, very much, to downloading my images when I get home and seeing what I can do with them in Photoshop. And yes, I think working in Photoshop is identical to the old method of darkroom developing. Recently, I took an online class from an instructor who insisted on his students submitting photos for his lessons exclusively shot all IN CAMERA. No Photoshopping of any kind allowed, not even cropping or cloning! He was very good at giving us his take on how to do this. He provided us with his essays about form, line, angle, texture, color, light, tension, etc. He encouraged us to always try to get it right in camera so we could do less in Photoshop. I found that I was paying a lot more attention to what I was capturing with my camera and getting better results. BUT, I really, really missed working on my in-camera images in Photoshop. I have discovered that while I really enjoy, actually love, being out in the field shooting, I also really, really like working on my images in Photoshop and “MAKING” the image in my mind’s eye. I think both shooting and Photoshop are equally important in making excellent photographs for my own vision and creativity.
Thank you, I enjoyed reading this. Several years ago Rob Sheppard wrote an article titled “Honoring Nature with Lightroom”. He made the point that the camera doesn’t work the way our eyes and brain work, so that it can never capture nature as we see and experience it. Photo editing is necessary if we want to produce something that even comes close to our actual experience and perception. I love this way of looking at it. I don’t care what the “camera saw” — it is a cold, soulless piece of technology and even the most expensive example is a compromise solution. Only through editing can I produce a photograph that truly expresses how I saw the scene and how it affected me.
Hi, Matt
I’ve been taking pictures for about 40 years, and have been using photoshop elements for 12 years . I discovered NIK software 10 years ago and I love that plug in. Still haven’t mastered PSE yet. I am a fairly good photographer. I’ve received a few awards, but wish to master or at least get the hang of PSE (maybe I partied too much in the 70’s and that part of my brain is fried.) 10 years is a long time to at it. Any way I appreciate yours and Scott Kilby books and videos they are extremely helpful. Thanks for a guy who remembers film.
a lot of typos in my message again too much partying in the 70’s
I actually enjoy shooting and editing equally. Like you mentioned in your article, work and family obligations hinder when and where I get a chance to take photographs, but with RAW shots, I can work and re-work them as I have time (and knowledge of new techniques). I immensely appreciate you and your peers who so graciously and effectively share your knowledge about the amazing tools we have to work with. Learning is a lifelong journey, and this is one I love!
Good read. You are 100% correct. I’m an amateur photographer and what I like about editing my pictures is that I get better as a photographer. Besides using Photoshop & Lightroom to make my pictures look the way I want then to look. I use them as a learning tool. If I have to spend time fixing things in post that could of been avoided I make a mental note of it so next time I’m out shooting I remember and adjust my compositions or camera settings so I don’t have waste time fixing those problems. Not all of us can be perfect like the “get it right in camera” club.
You are an amazing teacher and photographer I love your work.
Hi Matt
I can’t wait to go out on my next photo shoot, after that I can’t wait to get back and edit my images. For me it’s all one process to the final image, just has two stages it.
Cheers
My wife is a painter. When she paints a scene, or an object, she does not feel obliged to put everything in focus, nor to copy the colours precisely, nor to include objects that are present, but which get in the way of the story. No she presents her version of what she saw. Picasso did the same,to state the obvious. Nobody complains.
I take the same to approach to photography. There is a limit to what my sensor can record. (Is HDR cheating?) there are often things like telephone lines that are better removed; and grading the colours to evoke the right emotional response is not something my wonderful camera can do.
What I print, or publish, is my verion of what I saw. That is what must be judged. How I got there is not part of the conversation I am trying to have with the person looking at it, nor, frankly, is it any of their business.
“Good morning Mr Picasso, why has she got two noses, that is not accurate………..”
Hi Matt, and THANKS: this is a very very nice article.
I totally agree with you: In my free time I’m a photo teacher too, and I’ve heard many times people saying “naah the perfect photo is the one you’ve shooted with the camera…”. And everytime I’ve told them “hey, it’s a pity… you don’t know what you are missing, without the developing part of your work”.
Thanks again for your words, I’m waiting for your new articles again.
Cheers
I used to that comment from people who would come by my booth at art shows. Some would state that my edited and artistic rendered photos were not real photos since they were digital. Since I was there to sell my artwork and didn’t want to appear confrontational, I did not get into a “discussion” with them. I knew though, that they had made their comments based on falacies and ignorance. I knew that film photographers edited their photos as well and no one accused them of not being genuine.
I agree with you that the person who states they hate something is most likely miserable at it. It is true almost always. I did have a friend, a fellow French horn player who was a professional musician and played with serious orchestras, but when he one day got tired of it and decided he hated that life, he abandoned everything to do with it. So here you have an example of someone who is an expert at their field but hates it just the same!
I used to watch Photoshop TV with you and Scott Kelby and David Cross. I got a lot out of those shows. These days I still shoot and edit but can not afford to buy any courses or even do art shows anymore.
I hope to get back into it this coming year.
Thanks.
Bari
Thanks Matt,
I’ve found that people who don’t use artificial light (because they like natural light) or don’t post process (for all the usual reasons) are often people who don’t know how to use those things, and when they learn how, suddenly start using/liking then
Matt,
The glory of Photoshop post processing is that you REALLY DON’T have to “get it right in the camera”. Knowing I can edit out the back of someone’s head when I took a fleeting shot at a sporting event like a great bat swing at a ballgame or an interception at a football game. If you wait to get a perfect shot “in the camera” you are destined to miss a lot of crucial shots of life.
“Shoot with abandon and process with precision”, I always say. That to me is a lot of fun.
