7 Pro Landscape Photographers Edit the Same Raw Image: Which Do You Think Is Best?

For as long as I've owned Photoshop, I've steadfastly held the belief that post-production skills separate most photographers. Here, we see seven pro landscape photographers given a single raw image to work with, and the final results are not only quite amazing, but incredibly different.

When I bought my first camera more than three decades ago, I instantly became fascinated by its mechanics and capabilities. As we've moved from film to digital and from DSLRs to mirrorless, my curiosity about the features of the cameras in my hands has only grown larger. To that end, I think if you have a genuine love affair with cameras and photography, it doesn't take too long to understand the vital features of your camera or the basic rules of photography. What does separate people, however, is their ability in post-production. It was evident when Ansel Adams worked his wizardry in the darkroom, and it's still evident today in the digital world. 

There's no better example of that than when you give a bunch of skilled photographers a single raw file to work with and ask them to come up with their own interpretation for the final image. That's exactly what Christian Mohrle did when he allowed seven well-known landscape photographers to work on a raw file he provided. It's fascinating to see how these pro landscape photographers tackle the image: some stay true to the original file, while others go into the realms of fantasy. Personally, I liked Antonio Valente's edit the most. How about you?

Iain Stanley's picture

Iain Stanley is an Associate Professor teaching photography and composition in Japan. Fstoppers is where he writes about photography, but he's also a 5x Top Writer on Medium, where he writes about his expat (mis)adventures in Japan and other things not related to photography. To view his writing, click the link above.

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4 Comments

This was pretty awesome. I did my edits as well. I was surprised at how minimal my edits were compared to most of theirs. Of course Hardcastles was easily the best.

This video shows the banality of the recent trend for YouTube videos with titles along the lines of what Pro's do that Beginners don't. In the real world it depends on the Pro.

I am very pleased to see that these photos, for the most part, stayed true to the original image. I can't tell you how tired i am at seeing manipulations beyond believability. This is how i also do editing. As minimal as i feel necessary. Thank you.

The RAW files weren’t the best. I think I would have provided something a bit better to these photographers. I tried editing but stopped because of the blurry images. Glad I wasn’t the only one that noticed.