What is "Post Processing," is it used for minor touch-ups only or and full creative expression?

[JFG]

Post‑processing is the digital darkroom — It is everything that happens after you press the shutter. It includes:

• Minor corrections like exposure tweaks, white balance, sharpening, noise reduction, and spot removal. These are the “clean‑up” edits that keep the image true to life.

• Creative enhancement, where you shape mood, color, style, and storytelling. This can be subtle (a signature color grade) or wild (textures, filters, double exposures, surreal composites).
• Full artistic transformation, where the final image may look dramatically different from the original capture — the equivalent of adding brushstrokes to a painting.

Professionals overwhelmingly edit their images — 99.9% of them, according to one source — because post is where the final vision comes together.

 ️ When post is “just touch‑ups”

These are the quick, corrective edits that keep the photo natural:

• Fixing exposure or contrast

• Correcting color

• Removing dust spots or small distractions

• Sharpening details

• Reducing noise

  These are essential for clean, professional‑looking images and are considered standard practice.

  When post becomes creative

This is where you push beyond reality:

• Dramatic color grading

• Stylized lighting effects

• Texture overlays

• Artistic filters

• Double exposures (in‑camera or digital)

• Composite storytelling

These techniques let you develop a signature style and create images that feel more like artwork than documentation.

🧠 How to think about it

Post isn’t a band‑aid — it’s a creative stage. Just like pre‑production and shooting, it’s part of the full photographic workflow.

A clean, realistic edit and a wild, stylized one are both valid. The only question is: What serves the image and your vision?

 One question for you

Do you want your post‑processing to stay mostly true‑to‑life, or are you exploring a signature creative style?  The decision is yours.  Which ever route you take, "Do what you feel in your hart to be right, for you'll be criticized anyway." Eleanor Roosevelt

You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't.   What is your take on this?

[JFG]

Post‑processing is the digital darkroom — It is everything that happens after you press the shutter. It includes:

• Minor corrections like exposure tweaks, white balance, sharpening, noise reduction, and spot removal. These are the “clean‑up” edits that keep the image true to life.

• Creative enhancement, where you shape mood, color, style, and storytelling. This can be subtle (a signature color grade) or wild (textures, filters, double exposures, surreal composites).
• Full artistic transformation, where the final image may look dramatically different from the original capture — the equivalent of adding brushstrokes to a painting.

Professionals overwhelmingly edit their images — 99.9% of them, according to one source — because post is where the final vision comes together.

 ️ When post is “just touch‑ups”

These are the quick, corrective edits that keep the photo natural:

• Fixing exposure or contrast

• Correcting color

• Removing dust spots or small distractions

• Sharpening details

• Reducing noise

  These are essential for clean, professional‑looking images and are considered standard practice.

  When post becomes creative

This is where you push beyond reality:

• Dramatic color grading

• Stylized lighting effects

• Texture overlays

• Artistic filters

• Double exposures (in‑camera or digital)

• Composite storytelling

These techniques let you develop a signature style and create images that feel more like artwork than documentation.

🧠 How to think about it

Post isn’t a band‑aid — it’s a creative stage. Just like pre‑production and shooting, it’s part of the full photographic workflow.

A clean, realistic edit and a wild, stylized one are both valid. The only question is: What serves the image and your vision?

 One question for you

Do you want your post‑processing to stay mostly true‑to‑life, or are you exploring a signature creative style?  The decision is yours.  Which ever route you take, "Do what you feel in your hart to be right, for you'll be criticized anyway." Eleanor Roosevelt

You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't.   What is your take on this?

[March411]

The process is basically the same only the platform has changed.

Let’s not be mistaken a good or great image starts with the photographer and camera, a quality capture always rules. Nothing written here should be confused with the fact that the old adage garbage in, garbage out applies. Post production is a tool to help refine, not fix all the images that we (including me) have all taken that are simply unpleasant.

Back in the day when I was still shooting film Kodak’s Panatomic-X was almost always loaded in one of my bodies, the dynamic range was incredible. I personally found it open doors to further my creativity. You could push this film both in camera, the lab and when it hit the enlarger.

I enjoyed shooting lower speed films because of their ability to allow me to become a little more creative in post-production. Longer development baths, different developer solutions gave me the capacity to bring for wonderful tones across the range and more times than not grain (noise) free images. Get the negatives into a carrier, slide it into the enlarger, a little burning, maybe some dodging, extended the developer bath and presto a stunning image.

Times change but many of the same opportunities are available and valued in the digital photography post processes. Today’s advanced software applications offer so much convenience to photographers that have shifted to digital photography, especially those shooting in the Raw format.  I am of the opinion that post production is an essential element of photography, it increases image quality and produces stunning visuals to our audiences.

Let’s not be confused, many beautiful images can be generated out of the camera but with some minor tweaks an image can become refined and magnificent. Post production processing is a beneficial step for refining images to present a more impactful representation of what the photographer sees looking through the viewfinder, it gives us the ability to accurately depict what we visualized in real life. Quite simply, it gives us the power to extend our artistic and creative goals. It also gives us the capability to overcome many limitations of produced by the natural environment or our equipment (high ISO noise, optical distortion, vignetting).  Adjustments can be made to the camera setting but these settings are somewhat limited, post production simply opens the photographer to a considerable number of additional tools.

Color Grading	Vibrance and Saturation	Color Correction	Filters and Visual Effects
Curves	Crop and resizing for improved composition	Exposure	Noise Reduction
Sharpening	White Balance	Levels	Highlights and Shadows

Learn from my mistakes, things to keep in mind in your post production processing.

• Editing you’re the original file. Things can go awry and you may need to start from scratch. If you have auto-save or have saved the file yourself there is very little chance of going back.
• Rushing your post production process. It doesn’t need to be done in a single process. Many times, it’s best to take a break, walk away and review the image later to make sure you’ve reached your goal and are satisfied with the finished image.
• Cropping, whenever possible it is suggested that you maintain your crop ratio in standard formats. This may not always be feasible when attempting to crop out negative space.
•  Concentrating on only you subject and not the background/surroundings. Balance is vital, working exclusively on enhancing your subject can be visually distracting and appear artificial.
• Conversely, only making global adjustments to an image will not always produce the results you may want to obtain. Highlights and shadows are a great example and to achieve balance you may have to use masks to achieve your desired results.
• Fix/resolve that crooked horizon.
• Use but don’t abuse the spot healing.
• Enhancing or editing beyond what is lifelike.  Unnatural skin smoothing, unbalanced subject to background enhancements, excessive vibrance/saturation, excessive sharpening/noise reduction. Any of these can diminish your final image presentation.
• Saving your final images, again this is a function much like your original file. Save it as a different format, one that applies to how you will present the final image.