How much PS'ing is too much PS'ing

[timmyquest]

I've reached a point where i feel my skill outweighs most of my equpiment...specifically the glass that i own, with the exception of my 50mm F/1.8 which i do little to in photoshop.

I'm starting to get the feeling that i'm relying too much on what i can do later. On the other hand, i have to wonder if this is just a self created issue because of the illusion that the world conveys on digital photographers (the world being those who live by the 35mm rolls) that it isnt realllllllly photography, in the sense of doing everything yourself like many of the people here would have done 20 years ago.

This photo was taken with my infamous 70-300 $150 sigma junker special. Is this a normal amount of post processing? Also, is it even a good job. Obviously it is at there very least decent, and i'd like to think my PS'ing skills are getting better.

Anyways, my main question is in the title so...yeah, here we go

BEFORE:
http://www.antiwall.com/pics/april04/sal1raw.jpg

AFTER:
http://www.antiwall.com/pics/april04/sal1.jpg

[chris.bailey]

Good question and its a personal thing and dependent on what effect you are trying to achieve. Its not new to digital, film type and paper grade effected the final print just as much in the old days though now we have more control.

To me, the processing needs to be believable unless you are purposefully going for an overprocessed look. Your AFTER is still believable though maybe the saturation has been pushed a tad too far. I used to do too much and have since developed an action that I use for most of my run of the mill prints.

[Meerkat17]

I agree fully with Chris - I think after you have tried all the "bells and whistles" of what you can do both in a darkroom and also in PS you settle into a routine of the basics to achive a final print which looks good, unless you are going for an effect.

On your "after" shot its the yellow that I find a little harsh as it jumps out at me, being a lighter colour than those around it.

Regards
David

[Laziferous]

You know what you have in mind when shooting, and PS is your darkroom, to make what you had in mind, become a reality. I think film(35mm) shooters, who scoff at digital, are basically just whining, because they know our darkroom is so much more clean, and efficient than theirs. It involves less work (if you know what you're doing), and is cheaper. I think most of their reactions come from jealousy, though they try to hide it with remarks that film(35mm) is better quality, and so forth. If they would take the the time to look at the quality of images produced by dSLR's, and become familiar with PS, I'm sure they would agree, that digital photography, is indeed, photography.

When I take a photo, I already have in mind how I want it to look. I'm aware, that the camera on it's own, is rarely going to give me exactly what I had envisioned. Sometimes it needs a little boost in saturation, sometimes I remove the color. Sometimes the scene has a tonal range outside of what the camera can capture in one exposure, so I take two, and put them together in PS.

Of course, there is no substitute for a good photo, straight from the camera. I wouldn't try to make a crap photo look good, but I do try to make good photos look great. You always have to have something good to start with, or it's a waste of time, in my opinion.

As an example, I tried to correct a photo of a heron in the critique forum, then posted a follow-up explaining what I did in the sticky post, on top of this forum. It does look better, but no offense to the photographer, to me, that wasn't a keeper. If it were my own, it would have been in the recycle bin.

Of course there can be too much processing to an image in PS, and if done, will do the opposite of improve it, but will degrade it. It's up to you to take your images where you want them to be, or to simply leave them as they are. All that matters, is that you are happy with the end result.

[iwatkins]

Basically, too much processing is the point where it doesn't look like what you wanted.

Of course, other people looking at think it is overprocessed, you have failed as well. (failed, only if you care what they think).

As for the two images above, the BEFORE looks more natural. The ideal for me would be somewhere in between these two images.

Cheers

Ian

[sdommin]

I've reached a point where i feel my skill outweighs most of my equpiment...

You must be pretty good. I've been at this for 25+ years and I haven't reached that point.

But to answer your original question, if a regular viewer can tell that a photo has been "PhotoShopped", then that's a good sign you've gone too far.

[evilenglishman]

i think its too much. It looks over saturated and there is too much contrast.
Basically you should do what you did but not as much

[timmyquest]

When I take a photo, I already have in mind how I want it to look. I'm aware, that the camera on it's own, is rarely going to give me exactly what I had envisioned.

