Why Edit Your Photographs?

Frankly, it’s a question I’ve never thought about. Ever since I starting shooting digitally, and ever since I became aware of software available to edit, I’ve edited. But I’m preparing a short talk for a group of hobbyist photographers and I’ve discovered that some of them don’t edit, have never edited and have never considered editing. I find that fascinating. We will talk more about why they don’t edit in a bit.

There is a long standing debate about in-camera skills vs. post-processing skills. From the early days of photography, and rightly so, it was decisions about framing, composition, exposure, and using natural light and shadow properly that determined the end result. I agree with that perspective and continue to refine my skills in-camera. But artists being artists, more options were discovered for adding a unique look, a mood or an effect to that end result. Today, the options can be almost endless, including AI driven editing technologies. So let’s explore that a bit further.

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Realistic or Artistic – Which is Right (For You)?

I recently listened to an absolutely superb podcast by Brenda Petrella, creator of the Outdoor Photography School. This episode was in response to several viewer questions about how much creative license is appropriate in landscape photography.

This has been a long standing debate, as you will see in Brenda’s piece – very long standing. Artists have been the subject of critical opinion for centuries. The difference since the invention of photography is that photography, by definition, is a documentary record of the light and colour in a scene. Its starting point, by definition, should be realistic. Or is it?

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