The Importance of Post-Processing

Probably the most important thing a photographer can have is a vision of what a final image should look like. This is what Ansel Adams called “pre-visualization” and it is ten times more important than what kind of camera you have. Great vision = great art, regardless of the tool used.

One, oft-neglected, area of bringing that vision into the final print is post-processing–what you do with that image on your memory card before you print or post it. In the old days, this post-processing took place in the darkroom with adjustments to developing time with the negative, then many adjustments during the actual printing process. If you think there was no manipulation being done to images before the digital days you would be quite wrong–a subject maybe I’ll delve into more deeply in the future with some great historical examples.

Below, I have posted two versions of the same image. It is an image called “Moonset Beside Longs Peak” from a previous post.

On the left is the original file as it came from the camera. On the right is the image after I post-processed it. I took the original RAW file, made a few slight adjustments in Lightroom (mostly sharpening, contrast), then converted it to monochrome with a Nik plug-in called Silver Efex Pro (using a preset which I adjusted slightly), and finally made some further minor adjustments in Photoshop (bumping up the contrast a bit more, for example). The final image is much closer to my vision than what initially showed up on my LCD screen after I pressed the shutter.

Is the image an exact replication of reality? No, but it does reflect my vision and that was my goal–and the post-processing helped me get there.