Finally ...
So, in digital photography, the final image can be controlled to a remarkable amount of detail, or photographers can use a range of automatic options which allow the
software writers to dictate the results, or something in between.
The simplest way to achieve a
good result would be to use the automatic options that
work well, and manually control the rest. (This is essentially what
Pat said, anticipating my attempt at synthesis.)
The question for each photographer is, where to strike the balance that works best for you? To find this out takes trial and error,
work and experiment. There may be new
software to learn. For example, setting aside the huge and complicated Photoshop itself for the moment, the RAW conversion plugin alone has many options and settings, which give very delicate control over the result (which is why I think an auto white balance is very much "processing"). Some of these options duplicate what Photoshop can do, and it does some of them better than Photoshop, some of them not as well. I
had to learn which was which. I have saved
good settings for silver and bronze as pre-sets, and manual adjustments are minimised. I can now produce a
good image from RAW in seconds, like the silver coin I showed earlier in this
thread, but it took a long time to learn how.
There is no one correct approach.
Pat Lawrence has a system that works well for her. Sometimes, like
Pat, I use a high
quality JPEG as the base image, but I can't
help feeling that's a lazy approach (*) and mostly I keep a RAW file like DruMAX as well. Now that DVDs are a
cheap storage medium, I can archive them quite happily.
What I do suggest is that you can't find the best approach for you without knowing all the options, being aware when you are letting the camera do it for you, and trying out a range of techniques and ideas. There has been much discussion of photographic techniques here, from which I have learned a lot, but not much on image processing. I think both are critically important to producing a
good final image. (Whatever "
good" may mean to each individual.)
In a way I envy people who are completely satisfied with their pictures. I am not. I find that I can always go back to old ones and see how I can improve them using what I have learned since they were made. And every time, I learn more about the coin, because I look at it in detail and with a different viewpoint.
Works for me!
Bill
(*)I am
not accusing
Pat of being lazy. I don't think that's possible. In fact I don't see how she finds time for everything. I am explaining my own personal OCD-like feelings on the matter.