I’m 61 1/2. And for me there are 3 parts to photography. Taking photos, editing photos, and sharing photos. I love doing all three. For me, l am still amazed when I take a good photo and am able to turn it into something really special with a little editing. It really is magical to me.
I still shoot slide film on major vacations along with digital. I love both. So I understand about trying to get it right in camra. There really is nothing you can do to a slide once it’s been shot. Having said that I don’t pay too much attention to those people who insist on getting digital photos right in camra. I let my images speak for themselves.
p.s. Yes! there is great fun and joy in going back to old negatives and slides and re-working, re-seeing re-inventing them.
sey.
Matt, as usual you say it as it is with no BS. The truth of the matter is that there is no such thing as “getting it right in the camera”. Technically it is virtually impossible to get it right in the camera because each and every camera ‘sees’ the same shot differently. Factors such as film size, paper size, sensor size and shape, colour rendition, lens distortions and aberations, resolution etc., etc. are all variables that change the way the camera makes the image and every image needs a certain degree of post-processing to make it what the photographer imagined he saw.
I am a “hand-holder” photographer, mainly shooting available light. candid, instinctive street people (when in the studio I shoot the exact same way as street – instinctively and hand held) and having no option, timewise and being in a situation where what has been shot in that millisecond is what there is, and thus I never check a shot ‘in camera’ since there is no way to redo that specific image, so cropping, straightening, dodging and burning, exposure corrections are all part of my post-processing and have always been so for over 50 years of my photography. I hate being encumberred by kit. I usually have one body and a single lens, according to the whim of the day, to work with. Tri-pods, monopods and or beanbags/whatever are not part of my lexicon. My camera is usually set to Appeture priority and I allow it to automatically set iso, speed and in my old age, focus.
Thus spontaneous, instinctive, instantaneous is the way I shoot and the time saved is, and always has been, spent in editing correction to approach my vision of what I saw and not the cameras.
I never comment on blog posts but this one hit home. Starting with my first dslr about 12 years ago I hated the computer work, but as I learned to understand the process I loved how I could create the vision I had in my head when I pressed the shutter. The tools and software are incredible now and the magic I see and feel on a cold morning sunrise can be created just as my eye and emotion felt at that moment. That’s why I love to edit my photos. It’s always interesting when you shoot with a friend at the same time and place our images look so different because we “see” in our own individual way. Thanks for a great blog post.
Sometimes you do get it right in the camera…yet when you find a few special photos that “just missed” it’s nice to know that you can “touch it up” to bring it up to snuff. I’m not the best at editing, but I’m learning and enjoying it…now to become more proficient at it. It’s all a balance.
Like you, I want to get it right in camera. I also enjoy working on my images and don’t think of it as sitting in front of my computer doing “post processing”. My use of photoshop didn’t come from any facility to use PS in a masterful way. Rather, I was overwhelmed by the immensity and complexity of the program. But, saw what I could do to impart my vision into the raw image. The art doesn’t stop when the shutter clicks.
I have just returned from the UK where I had the good fortune to work with two well known word class landscape photographers. They were both very concerned with getting it right in camera. But, after they got it right in their camera, they took their image into their computer and got it “righter”! The art doesn’t stop when the shutter clicks. I don’t use the term art in a “high-falutin” way, only to imply it to be the photographer’s vision for the image.
I have been told that the eye doesn’t see. It only receives and then transmits signals to the brain where it is interpreted. The camera has no such facility. So, the photographer must sit in front of a computer and make the image match the view/vision held by that photographer. Ever wonder why two photographers produce very different renditions of the same scene that was in front of their camera?
I have probably spent too much time working at my computer manipulating words to craft my thoughts into what are, hopefully, somewhat coherent ideas. I didn’t think of it as computer work. It was the production of ideas responding to words written by someone explaining his enjoyment in processing his images. Photoshop is there for us to use it – if we can handle it.
When you are on vacation and the skies are cloudy and people just will not get out of the way so you can take a shot, I’m grateful for the edits I can do at home. I’m not lazy, I know I can move or shoot from another angle, but.., the tour is moving on, so you take the pic and move on. Thanks for being such a good teacher and keeping it real!!!
The way I see it is getting it “right” in camera is a glorified way of saying I didn’t clip any highlights or shadows (got a pretty decent exposure) and I got what I wanted in the frame (got a pretty decent crop). But is it also kinda saying I prefer to let this be my entire vision for this picture? Art & vision is highly subjective so far be it from me to say a person shouldn’t limit their vision of art to what the camera produced. But I would say to that “I prefer to get it right in camera” person to stop poo-pooing on the I prefer to enhance my “nailed exposure” with some darkroom work. Why? Because it is my vision for my photo!
Great article Matt! After all of that I must also add that I don’t hate editing in PS, LR, On1, etc. But I do hate that I have a hard time saying I’m done editing! I need to work on that.
I get every word you wrote Matt, I live it and love it, thanks for articulating it!
🙂
Well said, Matt!
As you say, it’s the journey that’s important, howver you decide to edit the photos.
I like many find LR good enough for most of my photo edits, unless I need to do some complicated montages or blending, special effects, etc, and so have sadly neglected the PS side of things for some time.
This is mainly because LR can take care of 99% of my photos in the shortest time possible – something (time) which we all have little of nowadays, it seems?
But every now and again, I settle on a project to make one particulr photo exceptional, or at least I try? LR can do the major part, but PS is needed to tweak it that little extra bit, often turning an OK shot into a Wow! shot. This is time-consuming for sure, but then I used to sweat over nearly-totally-dark spare bedroom endeavours when I developed and processed colour slides and negatives.
Only the technology has changed, not the effort required to be input into creating that photo exactly as you want it!
