Vibrance, sat, and other things you do to imports

[sbartell]

Well its been awhile since Ive posted! Schools been a bit rough these days, but I've still snapped some photos. Actually I was going to search the forums for these answers, but I'd forgotten my password and once the site gave it up it told me I should post something... so I'll ask rather than sit in the bleachers.

So here's the deal. I use lightroom and use my own import preset on most of my photos. It boosts saturation, vibrance, blacks, and clarity. Then I go in and adjust fill light, exposure, and whatnot. Then I batch edit the jpegs (after they've been exported) in CS4 and give them a contrast action. Now I reeally like how adding contrast to a scene makes landscapes, architecture 'pop'. But what do you do when you photograph people? I really like taking photos of people in interesting backgrounds. So lately I've been masking out people's faces before I run the photos through my lineup. This seems to keep faces soft without the added contrast to baggy eyes, wrinkles and stuff but it still lets me bring out a background.

So my main question is... what are the post editing decisions you make between people and landscapes?

Thanks for your thoughts guys


ps, I didnt present any photos as examples, but if it helps to gain an understanding of what Im talking about then Id gladly put some up.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi sb,

Just a quicky reply, 'cos I must get on with the day

what are the post editing decisions you make between people and landscapes?

Probably what you're doing to be honest, although I don't shoot too many people shots myself.

My concern is that you seem to run a bit of a production line for PP and I've never found I can do that and give the decent photos the individual attention they deserve.
The other aspect is that if the subject is the person, I'd think you wouldn't want to spend too much effort making the background 'pop' or it'll distract from the subject.

Just my views on the question, anyway good to have you back sb.

Cheers,

[Mossy]

I go through and pick the shots I think are worth my time working on, those I think could be useful to keep, and bin the rest. I did try and turn it into a production line, but it just seemed that it was too generic, especially if the shots are of a lot of different subjects...

As for people, they seem to take the most time, between cloning out random freckles, adjusting the white balance, paying attention to skin tone etc etc. The only thing I've found that works for all portraits (and that's a gross generalisation) is adding a little bit of vignette to give a framing effect. YMMV

[Dave Humphries]

I go through and pick the shots I think are worth my time working on, those I think could be useful to keep, and bin the rest. I did try and turn it into a production line, but it just seemed that it was too generic, especially if the shots are of a lot of different subjects..

Yeah, that was exactly my problem.
Shooting RAW, even at 6MP produces 13MB files; so I download to a "Just downloaded" folder, go through there at download to delete the no hopers (no subject in shot sorta thing, wildy OOF), then have another go through after a while and deleet a few more. then name like subjects so they sort adjacent to each other, followed by another "prune" and this is all before they get anywhere near PS Elements for 'import', which I do by moving them to a folder Elements watches as and when I'm in the mood, or have the time, to PP them. I usually go through and star rate them then so I can filter and PP the best first. Most shots are 2 to 4 stars, very, very few are 5 stars.

Even then, I only PP stuff I'm willing to show to others, mostly the 3 and 4 stars, I like to think this keeps my quality of my kept shots higher, and my bulging disks a bit less bulging. it does mean I keep quite a few unprocessed RAWs 'for a rainy day', but since I would never discard the original file anyway...

I'm not saying this is best, or right, it just suits me; in fact maybe I'm just too prolific at the shooting stage, although there's a large element of chance or luck in nature shooting, so multiple shots saves coming away empty handed, each to his or her own.

Cheers,

[Geoff F]

I do much the same as Dave's answer. Then do as little as possible in the way of editing. With 90% being ditched before hand it usually doesn't require that much. And I do hate those unnatural looking over saturated images; like I got from the developers before going digital and printing myself.

I may do a batch RAW conversion if I am happy with the WB etc but otherwise I consider everyone of the 10% of keepers to be an individual photo requiring individual tweaking.

Looking back I remember that when I first started photography with basic equipment I was keeping around 80% but now, with better equipment, I consider that I am doing well if I get 10%. But I rarely go back and look again at those early images.