Whilst cameras ( or dare I say 'phones ) become more intuitive we are now starting to see a revolution in photo editing. Artificial Intelligence editing software is now appearing. It " enhances " your image in a way that the program thinks it should be. Neural networks upscale the resolution of the image by four times sharpening the image and fixing problems with colour and tone. A smart enhance tool removes blur and blemishes restoring natural skin and hair texture. Another AI program ( Remove.bg ) uses AI to identify the subject of a photo and remove everything else to place it into another context.  ( forthcoming an image of me in any cave you would like to mention ). Whilst that notion is not new it offers many scenarios for fake news as well as caving. Currently,  "letsenhance.io " is offering AI editing at around ?7 per month which compares well with Photoshop. So we have a convergence that might change photography forever. Intuitive cameras with multiple program selection and Artificial Intelligence editing. Oh, feeling lonely try                " Cleverbot " or " eviebot.com ". Chat away with an animated female avatar. You don't even have to buy her a drink.
Abbreviated from " Webuser " Issue 507.

I edit using Pixelmator Photo on my iPad, and their 'ML' editing, tends to get pretty close to how I would have edited it anyway.

The photo editing process is definitely getting 'smarter' but editing a photo, just like taking one, is a personal process, and what works for one doesn't work for another. It's definitely approaching the point where it can look at your other photo edits you've done and pick up your style from that though, which is cool.

No-one forces anyone to edit.

Laurie said:

No-one forces anyone to edit.

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Most of my stuff has minor edits now. My sort of photography justifies that as mostly I do unposed stuff on the move. Best edit for me is the haze filter. If only we had that years ago. Anything copied from older slides will have to be edited as the colour goes. The trouble with today's editing is the overcooking of the image. Lots of caving images are overcooked and to be honest, I don't like that trend. I see photographers messing about for ages on their laptops editing stuff. That sort of cave photography is almost the norm now. The odd has become formulaic. Of course its all down to taste. For a  selection of images look here - https://www.facebook.com/groups/caversgroup/

Laurie said:

No-one forces anyone to edit.

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If your going to shoot in raw, which for cave photography is a must to get more dynamic range you have to.

I think imporvemnts algorythms, im hesitant to call this AI as thats just a buzz word throw around these days, will allow for better images. Things like de-hase, noise reduction and content aware fill get better all the time but a human still has to do the editing. These sites that "do it for you" are just applying their filters to your images with numbers a human gave it because they found thoes numbers give a decent output for most images.

Cave images are not like most images however we have a lot more whites and blacks in the images and frequently under or over expose, i think any alorythims tuned for surface general photograhy will not apply very well to underground photography and anyone who knows how to use software like lightroom or photoshop properly will get better results.

Lastly there is allways a limit to what you can do in post, getting it right in camera and knowing how to use your camera properly and having good glass will get you much better results than spending money on software.

I suppose it depends on the definition of the truthfulness of the output.  I've seen people spend days tweaking images, and also some that say that spending more than a couple of minutes in post means the starting material wasn't that good in the first place. I guess it depends on what you like to do.  I'm probably more on the side of less is more.
Anyway human input is better than a credit of 'photo taken by software x, by the way button was pressed by automaton y when software x told them to'.

Does not shooting in RAW presuppose that you are going to spend ages messing about editing. My mate Mr O'Doc tells me that I should use RAW but really for what I do I cannot see the point. I cannot see that RAW is a " must " for cave photography.

One from last week. Totally unposed. I liked his expression as he eased his way under a loose rock. ( the rock fell out later ). Smiling models, back lit, and highly edited images might look great but they lack " the moment " that can occur in only a few seconds.

P8040051 by Nicholas Chipchase, on Flickr

That expression is priceless! And that is what caving really looks like.

I have to admit that all these perfectly illuminated posed shots, impressive as they are, really do nothing for me.

Caving is cold, dark and often filthy. Caving can be very remote and at times absolutely desperate.

The romantic glory shots do highlight the beauty of caves, but they rarely capture the atmosphere or emotion of caving, in my opinion. TOR's snaps really capture a lot more of the "caving", but they aren't generally the sort of thing to put on the wall. I guess different styles have different places.

The most engaging underground pictures I know are Gonzo's paintings, which not only capture the raw emotion of caving, but are also worthy of any wall to hang on. When A.I. can do half this, I'll be impressed!

Must admit haven't used RAW for a very, very, long time.  (I suppose it's nice to have the capability if needed, and maybe I ought to explore more).  Most of the stuff I do in terms of editing is cropping and a bit of level adjustment.  I think candids do often tend to work better than posed shots that can have the subject looking like they were wearing Victorian head clamps to keep them still!  When I was doing a few things for local bands they wanted some standard posed shots, but I kept pressing the shutter to get the more 'natural' looking stuff that in the end tends to be more used.

