As we progress as photographers, we accumulate more and more images in our catalogs, and it can be easy for old photos to become buried deep on hard drives, left to be forgotten about. But there can be a lot of value in revisiting old shots, and you find even find treasure hidden in those old folders. This great video tutorial shows you what you can accomplish when you apply modern techniques and improved skills to older shots.
Coming to you from Park Cameras, this awesome video tutorial shows what you can accomplish by revisiting old photos in your catalog. One of the biggest reasons to do this is simply that our editing skills frequently improve by leaps and bounds and our taste becomes more refined. It is not uncommon for photographers to master camera settings and basic composition before their editing capabilities catch up, and as such, you will often have rough images from the early days of your portfolio that just need a bit of polish to be keepers. And as you will see, some of the latest modern editing software and features can do a lot to remedy issues a lot of beginners have. Check out the video above for the full rundown.
Alex Cooke asked,
"How Often Do You Revisit Old Photos?"
I spend an average of about a half hour a day going thru my photo archives, all the way back to when I started shooting digital in 2007. Some days, like yesterday, I spend a few hours in the archives. But then when I am on the road for a few days, driving, I don't even break out my computer. But it averages out to about a half hour a day ..... or roughly 160 hours each year.
One reason I go thru the archives so much is because I submit my images to various publishers and stock agencies. When I get a photo call from an editor, I need to search thru my archives to find all the images that fit the needs of that particular call for photos.
I also document wildlife sightings and like to go back to my image archives to find images of various species I have photographed. The fact that the images have the date and time saved to the file is valuable information used for species-specific research.
Please, don't anybody suggest that I use keywording to save time searching for images ... I have tried that and do not like it. Adding the keywords in the first place actually takes more time than it would save, plus I really enjoy taking a few hours to look thru my old images - it is a treasured pastime for me. I also have lots and lots of free time and love to spend that time looking thru old photos! It is more enjoyable and fulfilling than most of the other things I could be doing with that time.
All the time. But I'm only talking the processing, not to shoot.
I believe you are missing the point of looking back at years ago images captured. Being retired retired for some 25 years and a film user from mid 70's and a early digital with point and shoot cameras early 2000's then going Canon T2i just before '10 and mirrorless in '14 with a A7s due to it having Bracketing 5 @ +/- 3EV for I was using the Promote Control device for even greater than 5 and varied EV's with my T2i. What many, I will call " Young " photographers, have not experienced is the great leaps and bounds Software has come to. Today if you got your hands on an early/mid 2k point and shoot you will find they did a great job with jpeg or tiff files and when the, say just for example, T2i came out (and others) also did very well in capturing even by today's standards for a camera and tools they had. But if you wanted to edit an image you needed to use the camera makers SW to start for PS/Lr were $800+ for each and each full update, so only the real Pro's of big business had them to play with! Us hobbyists learned more in a day with subpar SW. But a couple of SW's like Nik, Photomatix pro and Oloneo PhotoEngine that were less than $100. Just example I went Sony for one reason mainly for C1 being just $30 for many years and it was like Lr but some PS.
Today everyone has the combo PS/Lr and many others for less.
But there are images on many old hard drives and on negatives/slides. HDR bracketing was big because it made the low dynamic range cameras better but kinda cartoonish but Lr and others do a great job of the blending today. This is just one reason to go back! 1st image is 5 @ +/- 2ev you get rid of silhouettes. The least known about is the on camera apps of the mod 1 and 2 Sony cameras 2nd image the MW over a lit runway using the digital filter app processed in camera as either jpeg or raw or both did not need PS, also using the e 10-18mm f/4 APS-C at 12mm in full frame mode before 12mm even thought of and Lr had the LC. 3rd image T2i using Promote Control and processed with Nik HDR in early '14. 4th image '17 using A7RM2 3 @ +/- 2ev hand held while others on sticks doing long exposures and at the time using the 12-24mm f/4 when few had a 24mm or even a16mm.
The point not only the dream of a capture but learning the hard way of processing without a PS/Lr but today with PS/Lr and others and some with AI (as most would call it) you have an option of a redo like for years low light images have battled noise and cameras have improved the signal to noise of sensors, today everyone is playing catch-up with Topaz and Topaz has been working noise since '15, just the fact that noise has been reduced along with great sharpness is a miracle that Lr has even caught up with.
Also today you can use any camera from a flea market and any lens from the film days, knowing manufacture and mm Lr will have a lens correction. In '15 I used the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 and took almost 2 years before Lr got a LC and how long I had to wait to process.
There are many items in SW that will improve even your todays images later, getting correct colors is always improving.
Just have fun capturing and processing and getting what you saw/dreamed.