So, keep on doing the LR stuff we all love so much, but let’s recognise that PS (and especially the ability to switch from LR to PS and back again) has its place too?
Matt,
Ansel Adams didn’t “Get it right in the camera !” He also used the Photoshop of his day, it was called the photo darkroom. He would spend hours dodging and burning his images, sometimes not to his liking , but in the end he would achieve his final work of art. We all wish to achieve our best work of Art.
Great article. I am one of those people who prefer to photograph and not spend a lot of time in front of a computer. With that said, I still edit my photos in LR, PS and On1 as well as other programs. From capture to finished image you have to consider this a process like baking a cake. You make the process as simple or complex as you choose. I enjoy both the capture and post processing and want to see if my finished photo is what I visualized. As Tony Sweet told me: “The photo in the camera is the raw material we bring into the digital darkroom to craft our vision.” I still need to hone my skills further and find it satisfying when the final image is completed, printed and displayed. Thanks for the article and the courses offered.
Well I LOVE Photoshop (and LR, On1, etc, etc)!
I’m not as good at it as you, Blake Rufus and some of the other editing pros are, but I still love it!
Every day I try to learn and put to use one new thing to become a more skilled editor!
At the risk of sounding heretical and being shunned by the photography community, I prefer editing to shooting be a WIDE margin!
Keep up the good work Matt! Thanks for your thought and insight!
That’s hysterical…I did not mean to call him “Rufus”, but thanks to iOS auto-correct, he has a new last name now!
Be sure to let Sarah and him know they will henceforth be known as the RUFUS clan! (How attached were they to “RUDIS” anyway?)
For me the journey is most important; a great or good result (what is the difference?) adds to the pleasure. I try for the best in camera, then try to get to my ‘vision’ thereafter. Both are tools. If I make others happy or examine more, then a great day. Are not a lot of things in life like that?
This was a fantastic blog, Matt. I really enjoyed it.
Kenny, Clearwater
Hey Matt, Of course you are spot on (or is that center weighted?) Getting it right in-camera is great, that’s why they invented pre-processing. Like gradient filters, polarizers, and dodging during the exposure. Papa Fassbender showed me how he took a photo using a view camera with Central Park, NY and a full eclipse in the same frame. Impossible other than by moving the camera, taking two exposures and moving his hand in front of the lens. All of these things pre and post are tools we can use to make the images we see. Closing one’s toolbox is just silly.
Thanks Matt
It was so refreshing to read your take on that whole discussion.
Like you said, just own the fact that you just love editing and taking photos.
I love Photoshop and what creative people do with it. It’s hard to really become proficient at it, but I love trying.
Thanks for your great content and teaching. Love your style of educating.
Great blog Matt. I’m not a great photographer and I am still learning LR and PS but I appreciate the difference they make and wish I had more time to practise. At least with your courses I can go back again and again when I forget what to do. Thanks and keep doing what you do, I love it!
Matt I will just start by saying Amen!
I love shooting. I never thought whether I was getting it “right in camera” only whether I was capturing what I saw. Then I discovered you. I was intimidated by Photoshop, but getting an understanding of layers from your book and listening to your tips, picking up a course here and there, I am no longer intimidated. I now find myself able to be really creative with some of my photos. They are good shots out of camera, but after a bit of editing – a texture here or there, a little smudge, some glow, a light leak, that shot becomes something really different. Sometimes almost magical.
I moved from Lightroom to On1. I use ON1 for editing. I use Photoshop for editing. I do a lot of greeting cards and calendars. Frankly, I use whatever will help me create a work that brings satisfaction to me and joy to someone else. So thanks Matt for the work that you do. One should never feel bad about being good at what they do. They only need to apologize if they do not share their gift.
Matt – There are at least 3 luminosity masking programs/training systems — one from Australia, one from England, one that’s actually a Photoshop extension. Now there’s you! I’ve casually explored each of them briefly and then threw in the towel. How do I know which is the right one for me? I really wanna learn LM.
Your excellent blog has certainly generated a lot of positive feedback.
Just shows how popular and respected you are.
I have purchased most of your courses and they have really helped me become a better photographer
and editor – I also love the editing part.
Thanks
You make a good point about editing being fun. I went back to some images I took with a Coolpix 4800 in 2007 and was amazed at what the On1 software allowed me to pull out of those old JPEG’s. That was fun.
I am an On1 Plus member and your classes on how to use the software are great. My issue is with Adobe. Notice I didn’t say Lightroom or Photoshop. I owned both products and was better than average at using them but Adobe kept screwing around until I deleted everything Adobe and put all my eggs into the On1 basket. That is a decision I have never regretted. I know some people are photo snobs, some cover their lack of skill with “I get it right the first time” or “I am a natural light Photographer”, and some just hate Photoshop and Lightroom. Some time it is hard to determine which camp people are in. I love using On1 and I dislike Photoshop and Lightroom.
Thanks for a great and truthful blog, Matt! I once almost quit using textures because of remarks you were speaking of. I have since gained quite a following with my texture edits and I’m so glad I did not listen when someone said “I prefer natural” I now know they just don’t know how. 🙂
Great article and it would be helpful to have you expound on, “A few months ago I had done a course that concentrated mostly on using tools in the raw editor (LR, ACR, ON1). And I spent a while working on that course, so most of my photo editing revolved around those tools while I was creating the course. And while there’s plenty we can do with those tools, none of them really offer the intricacies (and time commitment) of what we can do in Photoshop.”
Sure PS can do way more than any one of those RAW editors and the question is whether it is necessary? Also, having been with PS since v 3, I’ve got to say the UI and workflow have never improved. It’s largely a collection of disparate tools and processes, albeit an incredible set thereof.
