A while back on a post about a free photography course, a few people wondered if they could use their smartphone to practice.
And hopefully the above shows that you absolutely can.
Sometimes it takes a little post-processing to get good results, but that is the same with any camera. Though phone photos probably take me more than twice as long to achieve a finished product. Better cameras don't automatically make your photos better, but they do make getting good photos *easier*—especially in difficult lighting.
Many modern smartphones have a "RAW" photo mode with adjustable manual settings. Saving a RAW version of your photos allows you to continually learn and practice and return to those photos later on to re-process them with your improved experience.
A RAW capture has a lot more data than a compressed JPEG and gives you extra latitude in processing your photos. All of the editing done to a RAW file is saved in metadata instead of being baked into the pixels. So you can undo any individual change at any time without undoing changes made after that particular edit. And even if you save the file and close the program, you still have the power of undo when you open the file again.
With RAW you can more easily recover extra detail, lift dark shadows, bring back blown highlights, and restore color to blue skies that photographed pure white. (Often you can do that with a JPEG too, it just depends on the photo.)
The main downsides to JPEG editing are you can't non-destructively change the white balance after the fact, you have less dynamic range to alter shadows and highlights, and you can't make as many drastic edits before the image loses integrity.
A wise man once said, "The best camera is the one you have with you."
And a wise frog once said, "Shoot RAW and learn Lightroom because a human being can still outperform the algorithms of computational photography."
Image processing is an important skill to learn for photography. It is essentially the digital equivalent of developing a negative with film.
Not to be confused with image editing and image manipulation—which are also fun artistic skills you can learn if you want to get even more creative with your photos.
(Disclaimer: These are not standardized terms and different folks may use different terms and definitions to describe the same things. This is my preferred terminology and way of thinking about photo alteration tactics.)
Image processing is basically cropping, correcting exposure, adjusting the white balance, dialing in the contrast, and making sure you have true blacks and whites that span the entire histogram. You are taking the flat, low contrast RAW file (or JPEG/HEIF) and balancing all of the data to look similar to what your eyeballs saw when you took the picture. This can also include fixing minor blemishes, sensor dust, or schmutz/hair on clothing. Processing is typiclly done non-destructively in a RAW editor, so all alterations are changed in the metadata instead of changing the actual pixel information. You can undo any single change at any time without undoing anything else. When processing is complete, this can be your finished photo or a good baseline for editing.
Image editing would be more creative adjustments. Maybe you want the sky darker and the foreground brighter. You want the colors to pop so you boost the saturation beyond reality. You want to add extra drama so you crush the blacks. Or you want to bring focus to the photo subject so you place a dark vignette around them. You are still working with the data you captured, but you are pushing that data more aggressively beyond what was actually seen in the environment the photo was taken.
And image manipulation (often called photoshopping) is the addition or subtraction of data to/from a photo. Adding brand new pixels or erasing existing pixels to fundamentally change what was originally captured. This is called destructive editing because the changes can't be made only in the metadata. You can use layers and smart objects/filters to make it easier to undo individual changes, but it can be more difficult to undo a single change 20 steps back if you don't take proper precautions. Manipulation can include fixing larger mistakes like a light stand in the frame or flyaway hairs that weren't tamped down. Or compositing two photos together. Maybe swapping in a new head with a better expression. Maybe you need to remove a drunk uncle from a wedding portrait.
Or you can add a sleepy cat to a field of sunflowers.
The lines between these three levels of adjustment can get blurry, but all are valid skills to learn and can take your photography to new places. At minimum, every photographer should learn and understand how to do basic processing of their photos.
Now, you might hear some people say they just do "SOOC" because it is more authentic or naturalistic. They might even brag about how their photography skills are so amazing that no extra work is needed once they press that button.
SOOC stands for "straight out of camera" and it is a horseshit concept.
There is no such thing as an unprocessed photo.
Even with film photography, many professionals would choose special film to get certain looks and use special development techniques to push the photos beyond what was captured. One type of film might give more saturated colors. One type might give extra contrast. Choosing a brand of film was similar to choosing a picture style on your camera or a preset in your editing software. You could also "photoshop" film by dodging and burning—exposing different areas of the negative for longer or shorter time intervals.
It was all processing.
And if you take a digital photo... it is processed.
Even if all you do is hit the shutter button.
Unless you want to post a bunch of green photos on Instagram, you are not posting anything that is SOOC.
That top photo is the Bayer filter result before the data is processed with color information and "picture style" algorithms. A Bayer filter has two green pixels for every red and blue pixel, so the unprocessed version looks heavily tinted green.
So you can either let the algorithm inside your camera process the photo (which is fine), or you can do it manually in software such as Lightroom.
