How much work goes into a really good photo?

[sir pball]

I thought spending a half hour in Lightroom/PS was excessive, but little did I know...this makes my head spin.



http://www.luminous-landscape.com/1photo-pages/the_making_of_the_pilbara_storm.shtml

[MichaelSoE]

1. A whole lot ... and sometimes not much at all

It has always been my experience that it all begins with a good basic exposure. Then the darkroom work and what the photographer wants to achieve.

I am not sure spending hours is always needed to create the end image. I have exposures that I work on over and over and what the end results did for me 5 years ago has changed. Then again, some of my best (favorite) images require little darkroom work, others require hours, days, years and then I will want to change it again.

That's the beauty of photography. Like Mr. Adams said ... the negative is the score and the print is the performance.

I think it would be fun to post a photo that all in the group could download and then repost their interpretation in the thread after they worked their darkroom magic. Any takers??

[sir pball]

2. I'd be in with that

I love making the image on the screen match the one in my head..

[ManiacJoe]

8. One of the photography sites I frequent does this.

Lots of fun. The hard part is finding good images to enter into the process.

[NV Whino]

3. Dude could have saved himself a lot of time and stopped at step three

I really don't find overly processed photos appealing.

[Johnny Noshoes]

5. I'm with you on that...

lord knows I love to play around with an image. I think this one is WAY over done. I have taught myself to STOP messing with a photo at a certain point. It is either going to work or not after a certain amount of tinkering.

[RC]

6. +10

I don't see the appeal either.

[groundloop]

7. Agreed. That image doesn't appeal to me

For some reason (maybe it's my inner science nerd) I dislike photos that just don't appear to be real. And this one falls into that category. It's way over-processed for my taste.

I've done some photos of my daughter where she's talked me into re-touching her skin etc., those can take up to an hour to get the results I want (of course I don't do that day-in and day-out either so I'm not as good as the pros). And then there are some which I fiddle with for days until I like them. I have one of my son and daughter with selective color (the trees behind them are black and white), that's one I played with for days but my wife loves the results and that's what counts.

Mostly though all I do is basic adjustments of the raw image (exposure, white balance, contrast, and crop) to suit my taste. Maybe a minute or so per photo is all that takes.

[ManiacJoe]

9. I would have probably stopped at step 4.

Probably with a little less intensity.

However, depending on the type of printing you sometimes need to amp things up to where they don't look so good on a computer screen.

[sir pball]

10. Like it or not, it's the new normal

With digital, it seems that the processing has become as much a show of skill as the original shot; if you look at the rest of the Loupe Award winners most of the landscapes are done up that much. I like it, but that's just me.

[alfredo]

4. Ok, I will post an image to this forum for you guys to play with.

All that has been done is resize. "Edit challenge" will be the thread subject.

[ConcernedCanuk]

11. Years of taking thousands of pictures.

.
.
.

I started around 1956 with a "brownie" Kodak



who remembers them! ??

CC

[RC]

13. Remember them? I had one as a kid.

[Stevenmarc]

12. It's very Peter Lik'ian

The premier Australian landscape photographer in love with over-tweaked landscape, must be something in the water.

[Celebration]

14. lol

I don't really get why people are attracted to these types of photos. It is just a mystery to me!

It is a bit like the photographic version of Thomas Kinkade paintings.

Nature is beautiful enough without turning it into something garish that shocks the senses.

That is not to say that I don't mess around with photos. Some people want things directly out of the camera with no post processing. Definitely I will not go that far. Just make nature appear natural, that is all that I ask.

[Stevenmarc]

15. Well he has 4 galleries in Vegas

Probably why garish works so well for him, lol.

[Blue_In_AK]

16. Too much for my taste.

I'm a minimalist when it comes to processing. Just a little quirk of mine.

[FourScore]

17. Fascinating! Thank you so much for posting this!

[Adsos Letter]

18. Gives me the feel of a couple of really bad dreams I've had

The type where something deeply disturbing comes walking out of that horizon, toward me.