Hypothetical question - How much is too much?

[Saph]

Oh, now you've done it...

Done what? given my way of seeing things how i feel they should be and followed the 30/50 rule because i didnt complain about services,people,organisations,products or businesses?

or the fact i dont personaly like post processing moments of history?

Edit: Remeber im here to learn not to be told off for something i didnt know about.

[jim]

I'm not telling you off, and hopefully nobody will.

[Saph]

I'm not telling you off, and hopefully nobody will.

Sorry just the way it came off over a screen seemed a bit like being told off for not knowing something.

[aussirose]

I do both. If I have taken a great photo just out of the camera then obviously I may only tweek it a bit. But sometimes I like to get creative. I was never a good artist but now I can say that I am because of my art creations of my photos. So too I am drawn to photos that are put up here that are heavily HDRd or grunged or made arty somehow.
And I love abstract photos produced by deliberately moving the camera or using lenses like lensbaby.
There's no limit to photography produced in an art form.
But then that's what makes us all different. We all have favourite photo genres we are attracted to.

[Geoff79]

Lots of variations in a reply to a question like this.

In a nutshell, I like to have my photos looking as close to what I saw, and all PP I do is in the quest to achieve this outcome, ironic as that may seem at times.

The problem with this is, because of my poor PP capabilities, the shots I process a lot often look like they’ve been processed a lot. If I had better PP skills, I’d only ever use them to get the photo closer to how I saw it.

As has been mentioned, though, there are just some photos you take with a camera that cannot capture what you and the camera are pointed at, as you see it. I have a personal love for land and seascape shots in beautiful light, around sunrise and those early hours. As we all know, you can’t point the camera at the rising sun, or the bright morning sky, and capture the moment as you see it. There is (very sadly) no getting around the need to process the photo/s you take, often quite significantly, for it to resemble what you saw.

I spend hours and hours and hours on PP and genuinely hate it, and constantly think how much actual time it takes up, lol. Nothing in the world I’d love more than being able to leave every photo I took completely untouched because I knew my skills and camera had captured the moment exactly as I saw it. That would be a dream come true. Sadly, whether it be the significant limitations of my skill set, or be it the limitations of my equipment, this barely ever happens.

For the most part I’ll leave the photos I take of my kids mostly untouched, and just general photos too, but most landscape shots I take in or around sunrise, generally require some work.

As for silky water, for me that’s just a personal preference that I saw one day long ago and thought it looked pretty cool, to me anyway. I know it’s not for everyone and I try not to do it too often, but like someone else mentioned, that’s an obvious personal artistic choice by the photographer that’s never going to be used to try and trick someone into wondering if the photo is a 100% accurate depiction of the presented scene.

All that said, even the most simple photos of my kids might need some PP to get them as I saw them. Often, those photos are just a matter of pointing the camera at them to capture a great moment, without always having time to have the camera set up in a way that the photo is captured to perfection. As a recurring example, an issue I get constantly is shadows. Many photos of my kids taken in bright light often feature deep dark shadows, which my naked eye was certainly not seeing. So even these simple photos of a child standing in the sunlight might need work to get it close to what I saw... if I didn’t have everything set up perfectly with a fill flash etc.

Anyway, I’ve rambled on for months! End result is that for me personally, PP is a tool I use to get the photo as close to how I saw/remembered it as possible. The further away I get from this end result is a direct reflection of my terrible PP skills, and nothing else. Certainly never meant as a means to trick someone into questioning the authenticity of a shot I take.

... except when I think that silky water will suit the photo.

And similar to what I think Bob said perfectly... I think... I love that everyone does whatever they do and what feels good to them. It’s always interesting seeing everyone’s interpretations of what they see. It would be as exciting if everyone did the exact same thing.

[jim]

Sorry just the way it came off over a screen seemed a bit like being told off for not knowing something.

No problem, sorry if I came over as critical.

it' a fact, I think, that all digital photos need some post processing to bring out the best in them, and there is really no such thing as an accurate record of what you saw straight out of the camera. Even your camera does quite a bit of processing. Some members feel quite strongly about all this. Not me though, I try to keep post processing to a minimum for reasons similar to yours. Plus I don't really enjoy it, Id rather be taking more photos.

[Lance B]

There are no hard and fast "rules" it's just up to the viewer to decide whether a photo is over processed or whether it is not. Unless the photo has been entered into a competition which limits the amount of post processing, then it's up to the individual viewer as to whether it is acceptable to them or not. You either like the photo for what it is or you don't. It's that simple.