Either way, *something* is choosing the sharpness, contrast, saturation, and tone along with some other variables behind the scenes (sometimes referred to as a camera's "color science").
And if you think letting the robot inside your camera process your photo is somehow more "authentic" than a human being doing it... I feel you have things backward.
"Well, I use the neutral picture profile."
That is still an algorithm, friend.
A tiny robot runs around inside your camera guts and is instructed to not pull any lever, twist any knobs, or flip any switches that go beyond the predetermined 0,2,2,0,0,0 boundaries.
SO NATURAL!
There is nothing stopping you from manually processing your photo using those same boundaries. But when you do it yourself, you can account for variables the algorithm cannot. And a human being can almost always get a more authentic, true-to-life result than that robot playing with your pixels.
The truth is, almost every photo can benefit from some manual adjustments after the fact—even if you are going for a naturalistic result.
If you are happy with how your camera processes your photos, I am not judging or criticizing you. You can still get beautiful photos that way. Post-processing can be extra work and for some, takes away from the fun of photography. That is totally valid. I'm just asking people not brag that photos are more natural or pure or untouched.
Another common parlance in the photo education community is "get it right in camera."
I like this phrase a little better, but I still think it can be improved.
This mantra implies if you choose the proper settings before you take a photo, you will have less work to do later when processing your capture.
There is truth to that. And it is a fine goal to strive for.
But sometimes... shit happens.
People make mistakes. Cameras make mistakes. Or you have a smartphone with a plastic lens and a sensor that can fit on your fingertip and a bright sky and dark foreground is just a lot to ask of it to deal with.
One photo with perfect settings may not have captured that perfect expression that a different photo with botched settings did.
Or sometimes it is literally impossible to "get it right in camera." The environment may be too dark or too bright or both at the same time. Sometimes there are no settings that will get you the perfect exposure.
There is also a stigma against "fix it in post."
There is nothing wrong with fixing it in post. Some people are better at Lightroom/Photoshop than they are at taking photos and they are just leaning into the skill set they have more experience with. I have noticed this a lot with traditional artists that take up photography. It can take a while for their skill levels to match up.
Sometimes I will take a photo a certain way precisely because I know how to fix it in post. I will dramatically underexpose it to make sure I don't blow out the sky. Or I will take a photo that is too dark and another photo that is too bright so I can combine them later.
Or if I do not have time to dial in perfect settings, I will just use an auto mode and deal with whatever the camera gives me when I get to my computer. No shame in auto mode if you don't have the time or energy to do trial and error with manual settings.
And if anyone says "real photographers only shoot manual" you tell them to shut their gob.
In fact, anyone who starts any sentence with, "Real photographers..." is a gatekeeper and should be ignored.
If you take photos with artistic intent on a regular basis, you are a "real" photographer.
No other qualifications necessary.
The only time "fix it in post" is a problem is when your motivation is not in service to the best end result. Sometimes post-processing *is* the best solution. But if you are just procrastinating or you want to pass the buck to another person, you should try your best to summon some willpower and get it done properly.
The original intent of the phrase was to shame people who lazily shift the workload to others but somehow it morphed into meaning any post-processing is cheating or low effort. As if complicated editing is a button-press solution. Best practice would be allocating the labor to where it makes the most sense. You have to determine which approach will give you the desired result.
So if you don't feel like learning the fundamentals and just want to fix everything later rather than educating yourself, that would be a poor photography practice.
Or if you have someone else editing your photos or videos and you don't care how much extra work they'll need to do to "fix" them.
All that said... if "SOOC" and "get it right in camera" are poor expressions, what should the mantra be?
"Get the data you need to achieve your photographic goal." -Froggie
Okay, it's not exactly prose.
In my defense, photographic concepts don't always roll off the tongue.
If you are taking photos with artistic intent, you should always have a goal—an image in your head of the finished result. In the end, cameras are just data collection tools. If you know what you can do to that data and how it can be processed, edited, and manipulated, you can imagine realistic goals before taking a photo. Through practice, trial & error, and experience you will eventually learn methods to get the data you need. The methods used are inconsequential. Whatever works for you. Auto mode, manual mode, botched settings, too bright, too dark... eventually you learn if you have what you need even if it doesn't look right "in camera."
You can look at a photo preview and be like...
"I can recover those highlights"
"I have this great expression but I like the pose better in this photo. I can just move his head to the better photo."
"This will need a cat."
Photography is a minefield of gatekeeping, outdated thoughts, inaccurate expressions, poor understanding of technology, and just... bad advice.
But if you can navigate all of that, it really is a beautiful art form.
Whether you want very natural, true-to-life results...
Or a photo needs just a little help to become what it was always meant to be...
Or you want crazily photoshopped images that look nothing close to reality...
it is all valid and all wonderful.
So go forth, set a goal, and get the data you need.