I shoot everything in RAW as standard - it seems pointless to not shoot in maximum quality. You can still export a JPEG without touching it if you wish, but you can get so much more out of a RAW image with very little 'editing'. I doubt I ever spend more than two or three minutes adjusting settings, but even the re-touching (dodging and burning in old darkroom parlance) in RAW is more accurate, so it's worth doing there.

It's 12-bit, not 8-bit, which in simple terms means each channel (R, G and B) has 4096 levels of brightness between total dark and and total light, as opposed to 256 levels in 8-bit, which is not enough. In 12-bit you have 68,719,476,736 potential 'colours' in your palette as opposed to 16,777,216 - which used to be considered a lot in the olden days of computer imaging. Obviously that is then divided by the number of pixels on your monitor, or the DPI of your printer. So there's far more adjustability in terms of shadows and highlights, which are often the most problematic areas in cave photography, and colour transition smoothness. When HDR formats become more common it'll become even more extreme.

If you do a 'blend' image with red, blue, green and black (or white) corners, you'll instantly see the limitations of 8-bit images (and monitors).

I have been telling the OR to shoot in RAW for years. He shoots jpegs, processes them then dumps the original which is why you don't see his photos in Descent. File sizes typically under ! mb. Perhaps somebody else can persuade him to shot in RAW.

File sizes typically under ! mb

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That file size is quite interesting.  I'm guessing that is the size posted on here.  I've had a quick look at the cameras  I've played with most recently - both 12MP sensors - an Olympus TG-6 and Leica D-Lux 109. JPEG file sizes are generally around the 6.5 to 8Mb on average, depending on the complexity of the scene, and whether colour or monochrome. I've set to the max resolution and smallest compression (I think called super fine or similar). On the odd occasion I've squished things down to post here file sizes are below 1Mb.
I do tend to keep the original and use a copy.
Maybe I ought to really raise my game a bit technologically speaking.  I suppose it's the conflict between the ephemeral nature of a lot of pics and time available to play and storage space and getting it as right in your mind via the lens in the first place.
Looking back, the few pics I've had in Descent a long time ago were all film based, and none in anyway near prize winners, but I guess interesting at that point in time.

I normally save a TIF from RAW, and then make a smaller version in JPG for print as they're always still plenty big enough. If I'm posting a JPG online here say, I would never give a compression value higher than 6 (out of 12 in Photoshop) as it keeps the file sizes down - and also keeps the quality down if folks are going to rip it off. Saving JPGs at full-quality (12) is daft as you cannot tell the difference from 10, but the file size is about double.

I prefer TIFs as my 'regular' output file format, as they can be compressed but with no loss in quality (less effective on complex images), though if I need to free up some space and there wasn't much adjustment done after RAW, I'd always dump the TIF, as that's also 8-bit - never, ever dump the RAW. You can restore any of them from that, but you can't go back up in quality once you've gone down.

I have looked at the image I posted above. Its 3.1 mb. That's my current average I guess. I reduce the size for our group emails or else I would not get many on. I think my email limit is near 20mb. I think there is a bit of RAW snobbery going on here. I do images for other magazines and they are happy with 1mb plus. A big magazine of my images was published this week and all look fine to me. I dont actually send images to Descent so I am unaware if they have a limit. Surely the important thing is what story does an image tell. Technical perfection is fine but it must have other attributes. Don't forget that most of histories greatest images would be very technically imperfect by today's standards. I must add that some of my images have appeared in Mr O' Doc's Reservoir Hole book and at postcard size look no worse than his. Thats the point really. Blow mine up to A5 and you might be disappointed. Images on social media and in books rarely reach that format and minimal cropping will not affect the image. Photography can get too stuffy. Long technical discourses on RAW and other matters can put people off from showing photos. FF's sake can't we just have some fun with photography. Show things as they are. Not hideously distort them with editing. I am starting to yawn when I see those technically perfect backlit caving images. They all fit the same mould. I was putting images on a landscape site. Ruddy manicured sunsets and garish reflections now so that I rarely look at the site now.Here is another from last week. The " Master " in action. ( 3.20 mb ). Its a bit of fun. Not a masterpiece to frame on the wall or cover Descent. Why cant we see life more this way. Its all got too serious.

P8040044 by Nicholas Chipchase, on Flickr

The Old Ruminator said:

I dont actually send images to Descent so I am unaware if they have a limit. Surely the important thing is what story does an image tell.

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I have only once sent anything into Descent, after Mrodoc read a write up of mine (on here?/ facebook?/ club email?) and asked me to send it in. There were a few pictures included and they certainly weren't masterpieces. Although slightly posed, the were point and shoot with a compact camera on a digging night, much akin to your photos TOR. At least at that time, there didn't seem to be a minimum limit, though I definitely didn't make the cover picture!

I suppose I have to illustrate my point. ( if there is one ). This a crop of the latest image on the landscape site. A great many are like this now. To me there is nothing natural or muted. It's  garish. The shadows burned out. Perhaps I am wrong and people like that way. ( Hope the photographer is not a caver ).

