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[GIMPel]

Hi,

does every shot you make will be posted somewhere on the web,
or printed or....


...or how much of your photographs will be thrown into the trash-can?

What's your experience here?

And how many of your pictures can be "enhanced" with postprocessing,
how many can't?

I'm just curious about it, because since while,
since I started to not only take a photograph, but also wanted to make
it more conscious, it seems that I'm more and more displeased with
them...  or I like them but think that "the dot on the I" is missing...
(but also don't know how to really make them better...)

Do you know this kind of experience also?
Is this a phase of mood one has to walk trough, until the results come
more pleasing (or more of the pictures will be pleasing)?
Or is it normal that  a lot of the pictures are crap, and will stay crap,
 to say it harshely, and must be thrown away?!

Hoping on hearing about your experience and hoping on some advice
from the long-term photographers and well experienced PostProcessors. :-)

GIMPel

[GIMPel]

OK, I just learnt something...


after reading here at meetthegimp.org
 and found something about automatic whitebalancing,
this has motivated me to pick out some of my photos that
I made in 2007, when I was in Japan.

Automatic Whitebalancing made a quite colorfful picture out of a
rather grey-shaded "something".

Now I tried other stuff: I wanted to remove the white reflections
of the windows from the bus... (I had no DSLR at that time,
and no polarization filter).

And it really works!

I have created a layer mask and use it to "Nachbelichten"
("after lightening"?).
I'm not sure how that works, but it works.
"Nachbelichten" makes the colors more juicily.
And with this I can throw out the reflections of the windows.

Now it seems to me, that this work on enhancing pictures really
can bring a lot!

This I didn't expected.


But forgive me, I'm a  beginner in all that stuff here....

Maybe the number of throw-away pics will reduce drastically
now.
I now can pick out some pictures that were good fronm perspective,
but were bad from coloring and so on.

Amazing.

This has not made my question obsolete - I'm interested in your experiences nevertheless.
But it has relativated it.

Now I see why the postprocessing really makes sense!

mea culpa! ;-)

GIMPel

[fishtoprecords]

does every shot you make will be posted somewhere on the web,
or printed or....

I've not taken a lot of digital photos, and as other threads show, i'm looking for a new camera.

But, when I shot film, I'd rarely get more than one or two per roll that I loved. On a typical race weekend, I might take 500 shots, and if I got 10 that were worthy, I'd be happy. Now, I could claim I had high standards, and at least half of the shots I took met all the standard requirements: in focus, proper exposure, good composition, etc. But the ones I cared about were the ones where fellow racers would say "wow, great shot" and the odds on that were fairly low.

Even when I was trying for more mainline shots, say shooting a water powered grain mill in the Fall as the leaves turn colors, which starts as an interesting place to shoot, I'd only love one shot per roll.

[GIMPel]

[...]
But, when I shot film, I'd rarely get more than one or two per roll that I loved. On a typical race weekend, I might take 500 shots, and if I got 10 that were worthy, I'd be happy.
[...]
Even when I was trying for more mainline shots, say shooting a water powered grain mill in the Fall as the leaves turn colors, which starts as an interesting place to shoot, I'd only love one shot per roll.

OK, I see.

And do you know immediately, which shots you can throw into the trash can, and which not?
I have a lot of photographs from 2007 (Japan). Some of them are boring, some are very good,
and many are somehow inbetween. As I was there during the journey, I may be too emotional
in selecting them out and saying: I just pick out 1% for example.
What, if those "in between" are good candidates for postprocessing with Gimp?
But: is this necessary, or would it make sense just to pick out those 1% of good shots,
and work on them (or let them as they are in original)?

It needs soo much time for the selection, and I have tried it many times.

When I had guets here, they saw about the half of all pictures.
And they said that even they are not interested in architecture, for example,
some of the pictures were touching him/them.
But again: which pictures were it? I could not remember all
and have not noted the filenames. => selecting again?!

Some pictures I just cutted and put them on a website. But now,
after working with Gimp (and my yesterday founding that enhancing
pictures can really effect a lot, e.g. auto-whitebalancing takes off the
white mist of a complete photograph), when I look again on the pics,
I think: they could (maybe should) processed with Gimp.

But even selecting those pics (I put on the site) out of those many shots, took me
many days. Maybe it was weeks, because of again and again selecting... and
selecting out of the selected...

Do you also need long for selecting, or can you easily select the right ones?
Maybe when you photograph races, this is so extremely, that selecting
is made easier? Do you see it at a glance, or do you sit there days (or at least hours)
to just pick out the right ones?

