Post Processing the photo

While taking photography itself is an art, and mind you, is a difficult art, making the photos look beautiful is even tough.  Sometimes the background / foreground might not be what you wanted, or there are some additional things that fell into the frame while shooting, or simply light is not enough, or there's too much light. You only want to see what you intended to see, not something else in your frame.  If there's something more than that, it does disturb you, and the quality of the picture.  

Someone invented eraser to rub off the errors.  Similarly, we have photo editing tools to make the photo look even better.  I am not a pro in anything.  I have just laid my hands on them for the last 3 years.  

One of my friend who works in IT sector says that the software technology he uses is nothing but a mere "cut and paste".  Same with excel isn't it?  No offense to anyone who use these technologies.  To put it in a simple way, every software coding  has the "cut and paste" job.  Even MS Office.  Control C and Control V is not new to anyone.  Blogosphere call this act as plagiarism, while it's a coding job for a software professional, or anyone who works in computer.  Use the same blind strategy for photo editing too.  This is called post processing (in short pp).  Most of my photos do have pp work - in the form of adding water marks, in adjusting the frame, cropping off the unwanted objects, to adjust the lighting, color or contrast.  

While it is imperative to put efforts to take best picture, sometimes, we need to use these tools to make them look a bit more beautiful and presentable.  One can use paint.net, Photoshop, GIMP, Picnik, Picasa - any photo editing softwares for this.  

I'll share a simple example of how a simple "cut and paste" will enhance the look of the photo.  The one on the left side is the original photo which has wires, tube, holes on the wall.  A simple 15 minute work on photoshop, and the result is on the right side.  I've taken off the wire, bulb, some of the holes on the walls are gone and the window blinds are changed.  

Which one do you think is looking better?    Ofcourse post processing is not just cut and paste.  There are lots of other elements.  But to start with, these are something everyone can try out.  I personally use Paint.Net for my pp work.  Similarly when you see a lamp post on top of the head of someone or any other object disturbing the beautiful picture, just try your hands on simple cropping or editing. It's as simple as this.  This is no rocket science. Simple "cut and paste" job.