Photoshop
How many of us use Photoshop to improve or even create pictures. Many of my photos are taken with a self timer so it is difficult to be sure how the composition is framed. My camera also tends to over or under expose. Photoshop is good for correcting both those problems. Here is a picture blatantly created on Photoshop - Mooning at the Super-moon. In the original photo the super-moon was just a small dot of light.
Yeah, there are soooo many alternatives to Photoshop that are cheaper (or free) and "better" (admittedly that is subjective)
The gimp is the obvious free alternative, though you may find that the tools built-in to your image viewing software are sufficient for your needs.
But, to answer the first question: yes, I do post-processing on my photos, but I try to keep a light touch... I don't want my images to *look* processed. Mostly I just crop/level the image and repair any obvious lens dirt or other blemishes. If there was a problem with exposure I might tweak that, but I find I get much better results if I expose correctly in the first place. If I succeed in attaching a photo to this post I will illustrate with a picture I took with self timer; it was taken by moonlight at 11:30pm which meant that I couldn't see what I was doing until after the 13 second exposure finished. Focusing in the dark was nearly impossible, so I stopped the lens down to a f7.1 to (hopefully) get myself within the depth of field. But then with the 13 sec. exposure I ended up moving too much, so that blurred the image. All in all not my best work, but I post it here to show "before" and "after" editing. (The point of the photo was to capture the stars in the sky and I couldn't get the balance right; either I was too dark or the sky was too light... this was by the light of the hunter's moon back in October.)
And, if you see no attachments, that means I still haven't figured out how to attach to a post :)
I use GIMP to crop, and occasionally adjust the rotation if the camera wasn't straight but that's about it. It's not that I'm a photo purist, just that I don't have the patience to fiddle with a photo just to get it slightly better. I mostly do landscapes so taking the time to do the photo properly in the first place is easy.
Mar uses Photo Elements for light balance adjustments but she's better at that sort of thing than me. I think PE is also free but is quite feature rich
I stopped buying Photoshop when they went to the subscription model. Even when I earned my living with computer graphics, it was never my favorite. Today I use Paint Shop Pro, GIMP, and just recently Affinity Photo.
I crop, color correct, and do other tweaks to compensate for bad exposures or other in-camera mistakes. I also like to have a little fun sometimes:
Photoshop (or some type of a digital editing program is absolutely necessary for good digital photography. I personally subscribe to the entire Adobe Creative Cloud software as I use many of the programs available. And with a DSLR camera shooting RAW, you need to have the ability to edit your photos as the software then becomes your "digital darkroom." As far as digital compositions, I don't dabble in that much. I mostly just use the software as my darkroom. Lightroom is also great software just for that purpose.
Photoshop (or some type of a digital editing program is absolutely necessary for good digital photography.
I have to disagree, I rarely do any post production, other than the occasional crop as mentioned before. I like the challenge of taking the correct picture
Photoshop (or some type of a digital editing program is absolutely necessary for good digital photography. I personally subscribe to the entire Adobe Creative Cloud software as I use many of the programs available. And with a DSLR camera shooting RAW, you need to have the ability to edit your photos as the software then becomes your "digital darkroom." As far as digital compositions, I don't dabble in that much. I mostly just use the software as my darkroom. Lightroom is also great software just for that purpose.
I subscribe to the whole suit, Its part of my Job. As I venture from Video to photography, I have become the biggest fan of Lightroom. The power that you have over you pictures is amazing. Its like truly being back in the photography dark room back in college.
Maybe you missed my point. Good digital photography (all pros or enthusiasts) will most likely be done with a digital SLR. And those will shot RAW photos. And in order to get a good picture from it, it needs editing. It needs it's darkroom. Which is what Photoshop or Lightroom is. That's why it's necessary.
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