The Luminous Landscape has an article by Pete Myers on the value of
post-production editing for photographers:
"What I am suggesting is that the real power of photography in our modern
digital age is in using the computer in making an image... I really don't
care all that much about what the picture looks like that I took in the
field — I care about what I can make of the image in postproduction.
Certainly that does not excuse me from doing my best in taking a picture in
the field, but the point is what happens in the field is not an end all –
it's a beginning."
Any comments on this?
The postproduction stage in digital photography can be likened to the processing and printing stages in film photography. There are many parallels, and a few things unique to each medium. What is fortunate in the digital age is that the costs to accomplish all this post production trickery are relatively low. It's not like you have to go out and buy a roomfull of darkroom equipment, and waste a box of paper experimenting to get your desired result.
But keep in mind that people in the darkroom can modify contrast, exposure, can dodge and burn, can tilt, defocus, double-expose, colorize, posturize, desaturate, and do a million other tricks. It's just more work, harder to visualize until its completed, and arguably harder to learn.
That's not to say that there aren't some things achievable in a digital darkroom that could never be done purely with film. But with enough work, most digital tricks can be replicated opto-chemically too (new word?).
