About post processing

[Nordentro]

There are different workflows, some people do not apply PP on this forum, others try to give the picture that little extra boost with software.

What is your workflow with legacy lenses?
(If the Poll options don`t fit, make a comment instead)

[LucisPictor]

I would need a chance to give a multiple answer.

x - I sometimes do alot of PP

x - I try to do minimum of PP on this forum to present a honest description of lens abilities og character

[visualopsins]

Depends on which forum images gets posted!

In Galleries and "Best of" forums I use PP to make the image the best it can be. (well I try to do that )

In "Manual Focus Lenses" forum if the goal is to be able to compare lenses, I think images posted need to have as little pp as possible.

A sharpened image does not represent well, the focus or bokeh of the lens. Same with altered image contrast. Images without any Sharpness and Contrast adjustments are much preferred when comparing lenses.

Also important is unaltered levels -- the image should be properly exposed, not corrected in pp.

Resize is usually okay, but also show camera-pixel level "100%" crops, prefer center, & at least one corner.

Before and After pp images would be useful too!

[calvin83]

Lens performance will be different on different sensors and different image processors ...

For photos which used for lens evaluation, I use the same camera, adjust exposure and WB individually, and keep all other settings the same across all the photos. By doing this, the result will be comparable across the lenses.

[SonicScot]

I only shoot RAW, so I need to pp every image.

[Aanything]

For "casual" shooting (holidays, trips etc.) I try to get the best possible shot in camera. Sometimes it's possible, sometimes not, depending on light conditions. When it's not, I expose thinking on how I will post process the image, so I shoot the image that will give me a better base for pp rather than the best possible exposure (sometimes the two are the same).
Then I almost always shoot raw, so I fiddle with them all when I download the pics, but if a picture is ok out of the camera it's better.

When I do more staged shots (usually it's for video), on the other hand, pp is a fundamental part of the process, and it usually is quite heavy and time consuming.

[visualopsins]

[miran]

[visualopsins]

[miran]

Well, then just select the neutral profile. You can select no colour profile as well if you want. Btw, just for the sake of curiosity I made a comparison. Three images: first one is completely raw, second one is converted with absolutely no processing other than demosaicing and colour profile and the third is a normally processed one (exposure, curve, white balance, crop, etc.):



I have a feeling most people don't really know what they're talking about when they say "unprocessed photo".

[visualopsins]

[TAo2]

Surely an "unprocessed" raw would simply be 1s and 0s...

[cooltouch]

My post processing ranges from resizing only to a heavy amount of pp. It all depends on the photo and/or the situation. If I'm doing a lens test, for example, and I want to post the results at a forum such as this one, then typically all I'll do is resize the images. But if I'm after getting the maximum "look" from an image, then I'll pull out all the stops.

I have found from experience that, if I do a lot of pp to an image, often when I look at it the next day, I won't like it at all because it looks like too much was done to it. So I'll redo it, scaling things down some. If it still looks good the next day, then it's probably a keeper. I've found this "cooling off period" to be very important when it comes to the final appearance of an image.

[miran]

[visualopsins]

[SonicScot]

[vroger]

I shoot raw, I normally show a before and after if it's about a lens on the manual lens forum to show what it looks like before processing, and then to show how good a image can look from the lens. Personally, I think that is important.

[visualopsins]

+1 vroger

For lens comparisons, and in a forum dedicated to lens comparisons, use unprocessed images.

For lens showcase, use PP to get the very best from image lens produces.

[cooltouch]

[visualopsins]

[cooltouch]

[visualopsins]

[cooltouch]

You need to go back and reread what I wrote before the sentence you quoted. If I set the in-camera sharpness to a certain value, then both lenses are being subject to the same algorithm, so I don't see how it matters. If I leave the sharpness setting to its default value, how is that any different from applying sharpness to the image? It isn't. It's just a different value. So, however you want to look at it, you can't escape the fact that a sharpness utility is being applied to the image.

Anyway, it has been my experience that if critical focus is achieved with a lens, using a sharpening utility only results in adding noise and artifacts to the image. It doesn't get any sharper. So there's no point in using an external sharpening utility. All the in-camera sharpening function is doing, imo, is making sure the image is being displayed with a maximum level of sharpness before it becomes degraded.

With that EOS, I found that I could tweak the camera's sharpness setting upward a moderate amount without the images suffering degradation from artifacts. That camera defaulted to a setting of 3 out of a possible 7. 3 is dull, dull, dull. Quite soft. It usually required that I sharpen the image in Canon's DPP raw conversion utility. I found that if I set the in-camera sharpness to 5, the images are not adversely affected, and I don't have to sharpen them in DPP.

But that was the EOS, which isn't getting used much anymore. Now I'm shooting with the NEX 7, which doesn't have an internal sharpness setting. I usually don't use the Image Data Converter software that came with the NEX, which does have a sharpness control and which behaves similar to unsharp masking. Instead I use the raw utility built into Paint Shop Pro VII, my preferred image processing software, and its raw converter doesn't have a sharpness tool. So when you see lens comparison images that I've taken with my NEX, you can be assured that no sharpening was done to them.

[philslizzy]

None of the answers reflect what I do. Just basic levels and crop. NEVER sharpening.

[visualopsins]