Straight Out of the Camera

I see this a lot: A shooter posts a pic on a forum and says it's "...straight out of the camera." I suppose, on occasion, I've been guilty of saying those words myself. But it was a lie. And for the vast majority of those who label their images as being "straight out of the camera," it's also a lie.

Sometimes, images appear like they're "straight out of the camera." But they're not. The phrase, "straight out of the camera," if you're unsure what it means, refers to post-processing, i.e., it's a statement to the effect that no post-processing was performed on the image.

Anything you do in post effects the image and how it's perceived by viewers. If you crop or resize, you're effecting the image. If you adjust levels or tone, you're effecting the image. If you change the color profile or reduce the quality or resolution, you're effecting the image. Everything and anything you perform with any image processing tool effects or changes the image--sometimes in big ways and sometimes in subtle ways--but it changes it nonetheless and, as a rule, changing one thing, even minor changes, changes another. For those of you who might think I'm being petty, or I'm nit-picking, or splitting hairs, you're probably right. I probably am.

But I'll finish what I have to say anyway...

It seems to me there's two, major reasons shooters lay claim to this "straight out of the camera" thing: 1) To state there isn't any major manipulation, like Gaussian Blur, Diffuse Glow, or other commonly-used glamour processing peformed on the image or, 2) An attempt to claim, "I'm so freaking good I don't have to change the image at all!"

Personally, I think most shooters who claim an image is, "straight out of the camera," fall into the first category I listed.

The image I posted (above) of Jasmine ain't "straight out of the camera." Had I not converted to monochrome, it still wouldn't be "straight out of the camera."