I recently (well, it’s been months by now) made the leap towards a proper camera as I felt I wanted to explore the hobby a bit deeper after years of taking photos on my phone that I considered were purely for my own artistic sake.
So far, it’s been a journey and a joy , but lately I have been messing around on learning photo editing, and it’s been a struggle making sense of all the tools and modules in darktable (lots of stumbling blindly and less blindly).
I figure over time I’ll get the hang of it as I use it more, thankfully I came across many resources in the forums (Many thanks to the people who put them together) so I think I’ll be busy for a while working through them but I digress as that’s not what I wanted to discuss.
Recently I have taken to editing my photos, which I have not done previously (I have quite the backlog to revisit) so I wanted to view your thoughts on choosing an editing intent / direction.
When we take photos, sometimes there’s a vision, sometimes there isn’t (there’s also the case of having one and forgetting it), but for those cases where we open the image and have no preconceived direction…what do you do?
I understand in the artistic sense, there’s no wrong way but do you…
Mess around and see what comes up?
Look at the features of the image and let it inform what to do?
Recreate that moment?
Try to achieve a specific style?
Plan what to do in detail?
or maybe some other way that I haven’t mentioned?
Personally, when I don’t get an idea at first, I struggle to continue.
This one ended up a bit tricky for me because I genuinely didn’t know how to approach it. In the end, I spend some time remembering what was it like in the dock when I took the photo, then I tried to recreate that soft glow sunset that was happening at the time.
PS: This is my first time contributing to the forum so hopefully this is something worth discussing and feel free to play around with the photo if that’s just want you want to do.
Thanks for sharing and great question…I’m sure you will get a variety of feedback that might in the end equal…all of the above for your questions
Nice photo. As far as editing I almost always look at the image and let it inform me what to do. After you edit thousands of photos and make thousands of mistakes you get a sense of what you want to do with the photo. Very seldom do I try to achieve a style - other than black and white.
Very interesting topic. I think the approach for editing depends very much on what you want to achieve. I have some goals here that apply to me for different projects:
Fun (most important). This is what I use for pictures I get from pixls.
Special project, like a calender or a photo to be put on the wall or similar.
Create a portfolio of images with a specific style in mind.
Documentation / storage purpose.
As soon as you know what you goal is it might be easier to chose a direction to go forward.
I wouldn’t say trying to maintain a sort of natural looking edit is boring, certainly might be what comes easier (at least to me after messing and stumbling with the sliders) but perhaps there’s some merit in trying to retain its nature given what we saw with our eyes earned a photo.
Look at the features of the image and let it inform what to do? Most of the times, After looking on a picture I usually have after a short time my own picture forming in my head
Recreate that moment? Depending what pictures and for what use.
Most of my pictures are shot on holiday and very often I simply want to catch the moment - including the emotions. So it doesn’t necessarily look exactly how it looked in real.
Try to achieve a specific style? Nahhhh
Plan what to do in detail? It’s not a scientific elaboration. I can’t imagine doing such a thing with a picture
Sometimes I have a vision before shooting and try to get the final image as close a possible to this original idea. More often I just shoot interesting subjects in interesting ways . Afterward, I look at the shots (in raw as neutral as possible) and try to get artistic ideas. Sometimes this also includes messing around. But mostly I know what I want to achieve after looking at the image. However, it’s not always working out.
Mostly I do have a feeling when seeing a picture: I like it / wow / boring / interesting… something like that. Most of the time I know what it is that gives me this feeling - or lack thereof.
Mostly I then take a bit ( a second, some minutes) of time and some kind of plan forms automatically. Don’t expect something drastic, special or unusual. Mostly it is nothing that cannot be easily done walking through my preferred modules list, I tend to go mostly but surely not always bottom up as dt is designed.
Sometimes I’m in a certain mood or just tired and nothing comes - I usually stop and revisit the picture later.
And I do tend to mess around, making a local copy of the picture. The more I do not know what features do in modules the more I mess around.
