Photography - Post Processing and the importance of

[proenca]

Hi there folks,

See many people asking what camera you have, etc etc.

Cameras have an importance on photography but there is a common wrong assumption : that cameras make the photography.

Cameras make 5 or 10% of the photography. The guy that clicks the shutter makes 60 or 70% of the initial shot and the rest is entirely up to post processing.

Smooth skin tones on VOGUE covers ? Photoshop or similar

Vivid colors but still managing to look natural ? Post processing.

Great black and white pictures ? They usually 90% of the time, these days are digital. Meaning that 90% of them start as colour photographs.

As Ansel Adams once said, one of our century great photographers said once : you dont take a photo - you create it.

People that want to take a decent picture of their fish and corals should invest in a couple of photography books : one for photography basics ( post processing is great but you need a decent picture to start with ) and one of post processing.

Here's a good example, a photo I took in Berlin last year :



Looks quite simple, quite dull. But at the time I saw this and I thought : humm good black and white potential here, nice and contrasty it would be.

If I would boost colours, it would be still a dull photo. Just a saturated dull photo

But turning it to black and white and tweaking it for 10 minutes, I got this :



Quite a difference and trust me, this large is a sight to behold This small size dont do it justice.

As promised I'm building a web tutorial to give some quick lessons on aquarium photography with emphasis on post processing

[nanoreefing4fun]

Thanks Gonçalo, keep the tips coming !

[Reefmack]

Nice thread Gonçalo. In the B&W photo the sky looks very grainy - is that due to the software processing, the posted image size being larger, or was it just not as visible in the original color photo?

I've always enjoyed Ansel Adams' photos - amazing detail!