How Much do you "Photoshop"? (Piccadilly Circus, London)

One of the questions I get asked most is "do you photoshop your photos?"

I got the question again today, so decided to show an example of how much "photoshop" I use. The full blog post covers my processing stages, with a sample of the image at the end of each.

Apart from a handful of exceptions, the images that you see in my iStock portfolio aren't the product of photoshop being used to replace skies or add elements, but a real-life scene with bright, vivid colors.

This image took a lot of time in post processing, although that doesn't mean its really been edited to significantly alter its appearance. The main changes are:

• a contrast boost in raw development
• adjustment of the colours and white balance
• removing trademarks and logos

Stage 1: What comes out of the Camera

Seeing as I always shoot in raw format, I don't actually have a "photo" that comes out of the camera. Instead there is a digital file that needs to be interpreted by another piece of software. Each RAW converter has its own defaults for how it interprets a camera's files, so what you will get out of Lightroom will differ from Aperture (for example). In a sense its meaningless to compare this sort of default, because the software is designed to allow you to make adjustments that meet your needs or preferences. Image 1 is however my raw "default".

More important is of course what goes into the camera. Seeing as this post is about photoshop, I'll save that for when i start my blog series on "Travel Photography for Beginners" which will start next Friday. In short this photo was taken with a Panasonic GF1, an Olympus 9-18mm lens and a Gorrillapod attached to a lightpole for stability.

The default parameters for many raw converters can be a lot less "punchy" or saturated, particularly than many out-of-camera jpgs. Often with vivid conditions you'll also find that images are flatter than what you see in real life. So while there is a noticeable difference between the first and second image, its actually bigger than it would be if I had a Panasonic GF1 jpg to compare it to (but I only shoot raw, so I don't!

Stage 2: RAW Development

The main raw adjustments were to: reduce the sharpening, increase the contrast, remove minor chromatic aberration (only visible at full-size) and to adjust the white-balance slightly. As a result, blacks are a little blacker, there's overall less yellow in the image, and colors are a little punchier.

Stage 3: "Photoshop"

My use for Photoshop is usually only to remove logos, trademarks, number-plates and identifiable material so that it meets iStock's strict upload requirements. If you're familiar with Piccadilly Circus in London, you'll be aware that there are a lot of signs! At night, neon signs bleed light into their surroundings, so removing them all ended up being a big job! The final image can also be seen at iStock.

So, how much do I photoshop? About this much!