I'm new----How do you tell?

[Knack]

Hi folks. My first post here so please be easy on me. First a little back ground. I was semi-pro back in the "brass and glass" days, used Canon F1 and twin lens 220 cameras, had a color dark room. Everything burned up in a house fire in 1983 and other than phone cameras haven't touched a camera since. Now, for about a year, I have a Sony a6000 with kit lenses, a Nikkor macro and a 70-300 on order. Hadn't used it much until about 3 months ago. I only shot JPEG, Now JPEG and RAW. Question, How do you know that a photo need post processing and what to do? To me the "good" ones look pretty durn good.Some direction would be appreciated.

Here is an example--it's about a year old and I don't remember if I did anything to it, if I did it wasn't much, other than reduce size to up load it.

The white vertical stripes is hail falling.

After looking at some of the photos on this forum, I sure y'all can give all kinds of suggestions. I don't know anything about PP or posting photos on line. I have Capture One Express 10.

Thanks!

 

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[LiveShots]

Generally I only use post processing to crop and perhaps tweak the exposure a little, reduce shadows etc. An out of-the-camera photo can look great but some will still spend time to alter the image in subtle or not so subtle ways.

In your photo the deer seems to have a slight green cast to it, likely caused by the sun bouncing off the green grass. Creating a mask around the animal and tweaking the color a little may help to pull him out of the background a little.

[Knack]

Thank you.

Now that you mention it I can see it. Back in my day (the old days) it was basically what came out of the camera was what you got. There was some darkroom work done but it was a lot harder and more expensive to do "post processing" in those days.

I guess it just takes a lot of looking at other's photos and reading critiques to be able to start "seeing."

Thanks, again

Knack

[LiveShots]

I started out with film too, I had to use commercial processing as I didn’t have a darkroom. I’m glad those days are past, digital is so much better.

Tony & Chelsea Northrup host a Live Photo review most Thursday’s on YouTube, you can find previous episodes on their channel: https://m.youtube.com/user/VistaClues/videos

It’s worth a look as they critique - and usually tweak - the submitted photos. I learn something new each time I watch.