Great article Matt. You nailed it. I find it ironic that when I occasionally have an image that looks great without any post processing I’m disappointed that there’s no “magic “ I can give it to enhance the image further. Post processing provides the greatest opportunity to express my artistic vision. Post processing also gives me the opportunity to relive the experience attached to the image so the memories of the photo outing last much longer.
I like the blog it gets the point across very well. It may be that some older photographers are afraid of newer techniques and technology out there, and their way of feeling superior is to feel that they are better at doing it in camera than others. I think about the old master painters in Europe during the Post-Impressionist period, like Vincent Van Gogh, who during his life time was mocked by most painting experts, but today his works are considered some of the greatest paintings ever created.
I also think about some of the earliest photographers, like Ansel Adams; when I first saw his Black and White photos thought that me must have camped out for days to get such great photos. A couple of years ago I was in Yosemite and spent some time at the Ansel Adams Studio and talked about the photos with several of the people working there and learned that the most important work that Ansel Adams did to get such great photos was to spend hundreds of hours in the Dark Room using different techniques and chemical mixes to improve the photographs to get the correct final prints. To me this is no different than what we do today with Photoshop today. I got the impression that Ansel Adams loved working in the Dark Room perfecting the perfect prints that we see today. Is that any different than working on a computer today to get the best photographs possible?
Great article Matt. I wish I could have articulated that on so many occasions that people have said similar things to me. Hearing that, as well as having to hear all the reasons they think it’s better to shoot JPEGs, drives me nuts.
If you’re a wedding photographer, it’s totally impossible to get every shot right in camera. You have dismal light to deal with, zero time to get settings just right, and all kinds of problems.
Just as a side note, how the heck do you do a collage in camera, or special looks like sepia, LUTs, etc?
I’ve followed you for a long time now, and I appreciate all that you do.
Well said Matt. Post processing an image only helps what the camera’s lens was able to capture. Most of the time the details are there but the raw image looks nothing like what you saw in the field while composing the shot. After adding basic edits and then creative effects, the image comes to life.
Many of the people that say this also shoot JPEGs. I’ve noticed that! The camera gets it right for them!
Matt – when I used to shoot 35mm Kodachrome, copy slides hardly looked like the original – so “get it right in the camera” was the only way to capture a decent image. We began to see manipulation possibilities with color negative materials but the variables in the home darkroom were difficult to hold steady. Now with digital, I can manipulate as little or as much as my own eyes suggest. Now that my age keeps me at home more than I would like, I am still at it – like you – reliving my library of images through new techniques and improved software I am learning. And you are one of my key instructors.
Matt, It’s amazing how quickly people forget what it was like using film or slides. You took 36 to have 1 or 2 come out. In many cases we sought out the best processing companies. Why? They corrected and processed our image best. Like there isn’t a big difference between a kiosk at a drugstore and a top notch processor? With digital, we are the processor and there are many fine software products and tools within them for us to become like Ansel Adams. Those not familiar only have to research what he had his assistants do to get the best image with the use of chemicals and how times he went back to places like Zabriskie Point to get the right shot. Each person must choose what they will put into an image to get the desired results.
Spot on Matt. I love your courses. I love taking photos and I enjoying editing them using the various tips that I’ve learned through your courses. I find them very informative and easy to follow. God Bless and keep up the good work. Maybe one day we can catch up when you come down under to Australia.
When I shoot (primarily landscapes) I do the very best I can to get everything correct in camera. In fact, I probably spend too much time composing a scene (and in the end still unhappy with my focus, exposures etc.) but this is the fun part of photography for me. However, after the shoot I am excited to get the images loaded on my computer for post-processing because this is also a fun part of photography. For me, you can’t have one without the other and be happy with the final image. I look at it this way, when I buy a shiny new car I always bring it home and wax it to make it even shinier. Same car, but looks even better. Have most of your courses, they help me make my photo’s “shinier”. Thanks.
As a teacher, I have heard that many times to the point of gagging. I have found it is coming from people afraid of photoshop or lightroom. Whether you work digitally or traditionally you edit your photos. Shooting is the first part of the workflow, not the ending.
Thanks for bringing this up and your response.
Joanne
I love editing. In fact my job is as a photo editor for a Wedding/Engagement/Family photographer from Colorado. And I love photographing cities, landscape, food and my daily activities for me and enjoy post processing to enhance my pictures and give them the best, not because they came out wrong. I love your work and your teachings. 🙂
Kind regards from Buenos Aires, Argentina
Great Blog post Matt! I also love editing! In fact, editing has saved a lot of images that I messed up when taking them. Not as much now as when I was first learning to use a DSLR, but I still sometimes forget to check my settings. But editing has also be instrumental in bringing out what I actually saw, as opposed to what the camera recorded!
Would you say Ansel Adams got in right in the camera? He spent hundreds of hours in his darkroom manipulating his film and prints to achieve the results he did. I think he would have loved the digital darkroom.
Thanks, I think you needed to say all you said, it is high time people put an end to this type of debate! I have most of your courses and love the freebies on youtube – have followed you for many many years! I just wish I can remember everything! Lol, I need a list of “use Matts PS lesson so and so now, then use this technique for light” etc. mmm possible idea for a new course Matt! What techniques to use when – taken from all your courses in one – a summary!
Thanks for the nice article Matt, I enjoyed reading it.
I can relate to loving both the shooting and the editing. Thanks again.
