Is Post Processing Always Necessary in Digital Photography for Best Results? | 2 Day Photography Workshop Singapore

The short answer to the question ” Is Post Processing Necessary in Digital Photography For Best Results? ” is a definite “YES”. Depending on your current perception about photography, your reaction to my answer may differ depending whether you are more of a purist or digital photographer.

The Purist :
The purist believes that image must come out of camera without being edited. That is what they call “Real skills”. They also believe that post processing is “cheating” and image should not be post processed or altered. Purist normally come from film users where they believe camera skill is important. Is Post Processing Always Necessary in Digital Photography for Best Results ? Purist will say “No”.

The Digital Photographer:
On the other hand, the new breed of digital photographers never used film before and heavily depended on post processing to correct or rescue photos that were wrongly or poorly taken. They are not camera savvy but digitally literate. They take picture first without much thinking then edit if they need to. Is Post Processing Always Necessary in Digital Photography for Best Results ? The Digital Photographer will say “Yes”.

Twenty year on since the digital revolution, ” Is Post Processing Always Necessary in Digital Photography for Best Results “?

• Digital is the way to go. I have used film for 20 years especially KODACHROME and FUJICHROME since the 80’s before going digital in around 2000. In just 20 short years, there is so much progress in the digital technology in both hardware and software than that film had done in the 130 years.
• Consider digital camera as a tool to capture image or to collect data. Today, it could capture so much more information as compared to 20 years ago. Five megapixel then now 50 megapixel is not uncommon..
• However, there is still a limit as to how much latitude or lee-way a camera can capture image. Therefore capturing the right exposure is still part of the essential process of getting a good image. There is no point for post processing a picture if information and data was not even there ( either it has been lost or has not been captured).
• Doing everything right from the very beginning is very important. Shooting RAW instead of JPEG is one of the ways to optimise the image quality. Using the right shutter speed and ISO will also help improve image quality. But just shooting RAW without post processing is not enough.
• Post processing is part of the process to reorganise the data that one camera has captured on the card to bring out the essence of the image the photographer has perceived and imagined when picture was taken. See the image below of the aurora captured on RAW on a 24 megapixel camera before and after processing to illustrate the point.

” Is Post Processing Always Necessary in Digital Photography for Best Results?” The answer is “YES”.

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