What's your take on pp?

In my limited experience, I found that colors in landscape pictures are usually washed out due to strong sunlight. And I would usually increase black clipping in LightRoom by a lot to try to fix this problem.

Sometimes I see pictures with saturation boosted to such an extent that it's kind of unreal. Do people usually like that?

I'd like to know if people usually do a lot of post processing for their landscape photography in general. It doesn't have to be the kinds of situations I described above.

I PP everything...because I have to. Some shots need more work than others, some will take only a few moments in LR, others a bit longer.

This one for example only took a couple of minutes and half of that was cloning dust spots!

There's no real right or wrong answer, each image is processed (or not) on its merits.

That is called art. The owner is not trying to make a documentary photo that captures the original scene as accurately as possible. Just as all painters are not realists, the same for photographers.

Remember that every person sees something different, that is generally how they try to process their images...hence so many different ways we see images processed.

MCAsan wrote in post #13334887
That is called art. The owner is not trying to make a documentary photo that captures the original scene as accurately as possible. Just as all painters are not realists, the same for photographers.

Exactly.

There is no rule that says you need to shoot in the documentry style just because you're shooting a landscape. More often than not, the way my minds eye remembers how a sunrise looked may be influenced by the feeling I had when I was there. Sometimes the way that a place makes you feel isnt easliy conveyed by just leaving things exactly as the camera captured them.

And, even with all the reasons above aside, digital capture (especially in RAW) at the very least requires a certain amount of contrast, saturation, and sharpening to be added in post.

If I see an image that has had processing applied with a hand to heavy for my taste, Ill move on because I feel that there are limits to what qualifies for my comments above and what is just over-done, but that all comes down to my personal preference - someone else may feel its completely acceptable or that even my images are over-done.

pbelarge wrote in post #13335035
Remember that every person sees something different, that is generally how they try to process their images...hence so many different ways we see images processed.

What is so fascinating about photography is the attempt to recreate via the camera what the eye interprets, without us ever being conscious of a lot of it. The brain automatically processes light and dark details, colour balance, without us having to think of it. Some gentle HDR afctually recreates a bit of the brains automatic interpretation of an image. Same goes for boosting colour saturation a little. Of course it also depends on your monitor settings, calibration, priunter, paper type, ink quality, etc. etc. I really like images that push the borders from reality into surreal with a very heavily processed image; it is an artform and a valid and skilled act of creativity too. When it is done well it makes for a striking image that does not necessarily have to be a true or close representation of the actual scene. I'm happy with that.

colormaniac wrote in post #13333950
In my limited experience, I found that colors in landscape pictures are usually washed out due to strong sunlight. And I would usually increase black clipping in LightRoom by a lot to try to fix this problem.

Sometimes I see pictures with saturation boosted to such an extent that it's kind of unreal. Do people usually like that?

I'd like to know if people usually do a lot of post processing for their landscape photography in general. It doesn't have to be the kinds of situations I described above.

I personally prefer a natural looking image as opposed to an overly Photoshoped image. Especially when you are shooting landscapes it is like a thorn in my side when I see a overly edited image. My take is get it right in the camera and save your time on the computer... that being said I do edit my images in PS... it is just the extent to which I edit them. I like to do just small saturation and curves rather than adding something new to a picture that was not there. To each their own though.

colormaniac wrote in post #13333950
In my limited experience, I found that colors in landscape pictures are usually washed out due to strong sunlight. And I would usually increase black clipping in LightRoom by a lot to try to fix this problem.

Sometimes I see pictures with saturation boosted to such an extent that it's kind of unreal. Do people usually like that?

I'd like to know if people usually do a lot of post processing for their landscape photography in general. It doesn't have to be the kinds of situations I described above.

There's a very simple solution here. Shoot either earlier in day, capture the morning light, or wait until later in the day and get the warmer glow at that time. It sounds like you're shooting at mid day when the flat, straight rays are blasting out all color and interest.

I like to do a lot of my work prior to 10 AM or after 5 PM in the summer monthes. The lower sun angle adds a lot of really pleasant and natural saturation, texture, contrast and visual interest.