117385695_10158856912336563_2641075833960286974_o by Nicholas Chipchase, on Flickr

I shoot RAW and probably spend a couple of minutes max editing a photo. the RAW file enables much more detail to be retained in the shadows and highlights.

There's nothing stopping you shooting in RAW and then exporting straight away to a JPEG using a preset, it just means that in the future you have the possibility of editing maybe slightly more to your taste, and without losing any further quality.

RAW doesn't mean you have to edit one way or the other, it just gives you options.

Exactly - and to clarify I wasn't talking about resolution (level of detail), or 'worthiness' of the shot either - I'm talking about image quality, which is the most accurate rendition of colours, shadows and highlights. An image can be low-res but still be perfect quality. Many sports photographers used to use fairly low-res cameras with full-frame sensors, as they would never be printed larger than six inches in the magazine but had to be absolutely perfect in luminance and colour for print. As costs are coming down, that's becoming less of an issue.

I agree that many 'staged' cave photos are quite dull, and I feel the same way about the amount of work that might be needed to light a scene. but even if I was taking a landscape shot outdoors I would still go for RAW every time. Even when I used darkrooms (monochrome), I still used the same approach. Over-expose and over-develop the film, then develop the print in two baths of developer - one very very weak (and long) for highlights, followed by regular strength for ten seconds for shadows. This was in 1984, and I was copying it from photographers who used the technique in the 1940s (see Frederick Sommer and others). So it's not new, and is just another way of stretching the medium to produce maximum quality.

Most cameras allow you to shoot RAW plus JPEG and I would recommend turning it on and keeping them even if you have no plan to even look at the raws now. Years down the line you may wish to go back to old images with new skills and tools. I know Pwhole has gone back to older images and redited them with newer versions of denoise etc and got a much better result. The file size is basically irrelevant unless your shooting wildlife and fast sports where you need high burst modes, storage is so cheap these days.

I'll always shoot in RAW for exactly the reasons Pwhole says, the larger range of color and luminosity allows me to recover under or overexposed shots that would otherwise have gone in the bin if I just shot JPEG. Case and point in this image.



Most caving photos I can take between 1 and 10 miniutes editing but i have spent hours on editing landscapes or climbing images, it all just depends on the look you or the client want there isnt anything wrong with either. Arguably the only time its bad to edit too much is documentary images but even that can depend, is it bad to pose something if it get the message across the viewer?

Occasionally I choose to shoot RAW. For 95% of the time I have a camera in my hand it is Jpeg (Super Fine). You're right that RAW gives you more, but what if you don't need more? Capturing the scene or action with a straight out of camera Jpeg is a skill in itself, but more importantly for me, does not slave me to image editing. If I get a Jpeg home to find that it is a little burnt out or the colours are not quite as I want them to be, I can edit that Jpeg just fine.
Example of one I took yesterday as a Jpeg and I gave a little colour tweak and exposure shift in Olympus Workspace:

9-8-2020 (10) by
Pete Knight, on Flickr
Click through if you want to see it at full res. Maybe 1 in every 200 pics on my Flickr started life as a RAW. Be warned, it's not all caving pics, I'm becoming a bit of wildlife guy!

And to make the point about editing non-RAW files further, I took the overexposed PNG of the Pearly Gates from above (screengrabbed) and adjusted the light levels using Microsoft Photos App in 10 seconds. It looks very similar to the edited one on the right in the post. I fully admit that if I was printing that pic in higher resolution in a magazine it could be better, but for those of us content to show our work on social media and the occasional slideshow, Jpegs are more than adequate. If I need to print and/or maintain the highest range of colour and depth then RAW it is, but for most of us who who don't publish this is not an issue.
RAW is ace when you need it, Jpeg is fine when you don't. One is not better than the other, either is appropriate for a particular person. I know Phil shoots in RAW and his work is superb. I imagine the editing is part of the joy of the journey for him though being the artist that he is. It's not there for me yet. A quick shadow tweek or crop on a Jpeg in Olympus Workspace is about as much as I want to spend time doing. Most times I'm happy to stick things online straight out of the camera, even if RAW might have got me a bit more dynamic range. If it looks good to me I'm happy with that.
I find that lots of photographic discussions seem to degenerate into a must use RAW or you're an amateur type conversation, and I just think it makes photography seem more out of reach (and dare I say pretentious) to those who might otherwise be inspired to take it up.
Snap in RAW, snap in Jpeg, whatever suits you. Neither is best for all. There are people on here who are far more accomplished photographers than me and I do not claim to be in the remotest bit competent about the technicalities of photography. Like OR, I'm just happy to take a pic and enjoy it, but I totally understand the editing process is important and fun for others.
I've just started shooting RAW+Jpeg now my new camera has 2 card slots, so we'll see what that does to my opinion in future!
Anyway, I think we've gone a mile from AI and computational photography.