If you don’t know by now, post-processing in photography is the act of modifying photos from the initial quality that was captured in a camera to what your eyes saw or to achieve an artistic effect. Post-processing significantly enhances photos and that’s why most people, professionals or not, can’t help but engage in the process subsequent to taking photos with a camera or when preparing photos for other digital and print purposes. Prior to the introduction of software that made post-processing much easier, post-processing in photography was done in dark rooms and was a method that took some knowledge in alchemy, patience, and a good amount of time. Today, using a software that functions as a photo enhancer, the process is more tolerable. Here’s why using software is much better than other methods of post-processing.
Professionally Enhanced Photos
It’s a no-brainer – the main reason you’ll want to use software for post-processing is to enhance your photos like a professional. It’s easier for you to mess up with the traditional darkroom methods because if you don’t pay attention to the chemicals you are mixing, or if you prematurely expose your photos to light or other chemical agents, you are likely to mess up. And the unfortunate thing is that these traditional methods are permanent; meaning if you mess things up, there’s no going back. Either just give up or go take another photo then come and mess up again, if lack isn’t on your side. But using software, you don’t necessarily have to be a professional because most post-processing software has features that can make a general enhancement to your photos. This means that whether you are an amateur or a pro, you’ll still do a good job and end up with at least a photo that’s better than what you had initially.
Correct and Then Undo – Redo
An unrivaled feature that software provides that you can’t find in the traditional darkroom dark ages photography post-processing methods is the fact that your modifications are not necessarily permanent. You can always undo any mistakes you make and your original photo will never be tampered with – provided you are careful. You can try out various effects and corrections, over and over again, without necessarily impacting the original photo. In fact, using software, you can forever have your original photo and use it to create as many corrections, edits, and effects as you like in the future.
Cool Artistic Effects
There is only so much that you can do in the darkroom of the dark ages. Not only does it take time to think, organize, and prepare how you are going to achieve particular effects but there’s also a limited amount of effect you can achieve with given photos. However, using software, you have a myriad of amazing artistic effects to choose from. And on top of that, you can even use various effects on your photos to achieve even more amazing artistic effects. You can even come up with your own artistic effects depending on the software you use.
Save Time
The traditional darkroom post-processing methods of the dark ages consumed a significant amount of time to prepare and implement. The methods took hours and even days to complete, depending on how disciplined a person was. Today, using software, you can achieve far superior post-processing results within a few minutes, or hours depending on how skilled and disciplined you are.
Understand Photos and Lighting
The software used in post-processing have features that enable you to experiment with various techniques that will enable you to acquire a taste or an understanding of what a good photo should look like and how light should be introduced in your photos for them to either seem realistic or to achieve particular artistic qualities. After spending a good amount of time with such software, you will definitely get the feel of what is beautiful and what is not. You’ll understand what a good photo looks like and why that is the case.
Discover What Works for You
Having spent a good amount of time with photography post-processing software, you’ll develop your own artistic style. You’ll be able to know what works for your photos and what does not. You’ll get to the point where you’ll be taking your photos with particular qualities in mind because you’ll know in advance what you’ll be doing, later on, to improve the photo to bring out a particular quality.
Software is the only way to successfully do post-processing in photography. Today, we have various post-processing software that will enable you to achieve amazing effects and corrections on photographs in no time. Some of these tools are online, and other you can have them on your desktop. Either way, software is the way to go if you intend to end up with professionally looking photos.
