The blog & portfolio of Matthew J. Rogers

The importance of post-processing

January 25, 2009

moss_final

I’m coming up on one year of my foray into “real” photography (that is, putting some effort into my shots rather than just random point-and-shoot), and I wanted to share an experience I had that demonstrated the importance of spending quality time post-processing your photos. One of my pictures that got little attention at first started getting a lot more looks, comments, group invites, and awards once I knew what I was doing in post and spent some time tweaking it.

Until relatively recently, I hadn’t really done much post-processing work — I’d pull the shots off my memory card, maybe do a little tweaking to the exposure if I had under- or over-exposed, maybe crop a little, but that was about it. But as I’ve spent more time trying to learn about photography, both from the pros and from some talented friends, I realized in addition to developing “the eye” in the field, I needed to be developing my skills back at my desk, long after the shot. I have plenty of experience designing user interfaces for web sites, but little with enhancing photographs. Once I started putting some effort into post, some of my shots really started to pop much more than they used to. One great example of this is my mossy ravine photograph.

I took this shot at Turkey Run State Park in Indiana on a cool and overcast October morning. My friend Chris and I had gone there to just hike a bit and see if there were any good photographic opportunities. Given the disgusting light provided by the patchy overcast sky, there weren’t many. Still, I fired away and sifted through them all when I got home.

I thought the perspective on this particular shot was kind of cool, with the mossy wall rising on the left, the creek leading the eye through the ravine ahead, and the stairs providing evidence of humanity. So I tweaked it just a touch like I usually did, and posted it to Flickr. Chris and Kyle commented on it, and that was about the end of it.

Mossy ravine (original) - no editing

Mossy ravine (original) - no editing

Mossy Ravine (first edit)

Mossy Ravine (first edit)


When I revisited it last week, some months after it was shot, I was armed with some new filters and techniques. I cropped it down some more to balance the leading lines in the shot in a more pleasing way. I played with the color curves and pumped up the greens and oranges to play up the vegetation. I applied a subtle gradient filter to the blown-out overcast sky area between the trees overhead, to give that area a touch of color. And finally, I applied a soft-focus filter to give everything just the slightest hint of a glow, which provides for a more damp, lush feel to the scene.

Mossy Ravine (final)

Mossy Ravine (final)

As soon as I uploaded the replacement, the photo got invited into several nature and geology groups on Flickr, was favorited by a few people, and got a number of comments. I still don’t think it’s a great photo, merely a good one, and it’s far from my most popular shot on Flickr, but it just goes to show you how much of a difference some decent post-processing can make. It went from dull and “meh” to “Nice shot!” and lots more views.

Why didn’t I do this earlier? Well, somewhere I got it into my head that you should be getting the shot you want right out of the camera, and not manipulating it too much afterward. I probably spent too much time listening to photojournalists, for whom this is true (and essential), but I realized that for everyone else that “rule” is like telling a musician he has to record all the tracks in one take and can’t do any editing before the album gets pressed. Most of us are trying to tell a story or convey a feeling or impress a sensation with our photographs, and Photoshop — or whatever — is just one of the tools used to do that. Especially when you shoot in RAW, and the data comes out of the camera without any sort of color processing or enhancement, it’s pretty seldom that a shot can’t be improved without at least a little bit of careful post.

For me, seeing other photographers’ before and after images demonstrated the degree to which post-processing could impact the power and presence of a photo. Since I started paying more attention to what I do in post, I’ve started getting a lot more “Wow”s and “Cool”s than I used to with some of my photos. It’s clearly an essential part of artistic photography, so I recommend spending some time getting to know more than just the brightness and contrast sliders in your favorite photo editing application.

Gallery: Mossy Ravine

These three images show the original shot, the first one I posted to Flickr, and now the final product.

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7 comments

  • James Burnes January 26th, 2009 at 8:36 am

    Matt,

    Great post…I discovered the same thing a few years ago when working on a photo project for a friend. It’s not just the crop that makes a photo great, but all the subtle tweaks.