So if you don’t know what to do with a picture - ask yourself questions. What do I like, what not? Why does it bore me? Why am I disappointed - what did I expect and did not work out? How can I surprise someone who knows this place with what I’ve done with this picture? How can I enhance what is already beautiful? What distracts/disturbs me?
Things like that come to my mind reading your questions.
And I do like this picture! Guess you liked the general atmosphere when taking this picture, maybe it was quiet or cold and you may want to enhance that feeling… stuff like that drives what / how I work on a picture.
That’s true, having goals certainly helps breach the friction of editing and experience can play a role in that.
I do wonder, for those photos that might tricky to work on, do you end up re-editing later down the line or even if its not the vision you want, prefer to leave it a one and done thing?
In the original composition I wasn’t sure what the subject was in the photo…the ship was blocked and the dock didn’t really stand out. So I did a crop to try and make it all one subject… I like the BW offerings others shared.
Other that that I just started to apply the basic image formation tools and see what came up and then went a bit from there…
Artisitic ability and composition … are for sure weaknesses I have or heck maybe its just a total lack of creativity now that I think of it
I guess that’s the nature of messing around, but for those that don’t work out, how do you approach them? I’m a bit curious on the process because its not often one talks about the messes and attempts that don’t work out.
I dont want to speak for @Thomas_Do (its rude and his work is better than mine), but when I come across a photo that I have no idea what to do with I usually ask what it was that made me take the image in the first place.
Sometimes, while editing with that focus in mind, some creative spark will hit and I go another direction (which doesnt always work). If it still isnt doing anything for me, I will try wild things with exposures, colors, and croppings to see if anything sparks.
If there is still nothing, I move on to another image. I keep all images for 6mo and revist them later to see if something new presents itself. If not…in the trash heap it goes! There is no need to keep images you are ambivalent about unless you are paid for them or they are family/friends.
It’s seldom I have attempts which I think I messed completely.
Most of the times it’s a problem, if I sit too long on a picture. This brings the danger that I loose the feeling for how far I can push without making it look unnatural.
I know there was a discussion about the theme of darktable and that the intend of the original theme was to generate as less distraction as possible. So maybe this is a bit shocking for the authors of this theme:
I usually search for distraction usually by watching television on my second monitor when editing my photos. This helps me to not loose the boundaries of out of sight. Maybe I’m a bit mental.
With this edit I kept the warm tone because I presume that was the natural lighting. I lifted the shadows a little in the tone equalizer module and then did adjustments in the new AgX in DT5.3. I feel my result needs a little more contrast, but here it is anyway.
As for my approach with intent and direction in editing. My latest camera is a Canon R7. I have created a style in DT that gives me a starting point for my edits that is very close to the out of camera JPG. I have not fallen into the trap of believing the cameras JPG is correct and the ultimate aim point. Instead what I have found is that it is easiest to start my editing with a picture that looks similar to what I saw in camera. Then I can tweak it however I want. I plan to do something similar with my older cameras as well.
BTW, I have moved on to using the new AgX module that is now under test in DT5.3 and will be in the 5.4 release. In my view, it achieves what filmic tried to achieve but struggled to achieve which is extensive control over the look and dynamic range of the image. AgX also rapidly gives a good looking result straight out of the box like Sigmoid does, but with more fine tuning controls. AgX is a total game changer for my editing.
I am always re-editing my photos - but then I enjoy editing. Having used several apps over the years I find that my tastes/knowledge/ability as well as the capabilities of apps have changed and re-editing definitely is almost always worth the effort.
, but lately I have been messing around on learning photo editing, and it’s been a struggle making sense of all the tools and modules in darktable (lots of stumbling blindly and less blindly).
. Afterward, I look at the shots (in raw as neutral as possible) and try to get artistic ideas. Sometimes this also includes messing around. But mostly I know what I want to achieve after looking at the image. However, it’s not always working out.
