Pet Peeve - "No post processing"

I see this very often in this forum. Someone posts a photo and says "no post processing - straight from the camera". The implication is that the photographer did not bump up the sharpness / color / contrast.

The truth is EVERY shot is post processed and every shot has had some level of sharpness / color & contrast adjustment. If you shot a JPG image, your fancy DIGIC processor did those adjustments. If you shot in RAW, then your raw converter did those adjustments.

A better statement would be to inform us as to what level of processing was done.

OK, I'm done whining now ...

If you shoot RAW, then you state what you used to open the file, DPP, ACR, whatever. In each of those you turn the sharpening down to 0. If you did some level adjustment I don't find that an issue since the "no post processing" requests are usually reserved for people wanting to see how sharp a lens is.

Like calibrating a monitor, we need some basis to do comparisons. If someone posts a JPG using a Picture Style of Standard, which has noticeable sharpening, and someone that posts one using Natural, which has 0 sharpening, you can't compare the 2 images.

Asl long as all the sharpening is turned off, that's good enough. The rest rarely matters when comparing how sharp one lens is compared to another, excpet for aperture....so attach the EXIF, please.

With that said, I don't even bother looking at the Picture Galleries, since most of those are post processed to the point that no real knowledge can be gained about a lenses qualities.

Actually I check out the sample galleries often when purchasing a lens. There's enough variation in there to allow me to make an informed decision. Some post processing is a given, but that's how my workflow is so seeing the end result has lots of value.

To the OP, when shooting in RAW, you can zero out the sharpening, etc. In fact I always do that and add USM in CS3. When I am trying to show the typical performance of a lens, I will not use any sharpening and provide 100% crops.

Not sure what the issue is...

n1as wrote in post #6815116
The truth is EVERY shot is post processed and every shot has had some level of sharpness / color & contrast adjustment. If you shot a JPG image, your fancy DIGIC processor did those adjustments. If you shot in RAW, then your raw converter did those adjustments.

A better statement would be to inform us as to what level of processing was done.

OK, I'm done whining now ...

That's not true in the sense of what the person is trying to convey. I can open a RAW file in Photoshop, set it for no adjustment of contrast, exposure, levels and sharpening and then convert to a JPEG.

This tells anyone looking at the file what they would first see when opening a RAW of their own, and if they are experienced at generating JPEGs and prints then they will have a very good idea from there what they could do with the image.

If I sharpen and apply other tweaks before converting the image then there is no frame of reference. You cannot post an in camera JPEG for this kind of thing either as the in camera tweaks destroy the frame of reference too.

All this applies for lens / body test or comparison shots. For art....tweak away.

nicksan wrote in post #6815279
Not sure what the issue is...

The issue is... let's all take some photos!

n1as wrote in post #6815116
I see this very often in this forum. Someone posts a photo and says "no post processing - straight from the camera". The implication is that the photographer did not bump up the sharpness / color / contrast.

The truth is EVERY shot is post processed and every shot has had some level of sharpness / color & contrast adjustment. If you shot a JPG image, your fancy DIGIC processor did those adjustments. If you shot in RAW, then your raw converter did those adjustments.

A better statement would be to inform us as to what level of processing was done.

OK, I'm done whining now ...

Well, I know this might sound crazy but when some people say no post processing, they mean 0 sharpness and no increases in contrast, saturation, or any other such thing.
I know, crazy.
If I post up a pic and say "no post processing", guess what I did. I converted a RAW image to a JPEG and posted it. That's it! No big conspiracy.

Maybe the OP means that every RAW converter does a different interpretation of the same file -- At default settings, Aperture 2 produces a VERY different image from ACR 3.x, but not necessarily better or worse. I do prefer the Aperture 2 conversions though, and the program applies a different base level of sharpening to every image, depending on what camera the file is from.

Not always the case, but I've detected that at times some folks do state "no post processing - straight from the camera" AS IF doing some PP is some kind of a photographic "sin," not realizing that in digital photography PP is an integral part of it.

SYS wrote in post #6816026
Not always the case, but I've detected that at times some folks do state "no post processing - straight from the camera" AS IF doing some PP is some kind of a photographic "sin," not realizing that in digital photography PP is an integral part of it.

Yes, that makes no sense.

The only time you need to be posting 'no PP' shots is when trying to demonstrate some technical issue with a lens or body.

SYS wrote in post #6816026
Not always the case, but I've detected that at times some folks do state "no post processing - straight from the camera" AS IF doing some PP is some kind of a photographic "sin," not realizing that in digital photography PP is an integral part of it.

It's not a sin but it is when they state... look how sharp my lens is... when you ask them about "straight from the camera".... I've had responses on this board.... JPG, was using Standard Profile and, in one case, a custom profile with sharpening set to 7. The Picture/Lens Galleries are full of similar "straight from the camera". Fortunately, most are obvious.

Personally I have always been appalled at the term "Black and White". I mean come on! Haven't we all moved past that by now?


(For those of you get indignant this is called sarcasm)

Before picture styles came along I would have said this isn't an issue. You convert RAW to JPG leaving everything set to 0.

Now you have picture styles and when using a Canon RAW converter, you have to select one picture style. The problem is that it's not clear which one is truly neutral. Is it Neutral or Faithful? Most apply some post processing, especially Landscape.

But even so, I think we generally accept that "no post processing" means not changing anything beyond simply selecting a picture style and saving as JPG.

It is true that most digital images will need some PP to reach their full potential. However, everyone's skills at doing PP varies a lot. So, if I am looking at an image someone posts I am not sure what I could achieve with the same body/lens/situation. If the discussion is about a lens (for example) I only get an idea of what the lens does if the PP is kept to a minimum or none. If the discussion is about how nice a certain church looked last Thursday, then I welcome all the PP the poster wants to do.

sheawyatt wrote in post #6816020
Maybe the OP means that every RAW converter does a different interpretation of the same file -- At default settings, Aperture 2 produces a VERY different image from ACR 3.x, but not necessarily better or worse. I do prefer the Aperture 2 conversions though, and the program applies a different base level of sharpening to every image, depending on what camera the file is from.

Exactly. I get very differerent results when converting RAW images in DPP vs LR, even with no adjustments.

And I agree with Jeffrey - the only time it matters is when you are doing some sort of comparison. Otherwise, most images are improved by some PP.

I see what you are saying with Jpeg. However your verbiage is incorrect. The camera isn't POST-processing, it's processing. It happens when you take the photo and is written to the card as a final image. POST is when it's touched up, changed or altered outside the camera it self. So even if it's a JPEG, it's still a standard image. You would have to disclose your Picture Styles and settings, but really it isn't POST processed.

As others have said, Post-Processing is done to RAW images, and are saved to a more usable form. Even RAW to JPEG depending on your setting will loose some information.