Post Processing Software

Confucius

One of the chief differences between film photography and digital photography is what goes on after the shutter button is pressed.

In film photography images are recorded in the emulsion layer on plastic film, which has to be developed before you can see if what youive shot is what you wanted to shoot.

In digital photography you can see the results of your efforts almost immediately; nearly every digital camera sold today has a screen which allows you to examine your shots, some cameras will even let you tweak those photos (but I wouldnit do that until you get them on a larger screen).

In both cases, however, thereis one thing that hasnit changed, thatis the ability of the photographer to see the potential images in photos he or she has taken.

No matter what you shoot or how good your equipment is, you will always need to tweak the images to make them the best they can be, and thatis where post processing software comes in.

What is post processing software? In general, it is any software that you use to manipulate a photo once youive downloaded it onto your computer. That definition covers a lot of software, from the apps camera makers include with their cameras that remove red-eye and make basic color adjustments to packages costing hundreds, even thousands of dollars that can manipulate each bit of the photographs data. Every application has one goal, to help you make the images youive taken better.

What done I mean by ibetteri? Well, better is subjective, what looks great coming out of the camera to one person may require a lot of work in the eyes of another. Post processing software will help you get the most out of your photos and is just as important to the digital photographer as the darkroom is to the film photographer.

In this installment of The Postulant Photographer, Iill take a look at several post processing applications, including Adobeis Photoshop Elements and The GIMP, the open source and very capable imaging app.

Weive got a lot of information to cover so letis get started.

Post Processing: Why We Need To
As I mention earlier, the photos that come out of your camera are likely not the photos that you intended to put in it. As good as many digital and film cameras are, they do not have the ability to capture images they way see them. Thatis because a camera is just a recorder: A collection of lenses, sensors, and processors that record light in an instance of time. Humans, however, see with our minds. The images that our eyes capture are immediately interpreted into something meaningful by our minds. We canit help it, it is extremely difficult for us to purposefully look at something (what the camera does) without seeing it (what our mind does with what we look at). So every image we record must be interpreted into something that our minds can understand and, hopefully, appreciate.

To accomplish this the film photographer turns to his darkroom, where he practices arcane magic, mixing mysterious chemical soups, performing strange rituals and dances, and fiddling with exotic machinery in an effort to produce a meaningful photograph.

Digital photographers have it somewhat easier, but no less mysterious. Through the magic of computers, we have at our disposal a seemingly endless list of tools we can use to do things to photos that no film photographer ever could. All we need to do is learn how to use these tools, which, unfortunately, is no easy task.

Iive divided the post processing applications Iill be talking about into three categories:

• Light Weight – These tools can perform basic photo tweaking tasks like red-eye removal and minor color adjustments. They can also help with organizing and sharing your photos. These tools require little training and take hardly anytime to understand and use.
• Medium Weight – These tools can do a lot more to your photos like allow refined exposure adjustment, basic photo blending, and the use of filters which can do all sorts of interesting things to you pictures. These tools can take a bit of effort to understand and use effectively, but they are designed so that newbies can get some real use out of the tools with little effort.
• Heavy Weight – These tools are used by pros and can do darn near anything to a digital photo. These applications require the most training to understand and use properly. Some folks have based their entire careers on effectively using these high-end applications, and can command a fairly decent salary for their efforts. Be prepared to take some type of training if you intend to use these heavy hitters, and I can guaranty that what ever training you take wonit cover everything youill need to know.

The Light Weights
If you use a Mac you have one of the best light weight photo applications on the market: iPhoto. Apple has done a wonderful job in making iPhoto an easy to use tool. Plug a camera or memory card into your Mac and iPhoto downloads the images so you can organize and tweak them. iPhoto also has some basic adjustment tools such as cropping, red-eye removal, and color enhancing, which lets the casual photographer make his or her good photos look great.