Worth the Effort? ............... WhyNot .................... 7/27/23

One of the problems in doing photography is deciding when a marginal picture is worth the effort to try and save it ..... Like many here I started with film and reading AA .. and so I fully believe that the digital file from the camera is a sketch and what one does in post completes the process .... This picture is one from a sequence of 15 ....

The focus is marginal in my evaluation. the bird and background blend into each other as the lighting is not great ... Here is where I took it in post

Not a really difficult job but would I like to do that 14 more times? (Selecting the bird from that background does take time and effort with the program I'm using ) ..... Not sure .. But I thought this might be an interesting question for this forum. Where do you draw the line? .... When is a picture worth the effort and when not?

WhyNot

(I probably have better examples for this question but this what I was working on this morning.)

As an after thought the first image is the original after crop .. Here is original after conversion from Raw to Tiff, Noise reduction and conversion to JPEG for this forum

I think worth it is a matter for the person doing the processing to decide. You may not always be able to make the proverbial silk purse 😀 But often an image that others may disregard could be important to you. The latest software has made improving images quite possible and straightforward . In a thread in the old place NR was being discussed and I had a tinker with some old GH2 raw samples from Imaging Resource using DXO pureraw,.Since moving home I have not wired up my NAS yet . But I would never have considered using my GH2 at 12800 ISO. All that matters is if the image is important to you as I say the tools are getting better all the time . I appreciate that a lot of folk don't like the renting software model of Adobe but their new object selection tool makes selecting even difficult subjects very easy

Sure, it's worth the effort. The bird is in such a graceful position, and the background is a lovely blur of tones that complement the bird. It is worth it to me if there's something somewhat unique in a photo that makes me want to keep and improve the image. And sometimes it's worth it to me to experiment and possibly learn something I might apply in other situations. But: (and this is a big "but"), I enjoy fiddling with editing both traditional and creative. Some folks despise time spent on those chores, and for them it might not be worth the effort. We have such an array of interesting tools now. I don't have many vices that I squander money on, so photo play gets what I might have spent on other things.

I think this image is worth it. This is a great capture. You say the focus is marginal, the front wing is very sharp, then rest of the bird is acceptably sharp in my opinion. This would be on my wall.
Bob

Yes, this doubt affects many photographers. Sometimes it is an emotional issue, sometimes it is because we do not want to waste the effort spent on a pre-idealized capture (it can be money, time, sometimes sleep deprivation etc.).
For me photography is pure hobby and I don't have to meet deadlines. So, I leave the photos in "quarantine" for a few weeks without looking at them. So when I review them with a "clearer" head it is easier to decide which ones go to the next step.

In this specific case: If this picture was mine it wouldn't have gone to the next step because I don't like the aesthetics (but that's just my personal taste).

I want to thank you all for stopping by and your interesting comments ....

Let me clarify the question posed by my title .. I was thinking about pictures that would be suitable for your viewing as a post here on DPRevived ... rather than a personal memory or something to hang on a wall .. My evaluation of the current picture posted here is that I would not post this as stand alone but thought as part of the ProCap sequence that it was ... that it might produce a useful discussion ... Still with so much value given to sharpness and stand alone composition on these DPR sites I would hesitate ... so maybe I wouldn't do those other 13 or 14 files .. Thus the question ....

I do often play with marginal pictures to see if I can create that silk purse .. and sometimes I convince myself that I have ... and sometimes those pictures work on the Internet .... so ... when are they worth the effort .....??? ...

Thanks again for the comments .. I am pondering them as I write this ...

WhyNot

To help my consideration, what is meant by "suitable" in that context?

What is a "ProCap sequence"?

"Suitable" .... That is "suitable" to you ... A picture you would stop and look at .... A picture where you might add a comment ... Your decision .... (but of course in context I was thinking about my/an evaluation of the picture for getting you to view and comment about it. ... )

"ProCap" ....Sorry about that .. ProCap is an Olympus term .. other camera companies have a different name for frames/files that are saved to memory prior to the shutter button being pressed and maybe a few saved after the pressing of the shutter button ... But for this discussion I probably should have just used the term "sequence of frames of the bird in flight"

WhyNot

Well this one was processed a month later as these types of sequence generate many files to look at and it becomes difficult always keep up and I don't have to so ....

This was one a series and I PP this file only to get an idea about what could be done with it. As I said elsewhere I wouldn't have thought of using this as a stand alone picture .... I go though this process fairly often so I was curious about your thoughts about it .. ( unfortunate not showing you the rest of the sequence ..)

WhyNot