More time processing than shooting?

I used to take pictures and do no post processing. Then I realized that most of the pictures I admired online and in books and magazines had been processed in some way.

So I started to learn how to post process my photos. I am very new to it, but I am pleased with how my pictures improved with the post processing. I hope to get better at it over time.

I am not a great photographer but I usually found if I took a hundred photos, I would find 2-3 worth post processing to make them look better. So this didn't take long.

I have been doing a lot of reading lately on how to take better pictures. I believe it is more about the photographer than the equipment used - that a great photographer can take great pictures with an inexpensive camera while a poor photographer who doesn't learn will be disappointed even when they use the best equipment. I have seen examples where great photos were taken with cheap or disposable cameras when the photographer knows how to see opportunities and compose great shots.

Today I was at a classic car show. Perhaps it was the great opportunity or maybe I learned something from all my reading, but when I went through the 150+ photos, I marked nearly 50 as possible for processing. Ouch!

I am sure this will drop to 20-25 when I look closer, but this got me thinking about how much time does everyone spend post processing vs. actually taking pictures?

Really good photographers must have a lot of photos to process. How can you handle them all?

The more you shoot (and the more you process) the higher your standards will become and you will begin to cull your photos more aggressively. Its also very likely that you will come to shoot less volume because you know how to get what you want in less shots, so that helps reduce the time. And ultimately you will start shooting with the expectations that you will only get a couple of shots you are really proud of. For instance I'm going on vacation next week to the mountains. While I'm there I will shoot a bit each day, although its not a photo trip per say. If I come home with a half dozen images I am really proud of I'll be happy. Obviously the type of photography you do changes that goal. If you do weddings, your keeper rate is higher (although your "wow" rate may still be the same.

I found that most edits that I do, consist of the same steps, so I built actions in Photoshop that create layers with the enhancements. Use the layers so you can adjust them where needed. It cut my editing time way back.

Something else to consider is the ability to apply the same edit to multiple images (particularly useful for similar images)... this is EASILY done in Lightroom.

I only shoot RAW and i find that most of my workflow is done in a RAW editor like ACR. The way i do it is that all images taken under the same lighting conditions get opened together and syncronised from one edit. But i prefer a natural look to my images so the editing that i have been doing lately is mostly only exposure,WB, lens corrections, sharpening and all on a custom preferred preset in ACR.

I spend way more time processing than shooting. Then, when I learn something new about Photoshop, I start over again.

I am not a great photographer and neither do I take hundreds of shots. But I enjoy post-processing so its time I don't begrudge.

But I tend to pick out my best shots and only process them. As a pro-tog told me donkeys-years ago "No one sees my rubbish"!

drvnbysound wrote in post #16120734
Something else to consider is the ability to apply the same edit to multiple images (particularly useful for similar images)... this is EASILY done in Lightroom.

Agreed in full.

Not every photo needs Photoshop. Most of the heavy lifting can be done in a raw editor like Lightroom; and, many times it's appropriate to apply one image's processing to many (or all!) of the other images in the set. Lightroom does this with just one or two clicks. Then you can go through the rest of the set and fine-tune as necessary.

I think it depends on what kind of shooting you do, and how you feel about processing. For example, if you're a working pro covering an event, it's unlikely you'll want to spend an hour on each image. It's also unlikely that the images will need it as they are documentary. If you're doing fine art landscapes, architecture, high end fashion, etc, the story will be different. Rather than shooting a large number of shots from which dozens (or a few hundred) will be delivered, you might be finishing just one or two images, but they have to be perfect.
As a hobbyist of course it's all up to discretion. Me personally, I process my images one at a time. I may spend over an hour on an image, but I enjoy it, so it's ok. I shoot with my processing workflow in mind, often visualizing a final image that is far removed what the scene itself looks like.

Scatterbrained wrote in post #16122217
I think it depends on what kind of shooting you do, and how you feel about processing. For example, if you're a working pro covering an event, it's unlikely you'll want to spend an hour on each image. It's also unlikely that the images will need it as they are documentary. If you're doing fine art landscapes, architecture, high end fashion, etc, the story will be different. Rather than shooting a large number of shots from which dozens (or a few hundred) will be delivered, you might be finishing just one or two images, but they have to be perfect.
As a hobbyist of course it's all up to discretion. Me personally, I process my images one at a time. I may spend over an hour on an image, but I enjoy it, so it's ok. I shoot with my processing workflow in mind, often visualizing a final image that is far removed what the scene itself looks like.

I totally know that people shoot multiple things... and not everyone is 100% focused on a single genre of photography. That being said, I was really looking to address the question with this statement in mind:

ebusinesstutor wrote in post #16120569
Today I was at a classic car show. Perhaps it was the great opportunity or maybe I learned something from all my reading, but when I went through the 150+ photos, I marked nearly 50 as possible for processing. Ouch!

... assuming that the lighting wasn't drastically changing from shot to shot.

If it did change over the course of the day you should still be able to generally batch process groups of photos together rather than having to do each one individually.

drvnbysound wrote in post #16122293
I totally know that people shoot multiple things... and not everyone is 100% focused on a single genre of photography. That being said, I was really looking to address the question with this statement in mind:



... assuming that the lighting wasn't drastically changing from shot to shot.

If it did change over the course of the day you should still be able to generally batch process groups of photos together rather than having to do each one individually.

The last time I did Amelia Island I still only processed about a dozen or so shots. Taking time to clone out people where I could, dodge and burn the images, etc. Granted it's not as intense a workflow as my usual, but it wasn't about just syncing the images and shippin' em out. Which comes back to personal preferences.

Having to process 50 images doesn't sound like all that much to me. As with most any learned skill, with practice comes improvements in speed. Digital photography definitely brings with it a "drinking from the fire hose" effect. With some practice you will be able to quickly sort through and identify your keepers. Then you will find that almost every image needs a certain level of almost the same processing, easily handled with a preset or a sync function. After that other touch-ups such as tweaking white balance or opening shadows on individual images go pretty quickly. It's only the few that need some work with, say, layers and masks or cloning that take much time at all.

If you understand the concepts behind light meters, and if you also employ Manual exposure control of the camera, you can eliminate a lot of the variables that contribute to the need for shot-for-shot editing!

Also, if you take advantage of batch processing aids, you can find groups of photos that will use similar postprocessing settings, and do the first shot of the group and then have the software apply all the same settings to the rest of the group.

Wilt wrote in post #16122411
If you understand the concepts behind light meters, and if you also employ Manual exposure control of the camera, you can eliminate a lot of the variables that contribute to the need for shot-for-shot editing!

Also, if you take advantage of batch processing aids, you can find groups of photos that will use similar postprocessing settings, and do the first shot of the group and then have the software apply all the same settings to the rest of the group.

.....again, that depends on what kind of editing you're doing. You're assuming that the editing is being done to "correct" for variables. For some this may be true, others may simply be trying to enhance the scene beyond what was there with available light. There are "looks" out there, especially in commercial/advertising imaging, that can't be achieved "in camera" yet they still require that you get it right in the camera.

Granted the Op may just be trying to correct for exposure issues, in which case you'd be absolutely right.

Just realized that another issues with general presets, sync'ing pictures, or batch processing... would be if they were shot in an automatic mode (e.g. Av) and have variable exposures. If one shot is over exposed, and the next shot is under... it's not going to help much to sync photos.

Maybe this is why I don't like shooting events that can have such dynamic lighting changes from shot to shot...