    I’ve heard a few “film junkies” claim that digital photography has no comparison to “real photography” because of all the tweaking and changes you can make.

    I always like to point out, professional photographers have manipulated their photos for years with various chemicals, exposures, filters and other tricks during the processing of the film to photo paper.

    Very helpful post – I’m sure it will inspire others to take a shot at spending time at the desktop.

  • Kyle January 26th, 2009 at 9:13 pm

    Hey Matt, first of all, thanks for the love. The site is still a very early work in progress, but it’s getting there.

    As for the article, GREAT point. If we were all meant to see the scene one way then cameras would always record an image as faithful, and we’d only add sharpening in post process. Contrast, brightness, hue, saturation, adjusting the blacks, fill light… they’re all part of the process, and your image demonstrates their value. Even something as crazy as HDR has it’s place! Photography’s an art, not a science… all the better to let people feel the scene, not just see it.

    Oh, and you don’t need some expensive software. Don’t have Aperture, Photoshop, or Lightroom? Try GIMP… totally free, and does 90% of what Photoshop does (almost as well).

  • Kelly February 1st, 2009 at 10:12 am

    Hey Matt! So I admit, this is my first time to your website, but now I’ve subscribed to your page on my Google Reader (yes…I know how to do that!!) and look forward to more interesting articles to come! So, the reason I visited… Todd and I are sitting here enjoying our tea/coffee this beautiful Sunday morning both with laptops in front of us going through the daily ritual of checking email, favorite sites and RSS feeds. I came across the link to Kyle’s new website and saw some of the BEAUTIFUL images he posted (the one looking over the river at MI6 and his apartment, just fabulous). So I ask Todd “do you think any of these pictures look exactly like this straight from the camera, or is there a lot of photo-shopping that happens afterwards?” Ironic question I guess, he pointed me to your sight and now I know. Thanks for the photography insight. :)

  • Kelly February 1st, 2009 at 10:21 am

    and by “sight” I meant “site”. ;)

  • Jeff April 3rd, 2009 at 4:51 pm

    Hey Matt,

    I think that is print quality work there! I am sure you have heard of Thomas Mangelsen. The crispness of the colors reminded me of some of his works, but I’ll not to make a comparison as I am not a avid nature photographer or an expert on the matter. My one question to you is kind of off what Kyle above said about having people “feel the scene”. If I were going to that exact place, would I feel the scene as if was from the original or would I feel the scene as from the enhanced version? In other words, if I went to that exact spot, would it be as beautiful as the image shows? Or would it look kind of bland like the original?

  • Matthew April 3rd, 2009 at 5:00 pm

    Jeff,

    That’s an excellent question, and brings us as much into the technical aspect of digital photography as it does the intangible “feel” of the scene.

    The short answer is, that place felt more like the final photograph than the original, blander file. Part of that is the reality heightened by your other senses — I could hear the birds and rustle of the forest, I could sense the dampness on my skin, etc — whereas in a photo you’ve got to rely solely on the eyes.

    But the other reason is that when you shoot in RAW, you’re not recording an image. You’re recording sensor data which must be converted to an image, and how your RAW converter interprets that data typically is less “punchy” than what usually happens in-camera with JPG processing. I shot this in RAW, but didn’t really know how to properly manipulate it at first. RAW is a powerful tool, in a way, and learning how to use it right is something that takes time. If I had shot this same scene in JPG, it wouldn’t have looked so nearly flat coming out of the RAW converter — but there also wouldn’t have been as much data to work with to really fine-tune the image the way I wanted.

  • Jim Koerston June 29th, 2009 at 8:33 pm

    Hey Matthew,

    I originally found your page while looking for a theme for my Blackberry, and i found Bphone…. WOW! its just awesome, and I’m very greatful that you have shared this theme for free use with all the Blackberry community.

    Then i started reading your articles, they are fascinating, the Ebay article left me on the floor laughing!

    And i found this article, which i liked very much because it shows what a dramatic change some little *after effects* can do to your “average” photograph. I never liked to modify my photos too much, but reading this has tought me a lesson!

    Many thanks and best regards!

    Jim

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