What do I need Photoshop for?

Posted by Philip in Photo Philosophy, Photo Processing

An interesting question came to me by way of one of the readers to my site.  Beyond the capabilities of Lightroom or Aperture, what does a photographer need Photoshop for?  These programs are evolving and adding new features as each new version comes out.  I can see where these pieces of software can handle 95% of what you do as a photographer.  They are great at reviewing photos, developing, and printing.  They are getting better at slidshows and web connectivity.  But if you have to perform anything that pushes your photos “beyond” or you have to do complex retouching, you will need to use one of the flavors of Photoshop or another image manipulation program.

What types of photography does not require image manipulation beyond Lightroom and Aperture?

1. The first is Photojournalism.  As a photojournalist, it is your job to show it like it is.  Anything beyond basic cropping and developing and you can lose your reputation really fast.  In fact, I can’t really come up with a good reason for a photojournalist to even shoot in RAW.  You see the scene, compose your frame and make the photo.  If it’s there it needs to stay there and if it wasn’t there, you can’t add it after the fact.
2. The second is Landscape photography.  In most cases as a landscape photographer, you want to present the scene as is.  The bulk of your enhancements are adjustments like saturation of skies and foliage. Even urban landscapes don’t really need much more than a simple crop and dust removal.  I believe you can even perform HDR exposure blending from Lightroom and Aperture if your landscapes require that extra dynamic range. The one exception here is if you need to create panoramas which is extremely popular for landscape photography.

Basic image manipulation software is desirable for portrait photography.  When you make a portrait, you will most often need to do a little more than spot removal.  Portraits are a balancing act between lighting the subject for making a great photo to beating the pixels down that have too much definition in the lines of someone’s face. You also may want to heighten the focus (not just sharpness) on someone’s face like what I’ve done in the photo above.  There are other things that you can more easily do in an image manipulation program that can be the difference between an image someone likes verses one they can’t live without.  All of these changes can be done in a very basic image manipulation program like Photoshop Elements.

Bring out the big guns when you are doing fashion or any artistic photography that push the definition of a photograph.

1. You can easily see where the tools in image manipulation software comes into play with artistic photography.  Artistic photography pushes colors beyond the norm and selectively uses components often from many photos to make the image.  For this you need the ability to draw elements into the photo.  This is much more demanding than performing an adjustment and applying a simple mask to select the adjustment area.
2. And then there’s fashion… Contrary to popular belief, fashion photography is more art than it is photography.  The photographer does have the job of selecting the best light, and pose for the subject, but there is a makeup artist that “paints” the look and a wardrobe designer that chooses colors and shapes to accentuate as well as hide features.  And finally there’s the retoucher that “fixes” everything.  It’s such a shame that so many people pound on the retouching artist as the one who “fakes” the photo.  There are so many people involved that get that photo up to a point where it can be retouched.

That’s my take on image manipulation.  I don’t feel that just because you can change things you ought to.  When ever I’m in any of of these modes, I visualize the photo I want to make and get as much of it right in camera.  I don’t want to spend a lot of time manipulation the image beyond my vision.  If I can do it all in Lightroom, that’s the fastest for me.  But I’m not scared to open Photoshop to enhance the photo.