I think that some of the attitudes expressed here, related to postprocessing tend to be rationalizations. Way back when, some photographers shot, took their photos to a pro developer and got the prints or slides. Others did a lot of work in the darkroom burning, dodging and experimenting, in order to improve their photos. The ones who did not do darkroom work, proclaimed themselves as purists, but one wonders whether they had darkrooms or the skill and expertise to modify their prints. Those that did, got really creative in some cases and got really ahead of the wave, in producing super quality prints.

Digital came in and post processing switched from the darkroom to the computer, but some things did not change. Those who were perhaps less computer literate or less comfortable with photo editing software declared themselves camera purists and true photgraphers whereas those using Photoshop instead of a darkroom were using postprocessing as a crutch to make bad photography look good. Those with a critical eye were using postprocessing to bring the recorded image closer to what their eye actually saw at the moment the photo was taken.

As Photo-John has indicated at well, every photo requires post processing. The challenge is to avoid reducing quality, sharpness, colour, impact, or adding noise, artifacts, purple, dark or white fringing, during the course of post-processsing. It is certainly not easy and some photographers are willing to learn and determined to accomplish this goal, whereas others with less confidence perhaps use the rationalization of being a camera purist.

The current trend in the industry tends to be a balance. Filters, lighting and all the usual film techniques are used in digital as well, before the shot is taken and afterwards postprocessing is used to improve detail, colour, sharpness, and exposure.

Some have asked where is the line between a photo and an image. I think the line is related to believability. Green or yellow colours in the sky tend to be overdoing the post-processing. Bleeding colours, particularly reds, is overdoing the saturation. Dead red colours with bright greens is messing with colour balance or the RGB controls. The too common loss of detail in the white and black of BW shots indicates too much fiddling with contrast.

So, where are you in the learning process? Are you comfortable with computer photo-editing? Do you post-process? Do you perhaps rationalize your lack of post-processing? Do you recognize that you do not have the critical eye to problem-solve some of the issues that come up in postprocessing? If you do Photoshop, do you achieve quality results through a careful organized approach or do you create more problems than you solve through postprocessing?

Ronnoco