Matt, I loved your post. You are so right the a good part of the fun is going back and reworking your photos. Everyone wants to get it right in the camera but if you shoot raw there is no way of getting it right without working on the original file. What your eye sees is different then what the raw image captures. It is up to your creative capabilities to make that raw image into what your memory and eyes saw originally. Keep up the combination of work and family. Remember, kids grow up so fast you have a tendency to miss their important years and then regret it the rest of your life.
Ansel Adams spent considerable creative effort to get his vision into print, as several above have noted. Take his iconic “Moonrise over Hernandez New Mexico.” He spent over two minutes per print in dodging, burning and developing to get each finished print to look like the scene he’d visualized. The disparity between what the density and contrast range of the eye can see and what prints/screens can show is as much a struggle in the digital age as it was for Adams with his 8×10 view camera.
from “Ansel Adams: Some Thoughts About Ansel And About Moonrise:”
“Moonrise was Ansel’s most difficult negative of all to print. Using simple pieces of cardboard, Ansel would painstakingly burn in (darken with additional light from the enlarger) the sky, which was really quite pale with streaks of cloud throughout. He was careful to hold back a bit on the moon. The mid-ground was dodged (light withheld), though the crosses have been subtly burned in. This process took Ansel more than two minutes per print of intricate burning and dodging. Ansel created Moonrise with a night sky, a luminous moon and an extraordinary cloud bank that seems to reflect the moon’s brilliance. Moonrise is sleight of hand. Moonrise is magic.”
See the “raw” and finished versions of this print and the source of the above quote at:
http://www.haroldhallphotography.com/ansel-adams-and-group-f64/
Adams also went back to the negative and reprocessed it to make it easier to print. And the prints themselves changed over the course of his life, the sky becoming darker as he aged.
Google about this print, there is a lot of great material out there, and to me it puts to bed any questions that one’s goal can be to shoot in camera and be finished. If the master of printmaking, of visualization, first to thoroughly explain dynamic range–if Adams believed that the “negative is comparable to the composer’s score and the print the performance,” then I have no hesitation in using today’s digital darkroom tools.
Thank you Shap for sharing that article. Always good to learn something new. I always loved his work!!
Thank you Matt, I agree with all of that! I really enjoy taking and editing photos especially since I’ve learned more about LR from your courses. Now I need to buy another of your courses to tackle the dreaded Photoshop 🙂
thanks, Matt
I am an amateur just having a lot of fun, retired, able to get out and enjoy all the things that were put on hold while working. I do try to get as much right in camera as possible, but that doesn’t happen a lot. love being on the computer and seeing what all is available to be able to enhance a photo. still can’t handle ps, but LR and on one, and luminar work great for me. thanks for your time to teach us what you know and how to further our own imagination
I loved this post. Well said. BTW, I have a few of your courses, and have learned much from you over the years.
Matt, thanks for a great article. It brings back memories of the darkroom. I too love both shooting and photoshop.
Excellent post! I love taking images AND editing them! I’ve heard the “get it right in camera” and “Photoshop is cheating” comments on a regular basis for years. And I know immediately that the person who utters such phrases don’t know what in the heck they are talking about. As soon as I respond that I take RAW images instead of jpg, so that I can control the editing instead of the camera, I see their eyes glass over and they indicate that they don’t understand what I’m saying. Case closed.
Back before I ventured into Photoshop, I was editing photos in Paint Shop Pro (when it was in its early days, produced by JASC) to prep them for use on websites. As much as I enjoyed taking the photos, I much enjoyed post-processing (as we call it today). As I studied Ansel Adams and his photography process, I realized that the camera is not capable of capturing all I saw with my eyes, and working with the photos after they were taken can be frustrating and enjoyable at the same time. Here I am, years later, still spending hours making my captures into art and, like you, enjoying it tremendously! d:¬{D
I love taking photos of almost anything and like someone above said, post processing has been around since photography began in the dark room. I prefer to call it “developing” when I post process in what ever application I use. It sounds more like what it is rather than “editing”.
If a photo is manipulated to the point of drastic changes and composites, that to me says “editing”.
Hi Matt…..A really great article which, from my viewpoint, is spot on! The one thing I would ask those “Get it right in camera” folks is “DO YOU SHOOT IN RAW FORMAT?” If the answer is yes then “So you do not do any post processing on your raw files because you got it right in camera”. Or, do you just shoot jpg and let the camera do the processing? It would be interesting to se what kind of response these PHOTO MASTERS would provide. I truly know where you are coming from as I enjoy the post processing as much and sometimes more than “getting it right in camera”!! Best always John
Thanks John. I think we all know what the answer would be, so there’s almost no reason to ask it. Remember though, my goal with this wasn’t to start another defense in the saga of photo editing. It was to change the tables all together and help people see that editing isn’t something we “have” to do… it’s something we “want” to do. And maybe, rather than trying to turn some one who is set in their ways, toward something they’re not comfortable with, we can take the stance “Hey… you’re missing out! We have a whole other area we love in our photography, and if you gave it a chance, it may open up an even deeper love of photography for you too!”. Thanks again.
Well said. I personally love shooting and photoshop.
Some of us remember the darkroom. It took training, practice and, for many, an artist’s love, to creatively altering their own work. Even choices of chemicals, paper, timing and so much more were decisions that could alter the “in camera” product to achieve a different result.
Matt, love your work, your heart and the way you speak your mind and reject the negative. Learning, growing and getting better at the things we love to do requires an open mind. Thank you for yours!
This brings to mind an interview that the Northrups had with Moose Peterson a while back. He arrogantly stated that he never uses Photoshop because he always gets it right in the camera. What a load of bunk. Of course he didn’t mention that he has a full time photo editor that works for him.
