Post Processing

The not-so-much-fun part of photography, I have discovered, is post-processing. It's fine if you have miraculously captured something that is so spot-on, it needs little processing like this one.

However, much of the time, you get things which are "ALMOST THERE" and you have to fiddle with it to get the whole thing right. 

It's one thing for your friends to gush about how pretty your photos are. But the guys at Getty's are not going to pay you a single red cent for blurry, vignetted photos like this.

It's good enough for Facebook, but even your local photo club guys aren't going to pay much attention to it. And at the end of the day, after creating awareness etc, you need the photos to pay for your gear. 

Right now I'm struggling to find a suitable Photo Editor which won't cost me extra money. One came with the camera and I've installed it on the netbook, but it's rather slow and I suspect the netbook is ill-equipped to handle the workload. 

I'm used to using Microsoft Photo Editor which can do most simple editing like cropping and brightening, but it's not much help with underlit, grainy photos etc. And it can't handle RAW files. 

Lightroom is a favourite among photographers, it seems, but I would need to pay a monthly subscription. It's not too expensive, but again, it jams up the netbook, and I can't install it on the office computer because Mr IT guy blocks every freaking thing. And right now, it's not a great idea to pay more money for a new laptop. Yes, I HAVE thought about it :P

There's an online version of the Lightroom, but it's even slower than the desktop version. I now have like 4 days to decide on buying the thing or not. I suppose, I need to figure if I will ever learn how to use the thing correctly and if it is worth paying for at the end of the day. 

The other cost of photo-editing is TIME. Like seriously. I go shoot in the morning, stop by the mall for lunch and groceries, come home and conk out for a few hours. Wake up and do laundry + clean house + cook/eat whatever. THEN try to find time to edit the morning's bounties. With all the jamming I've had to deal with, it's a real pain. 

And I still need to spend time on "homework". Which is work I have not completed and brought home, with the intention of catching up over the weekend. 

At this juncture, my room and study are dusty and needs cleaning. Kitchen is a disaster zone and my job is on the line. I'd better stop now and get my act together. Ciao!