It's always helpful when clients understand what is happening behind the scenes - in the digital age it's all too often assumed that a professional photographer has is easy - yet many photographers will look back in fondness at the days of film when processing was normally placed in the hands of a laboratory and the photographer could put his feet up after a shoot!
So what's the difference between the process that may be familiar to you using a 'point and shoot' digital camera and that employed by a professional photographer? Well, ignoring all the time spent preparing for a shoot (longer than many shoots!) here's a few significant steps in the process that Scott Hortop (the photographer behind Light Touch) typically employs:
Step 1 Shoot in 'RAW'
When you use a typical digital camera, the camera itself does a lot of processing in creating a digital file - a .jpg image file. In most conditions this processing delivers a good image, but often it does not. And because the processing loses information (amongst other things the .jpg may be compressed substantially) subsequent processing in a computer to modify things often yields poor results.
Scott shoots in 'RAW' - this records all the original digital information making no significant in camera changes. This RAW file can subsequently be opened in specialist software and then judgments can be made on what tonal or colour changes need to be applied. And because no information has been lost, very significant changes can be made without degrading the image.
Put simply - shooting RAW maximises the potential quality from each and every image. Realising that potential is dependent on skilled post-processing.
Step 2 Download and backup images to computer, initial review
Shooting in RAW, we are dealing with big image files (and potentially hundreds of them) taking up large volumes of storage space. After downloading to a computer, depending on what you a looking for as a client (it may be one good final image or 50), the images that simply do not work are edited out.
Step 3 Initial image processing
Each of the retained images is examined and changes are made to the tonal quality and colour balance so that all of the images look good - time efficiencies mean that it's senseless to make fine adjustments to each image at this stage when it's likely only a smaller proportion will be finally used. So while these images look good - they will not necessarily at their best.
They are however certainly good enough for a selection of final images to be made. So all these images are loaded to a web site for review by you, the client. (Unlike processes used by some photographers, only you will see these images).
4 Final preparation
You are now well placed to choose the final images that you might be using. These are re-examined in much greater detail. Depending upon the final use, what happens at this stage will vary but normally the tonal and colour adjustments will be fine tuned, the image examined for digital blemishes and these 'spotted' out. Specialist noise reduction software may be used if the images were captured in low light. Depending on your final use you may be supplied with these images in different sizes and
5 Detailed retouching
Although the changes made at step 4 will give as near a technically perfect file as is possible, sometimes a further step is required to retouch the image. This is usually because a client wants the image presented in a way other than as it was naturally captured. Here changes are made to specific areas of the image - for example, the main subject to be isolated (eg on a white background) or distracting background detail removed.
What if you want the images burned to disc at the shoot?
This is possible, however there are limitations and it is not advisable if quality is paramount.
One of the reasons for the images not necessarily being at their best is that the processing will have to be done on a laptop. The screen on a laptop is unfortunately not as good as a dedicated and calibrated standalone monitor.
Also processing is time consuming - especially steps 4 or 5 as described above and these steps will normally be omitted.
There is a potential advantage in processing at the time of the shoot and that is that you can get involved in the processing and the process itself can be fine tuned to needs. Another advantage is that you receive high resolution .jpg files of all the images. You also get them quickly.
Please note that even if short cuts are taken at least one hour should be allowed for processing and burning to CD. If images require spotting (for unavoidable dust on the sensor) or delicate adjustment for white balance then the process can take a lot longer.
All processing time is charged for as part of the shoot. The more images, the longer it takes.
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