Anyone thinks Ansel Adams got everything right in camera and never did any post-processing has never read about his darkroom exploits. Photoshop , Lightroom, On1 to me, are my 21st century darkroom – and I don’t have to walk around with those lovely chemical smells of yesteryear. Can’t wait to hear your comments tomorrow.
Thanks Matt
You hit the nail right on the head i love Photoshop and luminosity masking i have been using Tony Kypers panel for a few years now and love it .loved your article.
Matt, your’e a bad bad boy, if you go on like that you’ll have people liking editing photos.
You can’t get it perfect in camera, so we do our best to get it how we want and then perfect the shot in the computerized lab to have a work of Art.
I, too ,have suffered the guilt of enjoying post processing (PS, LR etc) just as much, and sometimes more, than taking the photo. I couldn’t wait to retire so I could attend live webinars, buy courses and then spend all the time I wanted in front of my computer practicing new skills and improving the overall look of my photos! When I try to explain this when asked what I’m doing since I retired, people just don’t get it!
Thanks for all your thoughts and comments on this subject, Matt. You’ve now made it easier for me to explain what I love to do – minus the guilt.
Great blog! I’m a photography enthusiast. I feel that getting it right in camera is an awesome goal, but it requires 4 elements – knowledge, time, skill, tools. I KNOW/ can LEARN what is needed to make a good image. I don’t always have the TIME (to wait or fiddle), or SKILL level (fast enough), or TOOLS (lighting, specialized gear) to get it right in camera; and sometimes, as you mentioned, I want to CREATE an image. So kudos to you Matt for teaching us how to use a great tool to enhance our images – I’m okay with that!
Good on ya Matt
Thank you for this. Glad to see there are a few photographers who feel the way I do. As you, I try to get it right in camera, but sometimes it doesn’t work. And rather fly back to Rome to get another crack at the Colosseum, I’d rather spend some time in Photoshop and make it the best image it can be.
Also, someone on one of these blogs (might have been you) taught me to think about the processing while I am shooting. This has brought a whole new dimension to my photography. Now I don’t skip shots because the sky sucks or there is someone standing in the shot that won’t move. I think about how I am going to fix it and what I can do now to make that easier.
Finally, I will share two comments I have made to the ‘purists’ out there (Probably the same group who swore they would never shoot digital.) One guy dissed me for my processing, calling it fake, and went so far as to show me how it should be done. I told him that I had actually been to where he made his shot and I knew for a fact that those mountains were not out of focus.
Another guy asked me if my sky was real. (I do replace skies but this happened to not be one of them.) My answer was, “No, the real sky is outside. This is just pixels on your computer screen.
Keep up the great work.
Thank you Matt. Somebody needed to say it and not many could have done it as eloquently as you did.
I have been in love with photography since I was a kid using point-and-shoot cameras. Over time, my hobby has evolved with my skills and my equipment.
When I discovered simple photo editing with my first digital cameras, there was a whole new facet added to the joy of photography for me. Since then, I have gotten better at taking good photos, but also editing.
Learning how to edit is a technical skill as well as an art in itself. Making a mediocre image look amazing, or giving an image a “feel” that it could not have had straight out of camera are both good reasons to edit, should one choose to do so.
For me, a photo that I have taken isn’t “right” until it looks right to me, whether it would appeal to someone else or not. Sometimes I edit very little, and sometimes I spend time making an image look a particular way. For me, it’s a creative outlet and ultimately the results only matter to me.
When I see the way others edit their photos, I am inspired and it makes me consider new ways to go about editing. I continue to learn new skills for taking better photos AND the ways in which the photos can be post-processed. Learning is a big part of the pleasure I get from my photography hobby.
Thank you, Matt for what you do and know that there are many of us out here who appreciate your knowledge and that you share so much, even for free.
Where are the “comments” herein from those “crotchity” folks?
A RAW image is not yet processed in the camera.
There is no shortage of “BS” or idiots, but ignore it and them.
Do what you want. It’s called freedom.
I love LR, PS, Topaz and more.
It’s called photo editing. That is as old as photography is.
Indeed it is, Mr Lasse. When one looks at Ansel Adams or Cartier-Bresson, it is the image processing that extends the creative act and makes the images so powerful. Ansel Adams was a master darkroom craftsman and Cartier-Bresson had the support of some of the best technicians in the business. As you wisely said, Mr Ekloef, photo editing is as old as photography itself.
Getting it right in camera, means getting all the data you can choosing either highlight, shadow, or midrange tones as a priority. Shooting for any of those options reduces or expands what the others show. The early morning sunrise from my patio is “properly exposed” according to my histogram. However, what I could see standing there wasn’t just the bright white cloud coming over the mountains, but it included the soft pink glow of the western sky and the sunlight just touching the tips of the fall colors across the street. Editing lets me show all that I saw that morning.
Matt, your article was great on that subject. Personally, I love both shooting and post-processing. I consider that is the whole photographic process. First if you shoot in Raw format and we should, all the images must be processed anyway and converted in the final JPEG format. Second let’s face it, there is no camera that can output the image that is really close to perfection state as you can do that in either LR or PS. Some people just hate computers and dealing with software while editing their images. I use mostly LR 6 because PS I own is the older version (PS CS5) and I just rarely have any need to use it in my post-processing. However, I do use PS when I create artistic custom greeting cards and all my friends and relatives love them when they receive them. Thank you!
I like to get it as right as possible in camera too but our camera’s ability is limited and not always depicting the scene accurately. The person who complained about using LR or Photoshop needs to attend one of your seminars or take your course. You really make it fun, interesting and easy.
Great post and thanks for all your help through the years.
What you SAID! Exactly!
I heard a lot of THAT a few years ago and found out those people didn’t like computers and had no skill for them
I’m hearing less and less as the older members if my photography club drop out. Now, the younger folk love using their phones and use their editing apps. So it goes..
