Some photographers consider post-processing of photographs on a PC to be a form of cheating, whereas others (myself included) see it as a natural part of the creative process — a digital darkroom, so to speak. When I shoot, I focus my attention on capturing the right moment in time, allowing many of the techincal details to be handled later on. Because of that, nearly all of my photographs go through a good deal of post-processing before I consider them done. Here are some before and after images of photographs I took recently, highlighting the dramatic power of post-processing.

Nativity Scene

Before

After

This is an example of a significant exposure correction. I shot this image in RAW so I had a lot of room to adjust the exposure. The before image is intentionally underexposed so as not to blow out any of the highlights of the figures.

Lights on a Fence

Before

After

I got a little artsy with this image (for better or for worse… I’ll let you be the judge). The most obvious change is the color adjustment, and if you look closely you will see that aside from desaturating the colors I’ve also converted everything above the fence to black and white. Also notice in the original how the lines of the window sill and the fence post appear to curve, whereas in the final image they are straight. Ah, the power of photoshop!

Self Portrait with My Guitar

Before

After

Here is an example of a cropped image. I took this using my camera’s self-timer, so I lost my ability to compose the shot in-camera. I also converted to black and white (using a red filter) and made the usual brightness and contrast adjustments.