Because my goal is fine art print and exhibition, I shoot RAW and post process everything, to squeeze as much "natural" detail as I can out of a file. I make a lot of exposure level adjustments in PS and find I can reclaim a lot of natural tonal range in this fashion. I agree with David's statement above, and don't care for oversaturated images. I think it's fine in the eye of the creator as graphic design, or fine poster art, but I like my photos to still be recognizable as pleasing photos. I want people to be able to relate to them as a scene they have either passed, or actually walked through.

The following is one of my urban landscapes which was shot prior to 8 AM:

http://www.pbase.com/s​apearl/image/118684826

I've stalked this area a lot and have planned my shots according to season, weather, and time of year. One well planned venue can offer up many different interesting compositions and viewpoints.

My take on this is very simple. If your image is something that could have reasonably been achieved using film (regardless of kind) then it can and should be considered "purist" so to speak. The different types of film used in landscape varied pretty wide in color saturation, contrast, color balance, etc. Some people swear by the look Velvia gave (I'm one of them), but others looked down on it and liked what you get with Kodachrome. Different strokes.

When you widen the question to include "art" as opposed to just "photography" then all bets are off and anything goes. We all have our different tastes and methods of communicating what we see in the natural world. I'm not sure that any one person's style is any more or less valid than the next.

While our cameras may be digital, we are not. We are analog creatures living in an analog world. Very little is truly black or white....just lots of shades of gray, blue, red, and yellow.

As a general rule, you should avoid taking landscape pictures in bright sunlight. I like the first hour after sunrise or the hour prior to sunset, colors are much more saturated.

Others, however, prefer the light of about 20 minutes before sunrise to about 20 minutes after - but before any direct sunlight is hitting the scene, using long exposures. The work I've seen by experience landsacpe photographers taken during this time period appears very saturated without pp - much more so than the naked eye would suggest.

I disagree. Take all the shots you want in bright sunlight. But, have the strategy to take a set of shots with difference exposures and them use HDR to put them together. Remember that HDR does not have to have a heavy grunge look. Good HDR software lets you control the tone compresion, effect levels, saturation, contrast...etc.

colormaniac wrote in post #13333950
In my limited experience, I found that colors in landscape pictures are usually washed out due to strong sunlight. And I would usually increase black clipping in LightRoom by a lot to try to fix this problem.

Sometimes I see pictures with saturation boosted to such an extent that it's kind of unreal. Do people usually like that?

I'd like to know if people usually do a lot of post processing for their landscape photography in general. It doesn't have to be the kinds of situations I described above.

Interesting question.

I do a lot of landscape work, and due to my schedules I usually make my pics in the late afternoon. However, I don't count out any time of the day if there is an image worth taking.

Regarding the PP ....try this: When you take the picture try to visualise the key aspects of the scene at that moment so that you can recreate that visualisation when you process the images.

As far as I'm concerned the over-saturation of colours is a no-no, but a boost here and there is often necessary to recreate the image I remember. I tend to use lasoo and levels to adjust contrast locally quite often, and find that this process often creates a colour cast on the affected area. This disappers if you use "luminosity" blending mode.

Getting back to your first statement, I find that the worst culprit for washing out colours is over-exposure, Which is why I so often have my exp-compensation set to minus 1/3 to 1 stop or even more. Also, I shoot "contre-jour" a lot of the time, and this often provides dramatic light.

In answer to your last question...it depends! Sometimes the pictures require an absolute minimum of work, and other times they need a whole heap of layers. However, those that do require work should still end up looking as if they had no work done on them at all...or I chuck them out!

(Edit: As Sapearl says, always use RAW!)

Thank you everyone for your input! I knew that there certainly is no black-and-white answer. Yet everywhere people may have different tastes. (For example, what are regarded as good wedding pictures in the US are different from those in Asia. EDIT: a more useful example should be this: portraits for magazine covers are quite different from portraits for senior pictures.) So, I was interested to see how photographers here think about those questions.