Photography is a wonderful blend of art and technology. As in any other art form, the technology is essential to the product, the photo, but it is the artist who controls the final look that he/she prefers using whatever materials and methods are available and appropriate.
Thank you Matt for your skills, your readiness to answer questions and your frankness in this latest blog!
Amen, Matt. Proof of your philosophy is Ansel Adams, who would pull out an old negative and produce a new printed version different from a previous printed version. He also said 90% of his work was in the darkroom.
Thanks, Matt. What I resonated the most with in what you were saying was the fact that I enjoy the work (art) of editing a photo. It’s not a matter of doing this because I have to in order to make the photo better; it’s a matter of losing myself in the creative process that editing is all about, and having a good time doing it.
Great article! Two comments:
1) most times you can’t ‘get it right in camera’ because you have a certain vision but yet what you are photographing is in a specific light and thus with very specific tonal relationships that you can’t change no matter how good you are with a camera. Changing in camera exposure shifts it all while keeping the relative relationships unchanged. Editing, particularly with luminosity masks, allows you to change the relationships to craft a piece of photographic artwork as you envisioned it.
2) as someone else mentioned in these comments, Adams’ prints (which I suspect many would give as an example of a master getting it right in camera) look nothing like the tonal relationships in the actual scene. He crafted and shifted the relationships in the ‘post-processing’ that was available at the time. It’s always been a two step process….camera and then processing with the best technology you have available to process with!
Hi Matt Great post. I have learned a lot from you with or your free videos, if i had the money I would buy some of your courses. One of the things you do is talk clear and and not to fast, plus you have your fabulous skills. So I wold like a big thank you to you Matt.
Love this. I enjoy editing and improving my raw shots. Happy if people are happy with SOOC. But I love what I can do in LR and PS. Keep on educating. I truly love your courses. Found you originally on KelbyOne, then followed to OnOne. So glad you have your own training site. Thank you!
With age comes wisdom and your blog is very wise. The more wise you become, the more you realize that many things are not one way or another, but rather a position somewhere in between (and agree that we often put down/dismiss things we aren’t skilled at or don’t understand) – love your observation about nobody says they want to get it wrong in camera! You’ve also cause me to re-evaluate my own approach to my images, and spend more time with the images I like to make them even better. Ansel Adams would spend many hours in the darkroom to get the prints he wanted, as have some of the other great masters. We now have tools that allow us to do amazing things – and fortunately teachers such as you who help us learn (you have a great teaching style by the way – have purchased some of your courses and am very happy!). It’s an amazing time to be a photographer – if people don’t want to use those tools, that’s their choice. But saying their way is better, more pure, etc. is more of a statement about them. Thanks for your insight!
Hi Matt, Greetings from Xalapa, Veracruz. México !!!
I have always believed that “Reality” is not as “Real” as we all think !!! … Everyone of us, the photographers, have our VERY OWN way to see our very OWN REALITY !!!
When taking pictures the emotion comes from knowing we are stealing a unique “Time Moment” to be kept forever !!! … And that is GREAT, and we all try to make the BEST picture we can of that instant !!! … But …
When we are EDITING, we are trying to CRAFT the BEAUTY of a moment and give to that piece of time the LOOK and MOOD that goes with our PERSONAL VIEW OF “REALITY” for that image, and that is a great PLEASURE to do and very satisfying !!!
So … BOTH matters (picture taking and editing) done right are NEEDED and are EQUALLY important in order to get the most from our images !!!
Best regards,
Rafael Campillo Rodriguez
Well said. I’m now in my sixty’s, having been using PS since the early days when they started adding ‘layers’! The thing about ‘getting it right’ in the camera means more to someone who knows what’s possible ‘after the camera’ than to someone who is limited to the ‘Polaroid experience’. If your only expression of moments is what you can make in the camera, then get a camera with as much ‘expressive options’ built in that you can. But if you want to really explode the gamut of what’s possible, learn Photoshop, because then that will inform your decision making IN CAMERA in whole new ways, ways that might make others wonder “what are they thinking?” But you won’t mind because you already have a vision for something and the camera is just collecting the raw data that will hopefully become the masterpiece your envision. Photography becomes way more fun when you have so many possibilities to effect the look and the story you wish to tell. The camera is the critical second step (the first being what goes on inside your mind), but how we get to use that device is informed by our craft and imagination in the post process workflow. The better our skill and knowledge, the more creative we can be from the very beginning, which I maintain, even improves the photojournalist’s composition and exposure decisions.
I couldn’t agree more with your post, Matt. When I hear that comment about getting in right in camera my thought is the same as yours – I DO try to get it right in camera. But let’s face it – when is the last time you looked at an image that hasn’t had at least some editing and actually been positively impressed by it? My answer is “probably never”. So, yes, it is total BS – if you think your images look good without some work you are fooling yourself.
Matt,
I get variations of ‘likes’ and ‘dislikes’ alot when I’m shooting sports. Some put me down for using a speedlight on the field or on the court, say that it’s not natural or ‘if you were a better photographer’ or ‘if you had this type of camera body you wouldn’t need to use a speedlight’. Like yourself, it’s always about what you’re comfortable with and the result you end up after a shoot + editing. I usually have to smile to myself, because I know how much time and effort I put into learning to use supplemental lighting, and I figure that they say what they say because they are not good at it.
Too right!
Just have to say to these folk, “so Ansel Adams didn’t get it right in camera?”
I like the quote attributed to Ansel Adams, “Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships”
I like to get as much as possible right in camera. But there is a lot you simply can’t do in camera.
