Unit Five : Post Processing
Chelsea London © 2017 | Fujifilm X-E1 | 27.0 mm | ƒ/7.1 | 1/500s | ISO 200Following on from our Lesson #6 on Digital Workflow a few weeks ago we’re going to get started on what you can do with your raw files that you’ve shot in previous weeks. Capturing your image in camera can be only half of the photographic process, the other half which we refer to as post processing. This can be where your image comes alive, where you can increase contrast, add pop and color and fulfill the idea you had in your head when you hit the shutter button. That being said, plenty of people are happy with an out-of-camera jpeg or a quick film simulation or preset applied, there’s also nothing wrong with this!
You’ll notice that for this week's lesson, we are using Adobe Lightroom Classic, this is just our personal choice for editing software. The broad concepts outlined here will apply to editing no matter what particular editing software you are using. Most tools/steps will have a direct equivalent, though they may not use the exact same name/terminology. We also want to mention this is not an exhaustive editing tutorial, but something foundational to give you the vocabulary and knowledge to search for more information on particular steps, software features or editing concepts.
Again, we do highly recommend using a piece of software that integrates digital asset management, some options are:
Apple Photos (included with MacOS)
Other non-digital asset management options include:
Here is a quick reminder before you start editing:
Make sure you’ve imported your images and aren’t somehow editing your image on a memory card.
Make sure your images are backed up.
Make sure you’ve tagged, keyworded and filed your images appropriately - make life easy for future you!
Make sure you’ve disabled night mode etc. otherwise, you won’t get an accurate rendition of your image.