Do all photo's need to be processed?

Question

Do all photo's need to be processed? How do you know if it needs it or not? I mean other than if you want to be artsy with your pictures like making HDR effects, etc. Or is it subjective?

Answer 1

Do all photo's need to be processed? How do you know if it needs it or not? I mean other than if you want to be artsy with your pictures like making HDR effects, etc. Or is it subjective?
Actually all photographs are processed. There is no such thing as an unprocessed photograph. Whether you do it consciously using a raw editor, or let the camera make decisions for you doesn't matter really as you apply an interpretation of the raw data. With film the same thing applies. There the choice of film stick, the filters you use, and the printing technology and dark room decisions are unavoidable "processing" steps. In digital, a scene rendered physically correct as captured by the sensor is very boring and looks nothing like the jpeg out of camera nor like the default Lightroom rendering. This is why SOOC is such silly nonsense. Jpegs are cooked files. The default raw rendering in Lightroom is only one possible interpretation and not necessarily a neutral or unprocessed one (far from). Photography as we know it is always subjective. Mainly because human vision is subjective and very different from how a camera sensor works. There is always a degree of toning, contrast enhancement, etc. going on. The raw editor and tools such as Photoshop just gives you more control over it than having the camera do it for you based on decisions the engineering team for the camera made. You can definitely do extremely good photography by never touching a post processing tool and just using jpegs out of camera. Just don't call it unprocessed. You are however leaving some major creative tools unused that could improve your images substantially. In the end however this is all a creative decision and there is no right answer for everybody.