Great post. I am recovering from a torn rotator cuff surgery. Unfortunately my tear was massive and my recovery is going to take a year. My recovery has to be my primary focus, not to mention I just can’t operate a camera yet. It’s just now only 6 weeks since the surgery, so I have a long road ahead of me. Thank God I am most recently able to operate my computer and do some editing. Revisiting old files in Photoshop and Lightroom is all I can physically do for the moment. Getting it right in the camera is just not an option for me right now. Needless to say, I love Photoshop and Lightroom!
Steve Holderfield – I empathize with your situation. Recently I fell and used my left arm to try and break the fall – ended up fracturing the upper end of the humerus. [Non-displaced, no surgery necessary.] Not directly a rotator cuff, but probably some of the ligaments in that area are damaged. Right now I also cannot hold my camera in my left hand and it is very frustrating! Especially with fall colors starting to burst out everywhere… Glad you can now work at the computer. At least you can work on your photos, organizing, enjoying memories. Don’t know about you, but I enjoy trying different techniques on the same image for different effects. Plus as I learn about more of the editing tools in LR and PS, I want to practice and decide if that one is for me!
I wish you a smooth recovery!
Susan
What you have taught ME about Photoshop over the past 20 years cannot be weighed, calculated or judged. I LOVE Photoshop, and every skill from that very first “layer”==and “selection” you taught me how to make back then to the incredibly sophisticated tools and workflows practiced in CC today. Thank you for EVERYTHING you have done to continue to fine-tune my skills as you share your gift with us all; for bringing me from just wanting to restore old photos for historical/genealogical purposes, through design and digital scrapbooking/compositing and fun today. You’ve helped me make every picture a more perfect picture for two decades!–but even more to UNDERSTAND what I’m doing behind the shutter and on top of the keyboard to make it so. Thank you!
Hey Matt, I simply agree with you …
Totally agree, Matt. It’s just like writing (I’ve written a couple of published a couple of books). No one in their right mind would say, “I like getting my first draft completely right so I don’t have to edit it.” Of course we go back and reread, edit, reread, and edit some more until we get the words, sentences, paragraphs, and chapters that are just right. I’m old enough to remember how hard it was to do that cycle on a typewriter. Now we have apps like Word that make the task easier. So, too, with photography: LR, ON1, and yes, Photoshop. And thanks for being passionate about this!
Sometimes, I don’t even have a choice – because there is NO way to go back to that place to take the scene (to get it right on camera). I have gone to Ellesmere Island in 1982 – and I took pictures using Kodachrome 64 and Canon A1. I don’t think that many people today would have heard of Canon A1 anyway. But – some pictures taken on slides would be better off taken using digital camera (especially using HDR technique). Well, even if I could go all the way to Ellesmere Island again – a friend who went there recently told me – “You remember that glacier where we took that photo from? Well, it is now all rocks and sand – no more glacier”. So – l have to load the slide into my Nikon Super Coolscan and – you know – Photoshop …. 🙂 Cheers, Matt.
Matt, I’m a long time fan and I appreciate all the skills I’ve learned from you over the many years and platforms. I do love editing, and I’ve gotten better – thanks to training – yours and others. It’s gotten easier, faster, smoother and no less fun. It’s part of my ‘art’ – half taking the photo and the other half doing something special with it. Even if it’s bulk-editing event photos in the RAW editor or making magic and doing photoartistry in PS,ON1, Topaz or Affinity etc.
I love to shoot. I love to edit. For me, it’s a package. And as I get better at both, I find my editing now often is applied to old images, making them new again. And my new images become better art as I edit them using more complex and effective techniques. Great photographer? No. Great editor? No. Delighted hobbyist? You bet! Thanks, Matt!
Right On!!!!
Well said Matt !!
ps ….
I am not a good photograper but I adore Photoshop and editing photos
Well said. I have fallen in love with post processing, too, though I still have a love/hate relationship with PS. But that does not mean I am going to quit trying to learn how to use it and any other post tools that I can learn. I have taken what I know are a few really great shots that became even greater because of little tweaks in post that I was able to give them, and I had so much fun doing it. The creative process goes far beyond setting up and capturing a great shot in camera. I am thankful for the days that I can learn something new and wonderful that I can do with the photos that I take. Thank you, Matt, for being one of my teachers, too.
Great blog. thank you!
What I call “digital darkroom” is an art. And while I’m not great at it, I enjoy it. I hear “Wouldn’t you rather be out shooting than sitting at your computer?” a lot. When I hear that, I think, “Actually, I like both.”
This was a fantastic blog, Matt. It IS fun to be in the process of making art — whether behind the camera or in front of the computer — or the best of both worlds!
As usual right on the money !! I’m making copies and bringing it to my next camera club meeting and also the local county fair that has a category for “digital editing” a separate category no less
I totally agree with your comments, Matt! I can’t wait to get proficient in post-processing, and so am happy that you love to teach it!!
Matt, thank you for this article. You are 100% correct.
I’m sixty years old and photography has been a casual hobby since I was twelve. I’ve been doing digital for about ten years now but was lost when it came to editing. Then I purchased some online courses and WOW! I’ve been using Lightroom for about a year and Photoshop for about six months now. Editing is fascinating, creative, and always fun. Understanding how to edit has compelled me to take photos more often, every weekend in fact. It has greatly improved my skills behind the camera. I don’t take more images on my outings, I take better images. Now that I know what I can do in post, I slow down and carefully plan each shot. Sharing your skills, creativity, and love of this art form with hobbyists like myself is appreciated by thousands of people. So thank you, Matt Kloskowski, Sean Bagshaw, Dave Marrow, Adam Williams and more.