To enhance or not to enhance, thats my question! :)

I have been taking photos for years. I really love it and I do it just for fun. I have recently moved to digital but, being a student, I couldn't afford L lenses or anything in the similar price range. What I have is 75-300 III usm, 28-90usm and 50mm 1.8 with EOS REBEL XT.

Here is my question.

- I know that good contrast and saturation also greatly depends on the light conditions, the angle you shoot, the time of day etc. However I find myself always moving the SATURATION slider 20-30% in photoshop or when doing raw processing in the canon software. Similarly although I use a tripod and focus the subject at the correct points, I usually find myself wanting to increase the sharpness as well.

Is this largely due to the lens quality, or does everybody process their images like me?

Any thoughts are welcome!..I will also post some before-after pictures with 100% crops etc to show you what I mean

I also did the same. But when I switched to the 70-200 f/4 I found myslef applying less vibrance (I use LR), usually none, and less sharpening is needed on each photo.

That being said I still think that great images can come from non-L lenses and one of my all time favorite shots is from a $165 used lens.

I always used to increase saturation when I was shooting with my Fuji S5500 but since switching to an SLR, I've not needed to. If anything, I sometimes decrease saturation when shooting flowers etc.

Increasing contrast and sharpness are both pretty common post processing operations. In photoshop, I use a selective unsharp mask (that is to say, I only apply it to parts that need sharpening, no out of focus areas) and a "s" curve in the curves tool to apply contrast.

All lenses are not created equally though, your 50mm should give good results, not sure about the other two.

Here is an example of some pics I have taken today at the London Zoo...


In both sets the first photo is BEFORE, the next is AFTER (Processed to a level that I personally think is good..sharpening, contrast, saturation, levels etc.)

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Ah, tis a fine line we walk.
I to am struggling with that question and I don't want to get into the coke bottle debate since I do landscapes, although I would pick it up.

I e-bayed my sigma lens kit that I ordered with my xti and got a 17x85 IS and a 70x200 ISL. Gawd what a difference. I find myself making some minor tweaks in ACR and quitting after thinking to myslf that it looks good. Later I'll go back and tweak some more to "improve it". Almost always I'll trash those "improve it" things.

Point is, there is something to be said for leaving things the way they were created, assuming that you captured them to begin with. I do however indulge in HDR to help me capture that creation.

Here is the second set..The second photo is processed and thats the level of saturation and sharpness I like in a photo...However, I wonder if the amount and quality of the daylight at that moment can alter even more expensive lenses? and how much processing does, say, an L user does ? How often does anyone gets photos like the first one down the page, with an L lens?

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With proper exposure, proper contrast, I find that I never go farther than +2 on saturation but I find a +10 in vibrance works for me.

I use Adobe1998, a calibrated monitor and (somewhat) camera.

+20-30 on saturation for photorealism is far too much in my books. For artwork it's relative.

I posted a shot in people today that was CC'd as "too dark". Well it was dark THEN. I like pictures represented as faithfully as possible. So take my above with a grain of salt coming from the "preservation of what your eye saw" idea.

Your first set of pics looks like about the same amount of work I would do normally, regardless of lens being used. The second looks like it required a little more contrast and sharpness which I find is not required as much on shots taken with my newly aquired L.

My PP time is less and less these days but I contribute that to my knowlege of exposure more so than my lens. The lens just added to the mix.

Cosworth, In2Photos, Cyth0n and chauncey...Thank so much for your inputs, greatly appreciated.

Yeah especially the post process sharpness. For things like Saturation and Vibrance I tend to try to hold back in, traditionally I went overboard on the sat I generally don't go much more then 2-4 notches of sat and 6-10 for vibrance. I usually bring up the blacks and the sharpness in all my photos. I'm finding I'm using saturation much less though as I start taking better pictures though.(or at least attempting to)