Editing vs. shooting in your workflow

[skysi]

Do you shoot first and think later. How heavily do you rely on PP in PS in your work flow? Do you do unrequested edits for your clients just to wow them?

My partner with whom I do product and real estate shoots messes up a lot due to poor preparation and nervousness during a shoot. Then she asks me to edit things, clone stuff out, etc, and that, as you know, is time consuming, and nobody pays for it.

If that's not enough, when we shoot real estate (basically just rooms with bare walls) she insists on removing in post all the cords and cables and strings hanging from shutters from the picture, the strings, cords and cables that are part of the scene and, I think, should be left alone to illustrate to buyers where they are in the house.
Recently, she wanted me to clean up a burnt brick fireplace, making it look like new. Now when a buyer comes in and sees the fire place doesn't look knew, what is he/she going to say to the agent. Of course I refuse to do any of this, and she gets mad at me.

Now what would you say to this insane woman? Should I just slap her silly? :o)
Do you think this kind of editing has any merit? I don't.

[TheHoff]

I can't think of any other profession where I'd hire someone and expect them to do a shoddy job to start hoping to fix it at the end... mechanic? nope. Chef? nope. Taxi driver? nope. Dentist? nope. I'd hope they would do the best job possible from the beginning without trying to fake their way through.

[stathunter]

I do weddings and shoot tons of images every week. I have learned that it is easier to shoot right and do little editing. I have WAY too many images to have to mess with them. I do minor editing on some of the main images but shoot in a way that allows me to do minimal post processing work.

[polarbare]

For what you're doing she needs to get it right in the camera. Post shouldn't just be a catch-all for fixing problems that you should have fixed when taking the shot. And I completely agree on the fireplace issue. It's not PJ for a news article so fixing up the rooms to help sell the real estate is fine, but sounds like she's going overboard.

That being said I do alot of PP on some of my images but mostly to get the look I want, for example last weekend I spent Saturday at Fenway Park and I've done alot of PP to get a vintage feel to many of the photos. So to me it really depends on what you're doing in post.

[LeuceDeuce]

Do you shoot first and think later. How heavily do you rely on PP in PS in your work flow? Do you do unrequested edits for your clients just to wow them?


Even photographers who turn photos into illustrations in post should be starting with the best possible raw material they can, and that consists of the best composition and exposure to begin with. Any crop you need to make to correct composition is throwing away information that could have been used to make a more detailed version of your crop. Rotations and transformations degrade image quality so keeping those to a minimum is always in your best interest. Proper exposures will keep the noise levels down, and allow you to produce a better end product.


My partner with whom I do product and real estate shoots messes up a lot due to poor preparation and nervousness during a shoot. Then she asks me to edit things, clone stuff out, etc, and that, as you know, is time consuming, and nobody pays for it.

If that's not enough, when we shoot real estate (basically just rooms with bare walls) she insists on removing in post all the cords and cables and strings hanging from shutters from the picture, the strings, cords and cables that are part of the scene and, I think, should be left alone to illustrate to buyers where they are in the house.
Recently, she wanted me to clean up a burnt brick fireplace, making it look like new. Now when a buyer comes in and sees the fire place doesn't look knew, what is he/she going to say to the agent. Of course I refuse to do any of this, and she gets mad at me.


She should stop shooting real estate, and start making fine art prints. Once you cross over into "Art" then you can edit your images all you want without ever having to claim that they represent anything in the real world. To edit real estate photos, beyond tonal/colour corrections and straightening, is false advertising.


Now what would you say to this insane woman? Should I just slap her silly? :o)
Do you think this kind of editing has any merit? I don't.

Have her be the one to explain to potential buyers why her photos are deceptive in their representation of the product.

[airfrogusmc]

Get it right first then fine tune in photoshop.

[cdifoto]

Sometimes I screw up and have to use PP to salvage it.
Sometimes I screw up and have to use the delete key.
I try to avoid screwing up because my delete key doesn't say "Delete" anymore.

[PhotosGuy]

Now what would you say to this insane woman? Should I just slap her silly? Give her a roll of tape & let her hide the cords. Tell her it's called "Dressing the set" & she can charge extra for it. Or buy her a copy of PSE & tell her it's her job now? ;)

[DStanic]

I don't know the whole situation but it sounds like she is taking advantage of you. It's one thing to screw up the exposure and need a few minutes to fix it, but if she wants cords cloned out and all this other stuff she should learn how to do it herself..

[GilesGuthrie]

Is this a business partner, or something more? The answer to this frames your relationship with the woman. It sounds like she believes post production to be a universal panacea for bad photography.

My own view is that it takes me a few seconds to bracket an exposure or to re-shoot something, against maybe an hour or so "reconstructive surgery" in Photoshop. And we all know that there are some things (i.e. missed focus, camera shake) that cannot be fixed. I have great PP tools, but I try to make them my least used.

Ugliness that's a part of the current owner's lifestyle could probably be taken out. Ugliness that's part of the house must not, because then it would become a fraudulent image.