I'm rather of the school of minimalist post-processing for my personal stuff. A decent photograph can be taken using natural light outdoors even with flawed equipment. Indoors, with supplementary light if need be (or who cares). After that, every layer of filter, and color correction added on can have a detrimental effect. Mostly I used Photoshop for restorations and batch operations.uziq wrote:
my pet theory with amateur photography is that there’s a bell curve. as people progress from amateur to intermediate, getting nicer and nicer cameras and more and more lenses, there’s a paradoxical effect: people’s photos become more and more indistinguishable. literally every DLSR enthusiast taking HDR photos and messing about in adobe light works takes the exact same photos. that’s because photography as a hobby is mostly about technology and gadgets, acquiring the latest and greatest, and is less often about individual expression or art. it’s incredibly, incredibly hard to overcome that bell curve effect and achieve a unique ‘vision’ and style.
Bleak and dirty and washed out can be a totally viable mood. I don't to examine my vacation album through the eyes of a mantis shrimp.