Are You a Push-Button Photographer?
November 6th, 2009
Published in
Photography
7 Comments
Tags: actions, best camera, lightroom, opinion, photoshop, post-processing, presets, retouching
Whether it’s a Lightroom preset for adding punch to your image or a Photoshop action for Holga-style vignetting, the shortcuts for easy post processing are everywhere. You snap a photo with your cellphone and with a couple of clicks, you’ve created a piece of art. Or you upload your files to your computer and run them through your HDR software, or your portraiture pack of actions for everything from soft focus to fake cross processing. But it’s not really art, is it? It’s more like one of those Fisher-Price toys, where a button with a cow on it plays a sampled ‘moo’ when pressed.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Fisher-Price makes some of the best toys out there, and we never get too old to play. But they are toys, not tools, and no matter how many times you push that button, it will be the same moo every time.
So, why am I telling people to put away their toys? I’m not. By all means, play your heart out. But you should learn how to manually get the same effect that your presets create for you. At least if you’re calling yourself a professional. There is more to it than owning the latest DSLR and a copy of Photoshop. If you rely on premade actions designed by other people, you are not being a very good photographer. Relying on your own home made presets is not quite as bad — just lazy. Either really do it or outsource it, but don’t automate it.
Of course, presets are not bad per se. It comes down to finding the right balance. Saving yourself some time by setting up actions that do simple tasks is a good thing. It stops being good, when you click a few buttons and voila, your work is done.
Presets and actions should be handled with care. Not only because each image is different and should be treated as such, but also because it’s in the details that your personal style will come out. Anyone can take a picture of a girl in a bikini top, but only you can make it look like one of your images. Not to mention the fact that it’s easy to take the processing too far, when you don’t have full control over it.
I started thinking about this shortly after the launch of The Best Camera. Basically, this is an iPhone app and website that lets you apply a number of pre-made effects to your photos and share them online. The presets are combined to make any photo look cool and artsy. I like that it makes it easy for anyone to create shots like that, and some of the pictures are truly magnificent. However, I quickly started feeling like they also kind of looked the same. The software has a lot of options, but naturally people tend to like the same ones, and suddenly everyone’s photos are processed similarly. Best Camera is obviously meant for fun, but there are tons of plugin packs, preset bundles and actions aimed at professionals too.
I use a few presets and actions to make life easier. I make most of them to add little things I use often. The few I have picked up from others, I’ve taken apart and recreated, to understand what exactly is going to happen to my photos, once I click the magical button. Occasionally, I’ll make an action/preset and apply it to an entire series of images, typically if they were all shot under the same circumstances. But even in those cases, I revisit each photo and tweak it.
There are countless ways to go about post processing and everyone has their own approach — until the day someone figures out how to make The Amazing Preset That Everyone Loves. Then we will all just use that and be happy. Right?
Photo credit: Me
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November 6th, 2009at 1:43 pm(#)
I never use actions. I don’t have any saved presets for anything I shoot. Everything I do, I do it by hand on each and every one of my photos. I believe that each one calls for me to hand touch it from beginning to end, otherwise it is just cookie cutter. I don’t do cookie cutter… although I’d take a picture of a cookie cutter I won’t process like one.
November 6th, 2009at 1:55 pm(#)
Interesting post and sounds a little like the photo critique I watched this morning by Zach Arias. I find that presets can usually help my photos have a consistent look and feel but in no way should the preset ever come before the photo. I know I have a tendency to shoot a certain way and most people do but shouldn’t we always be looking to grow and become better than a button or action, or preset? At least that’s what I challenge myself with and hopefully it keeps working. Thanks for the post.
November 6th, 2009at 2:48 pm(#)
I’m with you. I’m way too picky to let a simple preset do all the work for my images. If I have a series that were shot in the same situation (like a studio shoot) I will apply a general action, that I have created, but will then go through every photo and tweak as necessary.
No two images are the same, ever, regardless of shoot conditions, so presets are a good starting point, but should never been the end-all-be-all.
November 6th, 2009at 2:56 pm(#)
Nice to see other folks that feel the same way I do when I’m drowning in a network of shooters I’ve know for a long time that do nothing but preach lightroom and presets and try to send me preset packages etc. I never used them, they never ever look ‘right’ to me. A lot of wedding shooters in my area are BIG on them and they fly through a wedding entirely in lightroom in a couple hours, and criticize me for going slow and processing each file individually. IMO that’s what the client is hiring me for…my vision while I’m shooting and processing-not to just press the button when I’m taking their picture, or just press a button and load someone else’s work onto their images. Same reason I haven’t brought myself to outsource my bulk processing…it wouldn’t be ‘me’(LOL who knows if that’s good or bad, ha!) I’d like to think that my pictures have a bit of ’soul’ to them…and IMO that can’t be found in an app or in a preset.
November 6th, 2009at 3:02 pm(#)
Kelly, you are a true purist, old school and totally hardcore. You always amaze me, even if I sometimes give you shit for refusing to automate anything. At all.
Jeff & Ian: And I certainly agree that presets are good (no, great!) for maintaining consistency, but as you said, only as a starting point.
Gmosher: You make a very important point – the vision and craftmanship is exactly what the client is paying you for. There is definitely a certain amount of professional pride involved as well.
November 9th, 2009at 4:33 am(#)
[...] art. Editing programs like this are fun toys – and perhaps only toys (an Rasmus Rasmussen so finely blogged about) and reduce your creative input to a simple button clicks. In other words they don’t [...]
November 30th, 2009at 6:15 pm(#)
I just got an email today from a rookie wedding shooter asking me what presets I use in Lightroom for wedding photos. Now there’s a question for ya! Apparently his shoot from Saturday didn’t turn out too well.
I find that as my shooting skills improve, except for some basic raw tweaks, I use Photoshop less and less.