How much treatment on your pictures?

I try to remember the way I felt and what I saw when i released the shutter, and I try to replicate that, usually with varying degrees of success. I am the almighty when I am sitting in front of my screen, with all of those buttons and sliders, in nearly almost complete control.
One shot, always. Don't dig on HDR.
I use an NEC 27" monitor for my main display, with the supplied calibrator from NEC. I use a Spyder 3 calibrator for my second Apple cinema display, they get pretty close. I save the files in sRGB for the web, Adobe RGB for print.
 
DAA said:
Don't know if it has already been mentioned or not, but it really suprised me just how huge of a difference the monitor you are using can make.
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Amen to that! I got a Mac because my PC gave all my shots garish colors. It was nature on LSD!

Ansel Adams was famous for his strikingly beautiful landscape prints. He was also famous for spending literally HUNDREDS OF HOURS "manipulating" a single print in the darkroom
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Ansel Adams would have LOVED Photoshop!

Okay, why did my comments appear as quotes? Anyway, you guys know what I mean. :cool:
 
DAA said:
Don't know if it has already been mentioned or not, but it really suprised me just how huge of a difference the monitor you are using can make. Long story made short, I had a chance to look at some of the pictures I have posted online on about 10 different monitors. I was semi-shocked at how awful they looked on some of the monitors, horribly over saturated and over cooked looking. While looking like I thought they should on other monitors (that is to say, looking like they did on my monitor when I developed them).

My opinion, based on the above, is that the closer the monitor used for developing is to being properly calibrated, the worse your pictures are going to look on a typical totally out of the box cheap consumer display. It seems to me, that developing on even a rudimentarily software "calibrated" monitor, and especially developing for print, you have to push the colors to get them looking good on the calibrated monitor, for print. And they end up looking garish and cartoonlike on the HP monitor from Costco that someone else is viewing them on over the 'net
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I found out how true this is the hard way. A couple years ago my computer crashed, so for about six months until I could afford a new computer I was processing my pictures on my netbook. That turned out to be a big mistake, as the colors that looked good on that screen look awfully oversaturated on a larger screen. I still go back every once in a while to re-edit and replace some of those pictures on my Flickr account.
 
I like this thread!
I'm a fan of the RAW-switcharoo idea that @Nick suggested 2 pages ago.
An important part about photography that I have noticed is to try and get the shot to be as good as you can with the camera; so you do as little post editing as possible. I'm not good at that yet and my post editing skills are still developing, but you should be able to capture what you want the most with your camera. Then if something didn't quite make it go in and tweak some contrast, highlights, etc.
I was the same as @Laura with my original thoughts were against Photoshop and all other programs for post editing. Seemed like cheating! But as I have taken courses and gone to workshops and met with some professionals, they edit things and 'manipulate' photos (whether they are shooting digital or with film).
And there are a million other things that go into making a photo good. For instance, all the post editing in the world won't change poor composition.
My two cents!
 
MTN_DUDE said:
...all the post editing in the world won't change poor composition.
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I'm an unskilled amateur. But, composition actually seems like one of the issues most often and most easily addressed in post. Cropping is powerful... Especially shooting wildlife, on a working mans budget - that is, no long fast glass, at distances I typically have to take pictures of wild animals, there's really nothing that can be done for composition at shutter time. Just center it up for hopefully best focus and image quality on the subject. Composition then has to be done with cropping.

- DAA
 
DAA said:
I'm an unskilled amateur. But, composition actually seems like one of the issues most often and most easily addressed in post. Cropping is powerful... Especially shooting wildlife, on a working mans budget - that is, no long fast glass, at distances I typically have to take pictures of wild animals, there's really nothing that can be done for composition at shutter time. Just center it up for hopefully best focus and image quality on the subject. Composition then has to be done with cropping.

- DAA
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Touche!
 
DAA said:
Don't know if it has already been mentioned or not, but it really suprised me just how huge of a difference the monitor you are using can make. Long story made short, I had a chance to look at some of the pictures I have posted online on about 10 different monitors. I was semi-shocked at how awful they looked on some of the monitors, horribly over saturated and over cooked looking. While looking like I thought they should on other monitors (that is to say, looking like they did on my monitor when I developed them).
Click to expand...

that's what I recently found out when I upgraded from a laptop to a more expensive desktop computer.
Most of my older pictures looked just horrible on it and since I did a monitor calibration with my new computer I am satisfied with many of my newer pictures for the first time in my life.

I still need to learn a lot of post processing, since I'm done everything with Picasa for years and just started shooting in RAW.
For the first time I use Lightroom and Photoshop Elements and there are still pictures that I've simply overdone due to the lack of proper knowledge.
But it's getting better every time and hopefully in the future my pictures will look they way as I saw it and don't have a too over saturated look. I like it how I can control the way my pictures look right now and seriously wonder how I could waited so many years doing it.
 
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