One of the daunting tasks of photography, especially in the digital age, is the curation and editing of photos. Some just take their pictures and forget about them, while others may bother to import into their software of choice for file storage and minor edits. And then there are those like me who want to agonize over every photo taken which is fine when looking at a couple to a few dozen but with a thousand snaps saved off the SD card leaves one wanting to abandon tackling the lot. Sure can cull through the photos that can not or will not be shared for whatever reason.

   Cannot be salvaged because out of focus

or too dark, “Bum up that ISO, dude!”                      .

  Can be an obvious throw-away shot

Or just seem inappropriate for the theme or context

As a hobbyist photographer -- (I hate the word amateur and I do take photos as a hobby), I aim at improving my skill by borrowing, by taking classes, or by apprenticing under a professional. One of those ways is through post-production editing. My friend Ian took the hundreds of so photos I took at a recent Printathon batch edited using Adobe Photoshop’s auto color/tone/etc. correction feature, with some presets.

Curious for comparison, I did the same using Apple’s Photos (ver 1.5 (370.42.0)) “Enhance” feature with does similar overhaul correction of a photo’s exposure, saturation level, highlights, contrast, and few other properties.

So why use Photos? As a Machead and out of loyalty, I tend to stick with using a piece of software until it becomes impossible or too impractical to use anymore. Unless I am trying to do something fancy, outside the bounds and abilities of (i)Photos or iMovie, like needing some After Effects effect, using what I have is good enough. I have access to all software including Lightroom and I own my own copy of the complete Adobe Creative Suite, but chose to use the free Apple software because serves my purpose well enough. Rarely do I use Final Cut Pro X and almost never do I use either Premiere or Avid.

By contrast, I hate iTunes, but use it still for curating and collecting my audio and video collection. I use another third party application for playback.

My workflow in editing photos is an exercise of my personal aesthetics. I adjust Shadow, Exposure, Saturation, etc. settings to serve my interest in what message or idea I want the photo to convey. Perhaps I would increase the Shadow to bring out something hidden in the darken region of the photograph or play with Saturation to emphasize skin tone colour. My approach is different for every photo, even within the same collection, so I can never batch edit using some preset or personal template settings. There are a million, or close to that number, ways at adjusting the levels to create different effects yielding varying results. Rather like audio mixing, there are numerous ways of tweaking compression, reverb, delay,  . . . or flange to produce some desired or aesthetic choice.

For illustration, I selected three photos for side-by-side comparison. First, I provide the unedited JPEG version with some of the EXIF metadata. (I have the RAW file, but in posting, the image would be compressed to a jpeg file anyway, so no point in editing from the RAW.) Following in order of top to bottom, are Photoshop’s, Photos’s, and then my tweaks, respectively.

Also, all selected photos were taken using my Canon DSLR Rebel T3i all in manual mode; I shoot both in RAW and in JPEG.

Have your eyes examine the differences.

ISO 800

35 mm

F/4

1/80

The obvious subject of the photo was positioned along the one-third line following the conventional Rule of Thirds in photography. In cropping out a part of the chair on the right because I thought too much was showing in the frame, the person shifted off the one-third line.

I focused on the red of the rolled sleeping-bag. While adjusting saturation level, I noticed the hand on the chair and the back of the laptop reflected in the television monitor, to which I shifted focus and increased the shadow level to bring out the reflection.

In quick edit, I cannot adjust for both the skin tone, red hair, and the red sleep-bag all at the same time.

ISO 800

28 mm

F/4

1/160

cropped to eliminate figure in background

near max on shadow

lowered highlight for a more peachy skin colour

increased brightness to bring out tabletop shadow on left leg, net result seemed pasty so made a tad increase on contrast

increase on saturation to make the pale green of the table divider pop with plus effect of enhancing skin tone

dropped contrast a tenth

played with definition until beard sideburns looked youthful

ISO 3200

35 mm

F/4

1/100

sharpness (in Photos) had no effect

increased shadow by about 50% bringing out the surface reflections -- eewh! dirty laptop screen

lowered contrast to lighten shadows

lowered saturation a little just enough to make wood appear natural

dropped contrast until wood panel had definition

ISO 3200

24 mm

F/4

1/100

chosen because of the challenge with the bright light from the printer

Exposure, highlight, shadows did nothing to improve the photo.

counter-intuitive increasing brightness enhanced the picture a great deal

lower contrast for definition -- now can see the wrinkles in the rolled sleeves of his The North Face fleece

tenth bum in saturation for colour definition

lowered contrast a slight amount for honest wood appearance of chairs in background

a third amount in definition helped overall

More selected photos, by my edit, are posted in an online album. Of course, incomplete, since will take some time to edit and post the more than half a thousand pictures I took. Many will not be shared, but near two hundred will be shared altogether at some completion point.

When that will be I do not know. There is no deadline, and as mentioned already, I do this as a hobby.

Comments and advice is much welcomed.