Some out there are purists and believe that what ever the camera sees should be the final product.   Me, I think that’s tosh.  Even before digital a film camera shot needed postwork to get it onto paper.  How long to expose the film, how long to expose the paper, what kind of paper, what treatment, what cropping.

Cameras are not great at creating JPG files.  Too much control is given away and the end results can be poor.  Lots of aberrations, poor choice of colour and contrast.   Taking photos in RAW format is THE best option.  but the photos can be a little lifeless.  The colour and exposure need some help to bring out the best from any photo.

For example.  This morning a baby squirrel was playing on my deck.  I snapped away and got some shots that were almost in focus.   I took these at iso800, which on my camera is pretty high.  Also at f11 which is about mid range.  It means the background was more in focus than I really wanted.  But I wanted the critter to be in focus.

It’s cute enough for a snap shot.  But the contrast and color is wishy-washy, not helped by taking this through a window.  The squirrel isn’t the focus of the photo and it needs cropping and sharpening.  The flower and the top of the chair are distracting.  None of which I can do in camera.  Especially after the fact.

This is where software comes to play.  I use lightroom.  I cropped in close to start with.  I wanted the squirrel and the wood to be more the centre of attention, so took the green saturation down a little and the reds and brown up.    I also increased the contrast and shadows.

Added a little bit of sharpening, but not too much or it goes too grainy.  A little blur on the top and bottom.

Here is the final result.