"If you underexpose a portrait or you don’t wait for the right light in a landscape, you can compensate to a point in post production. But at a cost." - 365 Project, Day 322

Having perfect light is the third key in Gavin Seim's crazy awesome picture quality proposition.  As the title suggests, getting it right in-camera is the best way to go, because any editing you do later on will only be refinement instead of fixes.

This is simple enough, though, and can easily be stated with a few examples.  At high noon, the lighting outside in intensely harsh and any portrait taken then will need serious editing if one wants to use that portrait in any kind of manner.  By the same token, if you want an abstract black and white and all you have is very soft light, you'll definitely have to push the contrast slider and play with plugins to add an edge to your shot.  Lighting will definitely add or take away from a photograph.

We're not professional enough to worry about lighting, so here's what we have.

Frank

His note: My son Vincent's 30th. He did not know I was taking this photo. I had the fish eye on and added a bit of saturation making the photo look old. It has a Mona Lisa quality to it.

Shannon

Her note: Could not resist buying these.

My shot

This morning was kind of creepy.  Everything seemed dead and slightly blurry, thanks to this thin but noticeable mist everywhere. It didn't stay long after I left my apartment, but it was enough to give me a foreboding feeling about the day.  Thankfully, it wasn't a bad day, but the morning was certainly eerie.

I should have something even better tomorrow.