Processing styles: A thought for conversation:

heatherfeather

Actions... Presets... Processing...
I have seen several different takes on using processing in wedding photos and other sets. Lets chat about it and share where you fall, okay? :lust {I just love how dogmatic everyone gets about their point of view, haha. It makes me laugh.}

Some different thoughts I have heard from many photographers with great frequency:

1. Traditional is better. You don't want the processing to be the thing that dates a photo in 10 years. Stick to B & W, or full color with some pop. Where selective color went, texture and cross processing will be sure to follow. :andy

2. Keep the number of processing styles to an absolute maximum of 4 styles. You want some consistency in your set, before grandma starts twitching. :huh

3. Process the entire set with something fun and funky! Lets party! (Textures; Cross processing; desaturate with glow; supersaturate with glow... etc x 1,000,000) :ps

4. Within a set, use processing in a series of photos to convey "these go together". Use it to express when a story begins and a story ends....:rutt

5. I don't care what the processing looks like so long as the skin tones are somewhat right.:lol

6. I have changed my white balance in this set so many times my eyes are crossing. :fu

7. Selective color is out? What?:gone Doesn't really matter since the client just loooves it.

Wachel

<--- Settling in with some popcorn to see what people have to say!

Moogle Pepper

I'm with #2. But I been doing more black and whites these days.

shming

We fall into the traditional is better category. As far as processing photos, we do mostly dodge and burning via blending modes and masks. (is that confusing?). Screen Blending mode for dodging, and Multiply Blending mode for Burning. Other than that... not really into the whole processing thing.

zoomer

The longer I do this the more traditional I get. Color and black and white..a texture here and there...one or two tilts in a set.
For shots I like I may look at them with 5 or 6 different processing styles....then I wait a day and go back and look a them again...what looked cool the day before suddenly looks over the top and I usually pick color or black and white.

One saying I like is "the greatest hindrance to creativity is the fear that you may be wrong". So I go with what I like....no rules for me. Having said that I am working to be much more experimental and edgy on my portraits (a work in process)....much more so than on weddings.

Kinkajou

#5 and #6.

Light_prod

changes per wedding as I want it to suite the style of couple and the feel of the wedding. But as a rule, the more natural the better.

Matthew Saville

Yep, everybody goes through an initial phase or two, but in the long run they usually settle on a style that is either as timeless as possible, OR they make a business decision to simply offer whatever is the hot item.

Honestly, it's not just art it's also business, and if you've got a product that sells than go for it. That's a personal business decision.

Personally, I am indeed a fan of simple, clean processing. I do a few random "popular techniques" every now and then, just for fun, but I do keep it to a minimum.

I firmly believe that if an image has light, composition, timing and posing, then you shouldn't have to photoshop an image AT ALL for it to blow people away. At least, that is always my aspiration when clicking a shot.

=Matt=

theprincereturns

I would go with #1. Although reading these make me realize i need to be carefull to keep the pictures consistent. I do more portrait work where there isn't as much of a story to tell, and i try to get several different looks so the client can pick which ones they like the best.

Sventekoz

I think this article is relevant here: http://thegoldensieve.com/high-and-low/. I thought it was a very interesting read.

mmmatt

From the standpoint of creative processing, I do whatever happens to be floating my boat at the time. Images sometimes "scream out" for a certain type of processing in my mind. I try to use processing to encourage the emotion I see. For instance if a bride has a classic look in a certain image I may do an old timey type processing to encourage people seeing the image to get the same feelings that I am getting. When I started out I was just b&w and color. Then I found actions and went overboard for a little while, and now I am more modest in my processing and always try to compliment the image and not make the processing the first thing people see. Quite often less is more, but sometimes I hit something heavy to drive home an emotion or otherwise convey a message. When I have redundancy I will often do similar images in different processing styles so that the customer gets some variety. At the end of the day, probably 60% of my images come right out of camera raw and of the other 40% a good half of them are b&w and I get good response from the faded photograph/spit tone type processing I use (modified rad action "pool party"), but that is one style that doesn't fit just any old situation. A number of images get worked over in color and some get corrected with cloning or whatever. I do a lot of cropping and straightening, a basic sharpen and NR in raw. I try to correct white balance in every image individually. This is particularly important for me indoors because I wall bounce so often and walls are rarely white. I do almost -0- facial/skin retouching. If someone has a lot of acne or something I do, but I don't airbrush like a lot of you girls do. I like skin to look like skin, and if you are going to smooth out every pore in a brides face you may as well change her eye color from my standpoint. From front to back my photography is about showing people how beautiful they ARE, as opposed to trying to make people beautiful. Soft light, and directional light both go a long way in that regard as does patiently waiting for the moment.