GIMPel

[monoceros84]

Ok, first of all: your problems are very usual. I've never heard of a photographer that only shoots number one images. The only real difference between amateurs and professionals may be that the latter know exactly what they have to look on and what they can expect. Amateurs usually have to experiment more. And therefore the result is - say - 1% instead of 5% perfect shots. If I could recommend a book: Read "The moment it clicks" from Joe Mc Nally. His is describing all his work very well. And he also writes about assignments over days and weeks with only one perfect shot coming out. And he is as professional as very few are.

Now my workflow: Usually I look at the cameras display to delete instantly all the real garbage. Wrong focus or exposure or closed eyes. Delete. Will save time and storage. And of cause I try to shoot all images as well as possible to have the best possible starting point in post-processing.
And now comes the point where software jumps in. When you want to do more than just managing your holiday snapshots you will need something like digiKam, F-Spot, Picasa, Lightroom, Aperture etc. There are tons of similar tools. The basic functionality is reading all images into a database and managing them. You can tag them with important words and rate them. And that's exactly what will save your time later on. After importing all my shots I go through all of them and rate them with:

• 0 stars - garbage, will only keep this if it's a nice memory
• 1 star - not worth editing it but too good to delete (maybe I will need a face or the sky later on for a combination of pictures)
• 2 stars - might be a cool image after some post-processing
• 3 stars - definitely a great shot and worth publishing it

4 or 5 stars are reserved for really excellent edited pictures that can be published right away.
With such a system you will never search and sort again and again. Just go through all the pictures once and filter afterwards for 3 stars and you will see all your best. To get a dimension: I will have approx. 10 3-starred pics in 400 images. And after post-processing those I will have 1 to 2 5-starred ones that will be published.

Another question you rose: How will I know what's a good picture? Well, first of all, I look for technical correctness. Exposure, focus, composition. Face expression, poses etc. If those points fail I just delete the image in most cases. And to decide between 1, 2 and 3 stars I will mainly get a feel about it. Is it boring or interesting? Would I remember this shot? You will become better in this after doing lots of shootings and reading books about photography. Of cause I experienced some situations when I rated a picture very low but friends told me that this is one of the best. Feelings are different. Then you can either stick to yourself or follow their advice (what I usually do if they have arguments).

Another hint: I edit ALL images that I publish. You'll always see a great difference and in my opinion post-processing is an integral part of digital photography and really necessary. But because of limited time I only edit (and publish) my best shots.
The only exceptions are snapshots of friend and family that are only needed for memory. I will easily have hundreds of pictures from one evening and I just copy them to everybody who is interested. Maybe some batch processing (contrast, scaling, sharpening) but not always

[littletank]

Following on from all that has been written it is quite obvious that there is no clear cut answer. When on holiday, for example, the main reason for photography is to compile a record and, generally speaking, the results are only of interest to those present on the occasion. I have taken photographs to be used in a book and then hundreds of shots were necessary for the few shots needed not only to satisfy the author but also the publisher. I suppose that, with the exception of record shots, one is always trying different angles, different exposures different lenses, different times of the day and even different days of the year in order to be able to select the one shot which is the winner. Also, whatever comes out of the camera, some post processing will be inevitable.

[GIMPel]

Hi, monoceros84,

you said, you delete right after the shot, if it's a bad one...

...this sounds quite harsh / hard to me,
but maybe that's a way, that saves time and annoyances later.
I will think about it...

You also mentioned Joe Mc Nally and his book.
I have not heard of him so far, but the book seems to be very interesting.

I found this link (on the book):
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3six-bI0nAY

And I also found this one (Google-talk):
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Av6gCq_awQ

It seems, he is convinced of photographing as opposed to
"postprocessing fixes all", rather as an artform that takes
the moment of the shot seriously, not the plague of the
postprocessing necessity....

...but later in the video, he also says some appreciating things about
digital photography.

Your posted hints on picture selection and the hints
on what to read, are very helpful. Thank you.

[...]
Another hint: I edit ALL images that I publish. You'll always see a great difference and in my opinion post-processing is an integral part of digital photography and really necessary. But because of limited time I only edit (and publish) my best shots.
The only exceptions are snapshots of friend and family that are only needed for memory. I will easily have hundreds of pictures from one evening and I just copy them to everybody who is interested. Maybe some batch processing (contrast, scaling, sharpening) but not always

Very interesting hints.
That you edit ALL published images... ok, after I saw what can be done
with postprocessing, this option makes more and more sense to me...

( But I nevertheless think, it may be possible that some shots could not be made better... ;-)
 Is there something like the "ultimative" shot?! ;-) )


Best,
   GIMPel

[fishtoprecords]

And do you know immediately, which shots you can throw into the trash can, and which not?