A great point...puts much into perspective.

[Belmondo]

I find my taste in sharpening to be evolving. At first I was of the belief that sharpness was a function of creating hard edges on items in the photograph. I look at a lot of my earlier work and now recognize that by anyone's standards, they were heavily over-sharpened. Now, I'm backing off a little and becoming more aware of the overall look of the photo.

Ultimately, the real test of sharpening is reflected in the print, and the tricky business is trying to equate what I see on the monitor to what will eventually be printed on paper.

Here's the bottom line as I see it: Sharpness is a matter of personal taste. Some people like crisp edges while others prefer a softer image. People will offer opinions, and freely volunteer what they consider to be optimum settings for USM. You will be the one individual that will have to determine which approach best suits your tastes and style of photography. Pure and simple.

[Sam North]

For what it’s worth, I think you’ve done a good job. Somewhere between the two would do it for me, yet if I cover the yellow “350” I’m not so sure. Velvia fans might love it.

I can’t afford high quality lenses just yet, and although it sounds daft, I’ve found image-editing can improve the performance of my lens – to an extent. The darkroom (wet or dry) ought to play a significant role in photography, but I think I cross the line sometimes.

A while back, here in Ireland I travelled to a remote spot where a small white cottage sat into a rugged and bleak hillside. I liked the shot through the lens and liked it on-screen too, but eventually, to aid the composition, in PHOTO-PAINT I slid the cottage to the left and down slightly about 20 feet! It was pretty easy to do, and would have been a real challenge in the wet darkroom I would think.

I’m reaching the stage now with digital were I want to get most things right on the shoot – exposure, composition, contrast extremes (I like grey grads), and so on. Just like slides and film! (I’m just 3 months at shooting digital.) I want to use software as subtly as I can, something I do generally with scanned film. I’m really going to try pushing the boat out this year to get the hang of B&W with digital – another software challenge.

But software can be very useful: I’ve always wanted a shot of my father and uncle together (my Uncle’s dead now, my father ill). Today I brought them together in one shot by “removing” a lady who sat between them. I’ll have that photo framed…

I like what Scott says: “If a regular viewer can tell that a photo has been "PhotoShopped", then that's a good sign you've gone too far.”

As for sharpening, I think viewing distances play a part in how a print appears. I have sharpened too much too,


Sam

[CyberDyneSystems]

Timmy,

You have set yourself up here for a perfect experiment that will greatly benifit your future Photoshop use!!! :wink:

The second image displays exactly the kind of post processing that one should know how to do to make there other wise "hoo hum" images "POP" off the page.

Fortunately,. as others have pointed out,. you have taken it TOO FAR :?
I say fortunately because of the technique that will aloow you to benifit from this "oversaturated" image.

This is a good thing for a few reasons,. not the least of which is you never REALLY know how far is too far untill you take it too far do you?

But here is what you should do now to make GOOD use of the second over saturated image :mrgreen:

Open the original "duller" image in PS.
Then open the over saturated image as well.. select the entire saturated image and click edit copy,..

Then go back to the original image and paste in the saturated version "as a new layer"

Now the highly staurated image is on top of the orginal in a layer,. in the lower right hand corner you will have the layer properties screen where you can adjust he opacity of the new layer. Reduce opacitiy untill you find the perfect balance in between the two images!

For further experimentation,. return the top layer to 100% opacity,. and grab the eraser tool. Make sure the top layer is "active" and use a soft large eraser at perjhaps 30-40% opacity.. (do you have a pressure sensitive tablet.. this helps a lot)

Now you can selectively erase away the opacity of the saturated layer in specific parts of the image... (like reduce the saturation of everything but the pitcher)

This probably won't be helpfull for this particular image.. but it will give you some ideas for images where you may want to keep the altered saturation high in some areas but less in others..

Have fun.

[chris.bailey]

The other tip is to always do such manipulation on an adjustment layer so you can go back at a later date and trim back the saturation etc if it looks a bit overdone on print.