Photoshopping...

Didn't want to steal UF's thread, so I started this one.

My process is almost identical to his. I've actually had this up for a while, just thought it might be interesting in light of Frank's thread.

The step by step details are here:
http://www.ximinasphotography.com/lessons/lesson07/workflow.html - there's 5 pages, so the part with photoshop comes at the end.

This one was actually pulled from the bin for an example that goes through my entire post processing steps. Most of my images are not this bad and I basically just batch process my NEF's through NC to make TIFFs with minor corrections to a few.

Original image:


Final image:


A before and after example:




Is all this unethical? I dunno, but it gets me end results like these that my clients are happy with:

 

Frank: Thanks... Not really patience, more like perserverance. I'm pretty impatient and really hate processing pics.

David: Yup, I use a Wacom Intuos 2 6x8 (which covers 3 monitors). The thing is my main screen is only 17" I really need to get a 22" monitor for more real estate. The major issue I have is I'm always scrolling around the image and its gets to be a pain.

I don't know about using a mouse, as I've never tried it. Though I think it would be much tougher. The pressure sensitivity makes it easy to clean up large and small debris without having to constantly adjust brush sizes.

 

Wow Gaye, Thanks... I'm sure you probably know most of it anyways. It's written more for amateurs and/or noobs.

 

That would be ME I am an amateur and a noob
Well, it certainly doesn't show from your work. You look more like you've been doing this stuff longer than me.


and have just learned to spell 'aperture'
This is going to sound really stupid, but I made up 280 slides for a presentation and discovered how to spell aperture (I spelled it aperature). And I had to go through all my slides and fix it where it popped up.

That was a few months ago - the slides were a prelude to these lessons.

Thanks! for your thoughtful comments. I always wondered how you managed to catch most of my posts. If it weren't for you, methinks there would be far fewer responses in my posts - its comments like yours that keep me posting

 

Gaye: Wow! 8 kids! Wow!

uh.. Wow! Do I have respect for you. I'm pulling my hair out with 2!

a 2nd grade teacher too? I think you're the one with the patience, definately not me.

Wow.


Flew: LOL... I kept misspelling it till I did a write up and the word processor's spell checker caught it.

I swear I'm not misspelling it - I think the dictionary misspelled it.

RE: Ximina's name - the X is pronounced as a Z as in Xylophone. So it's ZI-mee-na (I'm an idiot with those pronounciation things).

In some parts of the world the X is prounced like an 'S' (such as in the Vietnamese language). So our relatives and friends call her Sa-mee-na.

One time at the doctor's office, they called her "EX-mee-na."

But we all call her, and she calls herself "ZI-mee-na" Sissy of course, calls er mee-na, and Ximina's always correcting her.

Okay.... Dumb story time. We couldn't figure out a name for her, and as I was driving my wife to the hospital to have our daughter delivered, I pulled the name out of the air, and we agreed.


UncleFrank: I, obviously, suscribe to your ideals on post processing. I started a thread in DPR discussing this issue. Got some quite interesting responses.

As far as charging the clients. Nah, I just emphasize how detrimental it is in the final image - i.e., unsharp, washed out looking photos, and stress that I make no guarentees that the image will look like the ones they see on my website, and they usually promptly shut off the pump. If they don't I simply process half the amount of photos, since it takes me twice as long.