Don't know if any one has posted this before but when you have taken your photo's do you edit them? and if you do what do you use?

I'll start but i have only just started photography. I didn't use editing software at first because i thought you wouldn't if you was using a 35mm and wouldn't have that 2nd chance to improve the picture. but now I've seen other people's work i have choose to start using them.

I used to use Paint Shop Pro about a week ago but the trial ran out so now i use Photoshop cs2 (don't ask). these programs can both improve a picture but is that a picture?

thanks for reading.

Photoshop is good, I've been using it for ages. There are many out there and if you want a free one, consider GIMP. Just google it, it's an opensource, free to download and use.

The photos I currently uploaded were taken with Canon S2IS and processed in Photoshop. But for the future upload (hopefully, still in my harddisk, and some were already uploaded in my other blog: http://ajoeh.blogspot.com) were taken with Canon S3IS and processed in GIMP for I've just migrated to Linux few months ago. It is still a photo or not depends on the extent you process it, IMHO.

you cant go wrong with photoshop... even an older version.

most people would agree that photoshop is it

i have been using Adobe Lightroom lately and can highly recommend it. Its like photoshop, but simplified for photo retouching only. This is my standard photo editing program. It's only if I want to get into filters and serious image editing that I use photoshop for my digital snaps.

You may consider two different approaches:
- Should you want to create graphical effects, working on colors, incrusting patterns,... Then a tool like PhotoShop is a must-have.
- Should you want to preserve as much as possible what you tried to capture when you shooted, but want to work on picture quality (noise, color rendering, white balance, optical aberrations...), then a tool like DXO is really a pleasure to handle ( See www.dxo.com )

Of course, the best is to have both...

The GIMP is a really solid tool too. I'm not in any position to say wether it's as good as photoshop, but it's definitely in the same ballpark, so why spend a fortune on adope instead of freeware?

Your original question about wether your picture is a picture after heavy procession is interesting. It's certainly not as genuine or true to life. But it does vary. depending on what you do. You could very well argue that by heavy processing with loads of filters and effects, one is merely making a graphic, not a photography. But I don't see any harm in light and saturation corrections.

No one's an HDRI fan in the group?

If your camera supports raw format and you do not want to spend fortune on software created by camera producer (like Nikon has Capture), then I would suggest Bibble or BibblePro (later is $29.90 if not mistaken). Basic manipulation can be done by IrfanView or Picasa, bith freewares. And one piece I strongly suggest as well as others - GIMP. As many options (don't shoot me!) as PhotoShop, maybe not as user fiendly and/or having so many different bits and bobs, but it's freeware yet again.

I've been using a digital camera now for a few months. (Olympus E-500) I think I've edited one of all the pictures I've taken. Not sure why, I guess I just don't believe in post-editing. I edit in the field. If I don't like a picture i took, I'll erase it in the field and try again. It's the beauty of digital photography.

Ive just uploaded 2 picture and they are not edited, i have GIMP on my computer but i think its hard to understand, ive only tryed it once, ill get better eventually.

Adobe photoshop and lightroom...I you do purchase this software I suggest you get a manual..

Don't edit your pics. Just post them just like they are.
It's fresh and your pics don't lool like fake ones.

That's just my point of view ;)

I've been using Adobe Lightroom and I have to say it's fantastic. You can't do a lot of the things you can do in Photoshop but you do have great control over color contrast and the overall look, better than Photoshop even. Now I use them both. I was able to get great results out of BW shots from just a Cannon Powershot Digital Elph.

I believe the following steps apply to just about every digital image, if only because digicams simply don't capture what we see:
1. Sharpen the image (in PS, unsharp mask usually does the trick)
2. Correct white balance - the camera rarely gets it right and fix any colour cast issues
3. Adjust tones / contrast to recover blow-outs or excessively dark shadows
4. Crop
5. Correct chromatic aberration and lens distortion (usually barrel distortion but also converging verticals - the impression that buildings are falling away). This is particularly the case with compacts.

I have yet to take a shot which didn't require at least one of the above. Which image editor you use is matter for personal preference and budget, but as long as you find one that does all of the above, you can't go far wrong.

Post-processing was the one nasty surprise about digital photography for me - I wanted to spend less time in front of a computer - and I like to pretend it doesn't exist to force me to think my shots through.

What constitutes a 'genuine' picture is debatable. I tend to use post-processing to restore what my eye saw, but I choose not to see blots, distracting cables, etc. I sometimes clone out distractions in the same way as I remove smudges on the lens. I wouldn't go as far as replacing skies or compositing to make something fake look real, but only because I don't want to (and I don't know how!). If at the end of the day you're happy with your creative output, does it really matter? Every image is manipulated, if only by the processor in the camera or by the darkroom developer. There is no such thing, IMO, as a direct, lossless transposition from what we see to what we capture.

Hope this helps.

Editing can reflects what you have felt when you have taken your picture with a simple camera with a bad lens which prevents a nice result.
That's why every picture I take with my poor equipment is edited,composed to show what I really wanted to show
There are so much possibilities, you can do everything you want, give a picture its real essence
It's just my point of view ^^

by all means, edit your pictures as much as you want and can and use whatever tool you like for this!

photography is no tool to picture reality... it's a tool to express how YOU see reality.

if you see it as dark, blurry, contrast less or color dull as your camera has been able to depict it, fine - just post the result of your machine. but if you try to give an impression of what attracted you to the scene in the first place, you will need all the editing tools in the world to get a little closer to that - because what you camera can depict, is only so much of that impression, no matter if you shoot with a cheap handy cam or a nikon d300.

unfortunately, using these software tools needs a little practise as well and they are of very different quality, just like camera hardware. personally, i believe photoshop is highly overrated (at least for the prize you pay), specially if you have not read thick volumes of manuals on how to deal with the software and do not own calibrated computer screens, bla bla bla.

on the other hand, cheap automatic tools like, for example, acdsee or the obnoxious microsoft office picture manager (which, believe it or not, statistically is one of the most used picture editing progs), tend to overdo their manipulation a bit - with the result of jpeg defects through oversharpening or chewing gum colors due to extreme contrast/hue changes.

but that shouldn't stop you from experimenting! in fact, only if you experiment you will finally end up with a picture that MEANS something to you... and not only to your camera or the purists that consider every click of their thumb a genuine proof of art.

my 2 cents... or was it 3? ;-)

i use picnik, it is a really easy site to use and it is free.

i do edit my photos because i enjoy changing the original image into something different, even if it is only changing from colour to B+W.

I see the editing process as artisic tool, i never change the original photo (ie putting in different skys etc) i just use whatever was in the original picture. i suppose it is my artistic views coming out in the editiing process.