"Remember, not everything is a picture. A good eye can edit before the shutter opens." - 365 Project, Day 156

I've stated before I didn't edit my pictures too much, but I'll explain that again.  I do edit my pictures slightly.  I don't add or subtract anything that's not there.  I simply tweak my pictures.  Sometimes I change the exposure, sometimes I add saturation.  Obviously the pictures with selective colours are edited, but a lot of my other ones are, as well.  I don't do much and only bring out details I want to bring out, or try to match the picture's colours to what was really there.  Unless I'm going crazy, I try not to overdo it.  It's nice to have insanely deep blues in the sky, but that usually doesn't happen in real life.

My justification for this is this: a picture is always edited, whether you want it to be or not.  The camera has default settings, and you may choose to tweak those settings.  When a RAW file is converted to JPG, the camera will always choose the saturation, sharpness and colours, whether default or not.  I figure there's no real problem if I do it, because I know what I want better than the camera does.  Sometimes I miss my exposure, sometimes I want extra sharpness in my black and white shots, sometimes I want to exaggerate.  What's the harm in that?  If you really want a pure picture and not edit it in the least, then why shoot RAW in the first place?

In the early days of photography, the darkroom was a powerful tool where, say, dodging and burning was done, sometimes extensively, to perfect a picture.  Why not use the digital equivalent?

Here are some mildly edited pictures for your viewing pleasure.  (Well, mine is mildly edited, at least.)



Shannon

Her note: Pat is pointing at the secret numbers on the outlet.

Pat

Another street shot, and the annoying thing about this is that, had I had a rangefinder *cough*M9*cough*, I probably would have gotten a better composition.  I would have preferred less dead space on the right and more space on the left, but I was too busy trying to wondering if my exposure would work.  (Note: it did.)  I'll take this because my intention is actually accentuated by the dead area on the right.

For the record, today was okay.  Not great, not horrible, just okay.  I wonder what tomorrow will bring.