I would always print contact sheets, and use a magnifier to see. Select the winners. Then I'd make quick and dirty prints, and look another look. Then take the winners, and get serious in the darkroom.

I agree, it takes time and effort. Remember, almost all of the shots were "fine" from a basic photography standpoint, in focus, good lighting, etc. (I learned that in the first few thousand shots). But finding the good ones is hard.

Finding those that were worth time in the darkroom (which seems to be to be directly the same ones that are worth taking time with The Gimp) takes time, and then you get to do the magic.

Think about the sports photos of someone making a goal. Where the shot shows the player, ball, how its hit, etc. Those guys are pros, they take tons of shots. And the one you see in the newspaper or magazine was the only one published that week.

If it was easy, everyone would do it.

[monoceros84]

I found this link (on the book):
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3six-bI0nAY

And I also found this one (Google-talk):
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Av6gCq_awQ

It seems, he is convinced of photographing as opposed to
"postprocessing fixes all", rather as an artform that takes
the moment of the shot seriously, not the plague of the
postprocessing necessity....

[...]

( But I nevertheless think, it may be possible that some shots could not be made better... ;-)
 Is there something like the "ultimative" shot?! ;-) )l

Great links, thank you. Especially the interview seems to be interesting. Have to take some time to watch it.

The reason why he almost only talks about photography while leaving post-processing untouched is that he is an "old guy", an analogue one. Most of his shots were taken analogue without the possibilities of GIMP & Co.
But as far as I remember he also mentions digital photography and processing in the book.

I think I will oppose your statement that some shots could not be made better. At least in the digital age. It's simply a reason how the sensor is built - with all those single diodes and the anti-aliasing filter in front of it. Without post-processing you won't have a crisp and contrasty image. No way.
I don't want to say that digital images are generally looking ugly straight out of the cam. But they can perform better with DIP (digital image processing).

[Rolf]

I have that book in the German translation. "Der entscheidene Moment" - translations are sometimes a bit problematic. ;-)

He doesn't talk about post processing. But you can bet that his images heve been worked on in the darkroom or on a computer.

The book is funny and you learn what a cool guy he is, how good his images are and what you can do to make better images than most people. In that order. ;- )

He covers a lot of stuff that is only important for professional photographers - how to deal with customers, get a gig and so on. Other tips are a bit difficult to follow - I can't hire a helicopter and let a beautiful actress dangle from it over the "Hollywood" sign. Not enough donations coming in. ;-)

Other tips are very good - mostly common sense but you have to have that first.

[monoceros84]

He covers a lot of stuff that is only important for professional photographers - how to deal with customers, get a gig and so on. Other tips are a bit difficult to follow - I can't hire a helicopter and let a beautiful actress dangle from it over the "Hollywood" sign. Not enough donations coming in. ;-)

And he didn't have the money too. He was simply lucky to get it afterwards But I think the message is something different: Try unusual stuff. Be courageous to do things that might embarrass you or might lead to bad results. But only this way you will get outstanding and unusual images.

[fishtoprecords]

The reason why he almost only talks about photography while leaving post-processing untouched is that he is an "old guy", an analogue one. Most of his shots were taken analogue without the possibilities of GIMP & Co

Hey, I'm an old guy. Be careful.

There is a lot you can do with Gimp/Photoshop/etc. or in the darkroom. I loved polycontrast paper when doing black and white.

But I think your bias is showing. Its a lot easier to do minor tweaks to a good photo, than it is to take a poor photo and make magic happen. Just because we can do it doesn't make it a good thing to do.

Phrases such as "make a silk purse out of a sow's ear" come to mind. With Gimp, yeah, you can. But why not just take some care in the initial photo?

[Rolf]

Yes, multigrade paper was progress at its finest!  I bought only the filters and made my own filter holder because I couldn't afford the holder.

I think you are perfectly right - get the best you can in the camera. "I can fix that in Photoshop!" is a lame excuse for lazyness. And if you look at Mathias' gallery you'l see that he is not a lazy one. ;-)

[fishtoprecords]

get the best you can in the camera. "I can fix that in Photoshop!" is a lame excuse for lazyness.

Yes, get it near perfect in the camera, then tweak.

In audio studios, the parallel phrase is "fix it in the mix" rather than making the musician/singer do the part properly with feeling and in tune, in rhythm, etc. With autotune, you can do a lot (and far too many "singers" can't sing). But if you are going to fix it in the mix, why bother?

[monoceros84]

Hey, I'm an old guy. Be careful.

Oops, sorry Didn't want to offend anyone. I only think in analogue times the workflow was a little bit different and so I wanted to express that Mac Nally was one of those analogue guys. Hope you are not upset to have used photography in the way a lot of great photographers did