What is your Un-Suck Filter?
Un-suckfilters, everybody has one. Oh sure, you might not want to admit it, but you have one. Everyone does.
Back and white conversion or for the more creative duo-toned conversion has got to be the number one un-suck filter. We have all be tempted, but we must resist the evil that is known as duo-tone – at least when it is used to convert a bad image to a…bad image in two tones.
As a photographer based in an exotic location and one who travels to even more exotic locations I often get people emailing me to look at their travel galleries. I have seen some of the most appalling imagery exhibited as their strongest work only because it was shot in an amazing place. A bad image shot in India is still a bad image. A bad image shot in London is still a bad image.
I have come up with a partial list of popular Un-Suck Filters. Maybe you have know some others?
- B&W conversion
- Color and color grads effects
- General over processing in PS or LR
- Heavy vignette
- Highlight slider in LR (has to be mine)
Here’s the skinny: If a photo is out of focus no amount of detail in the shadows will change that. If an image is compositionally bad, it will be compositionally bad in back and white as well. As a growing photographer, you need to spend less time working on Photoshop and Lightroom tricks and more time working on composition and craft. Do you know what a well-composed photo looks like? Are you familiar with your kit enough to quickly capture an image in focus with the exposure you want and in a compelling composition? Forget correcting it in Photoshop. Truthfully – you might be able to correct a bad image a bit. But what does that say about your vision and your craft. It just tells me you’re lucky!
By the way, drop by ProPhoto Coalition for more articles on photography.
My favorite unsuck filter isn’t really a filter but it’s Lightroom’s Crop tool (Shortcut: R).
Another favorite unsuck filter is Photoshop’s lens blur, when I have once again forgotten to switch my aperture from f16 to f1.4. This one takes so much time to perform even remotely believably that a picture has to have at least some potential to use it.
Just kidding: there are is no way Lightroom or Photoshop can salvage a truly bad picture. But they can help to squeeze the most out of a mediocre picture (say you’re a reporter and you have – for whatever reason – only one halfway decent image to work with) and they can help make a truly good picture shine even more. I prefer to spend my time on the latter, because the better I’ve gotten it in camera, the less time it takes me afterwards…
Love this! So often we get that “You have great photographs because you go to great places” or the classic “you have a great camera”. You can make a good or a bad image anywhere.
So many photogs believe that anything can be fixed in PS. I confess to have tried to do the B&W conversion to save a bad image, but the truth is it might make a bit better but it won’t be great.
LOL. Love this post! So true. Spend more time with your camera and gear and less time in LR tips and tricks. Preach it!
Matt, Sometimes I feel like you’re talking right to me 🙂
-=t
Excellent post Matt – wise words, great advice and really resonates – I also feel like you are talking right to me!
Thanks for the excellent post Matt – great advice and really resonate
OK, after much soul searching I decided to come forward and confess my sins. Hello, My name Terry and I’m addicted to the preset “Mixtonesoft” by Gavin Phillips. At first I just used it once in awhile for fun but now I find myself clicking on it everyday, even if I don’t need to. I thought I could quit anytime I wanted but this preset has taken it’s hold on me and I find myself needing to click on it just to see what it will look like. It’s a nightmare, I tell you, a nightmare!
Seriously though, it’s a pretty cool preset. It can imply a mood or storyline to an image that is normally kind of boring. Check it out…the first one’s free!
Hi Terry, thanks for your honesty. This is your safe place. ok … Whose next?
In music there is a phrase, “fix it in the mix,” which actually means “we’ll get a session player to come in later and do it properly. With a great performance post-processing enhances and clarifies and salvaging a poor performance always makes it uglier, in some way (just listen to all the auto-tuned robot voices on today’s hits).
I’ve got some un-suck filters, for sure. My most abused one being radical crops, black and white conversions and layering tricks (B&W over colour) in Photoshop. Of course, those can be great on good images, almost always on images where the idea of using those processes was lurking in my mind when I clicked the shutter (like cropping square despite what my standard dSLR frame was showing me). But, on bad shots they produce as many problems as they solve.
BTW, I’m surprised no one has mentioned the clarity slider in Lightroom.
Fernando – You nailed it. When you shoot something and have a certain post process in mind, generally I would say it will more than likely fulfill that vision you had. But to use it as a “fix in the mix” as you so aptly put it, is just looking for trouble.
Oh and good call on the clarity slider, I think I tend to over do it as well.
You’re right, Fernando, I forgot the Clarity Slider. And I’m not the only one: when I see some pictures over at Flickr, I believe some people have an Import Preset that sets Clarity at +100 by default!
I was riding my crappy old motorbike home today through the busy food market in the city Ive been living in Thailand. People are just setting up food stalls in the fresh market and there is a general bustle of colour, laughter, class mixing and smells. I thought, this is everyday life, its so weird to photograph it like its a freak show. If there is anything I find interesting about cultural photography is exactly what people have said.”A bad image is a bad image anywhere” Ive taken so many I know. The thing that gets to me is it doesnt take much for me to walk out into my street and photograph the Karen woman carrying firewood on her head or the “cute little asian kids” but man whats the point. It seems so irrelevant. I wish more people would ask themselves what the point of their images is and what story they are telling before they put them on their website and wear that like a badge of honor. My issue is prideand “self backslapping”, not filters. Who cares if you can get a picture of the old guy with the wrinkly face in focus with your massive lens. Big woop. Haha I sound like a crazy person . You did say this was a safe place right? I saw the worst example of this that included actual back slapping. A young researcher rolled up in a village I was in. Interviewed a respected elder in a culturally rude manner and then gave him ONE little chocolate (like a child) and 20 baht. I was so embarrassed. As they walked off one of them slapped the other guy on the back like he had done something amazing. It was so weird. Just because YOU are uncomfortable in someones culture doesnt mean you deserve a medal for taking a photo.
Ouch! I feel like taking down my close up picture of the wrinkly old man above. But you make a great point. I know of a few well known and very well published photographers whose images embarrass me at times. Their images seem to make it into their books and get the approval of the masses for no other reason that the fact that these people made them. I am not sure that “self backslapping” qualifies as an un-suck filter, but I get your point! Now, what do I do with my orange turbaned sadhu above!
No Matt – please do leave it up! Was loving this discussion but personally if I can speak very frankly (and you said this was a safe place, and I do like to speak my mind!) I don’t think that I can agree with the last points raised. In fact now I am not quite sure whether I do agree or not, because in my mind the point is no longer quite clear!
Has the point now become whether it is ethical to be taking photos of someone of a different ethnic race or culture to ourselves or whether it is ok to be taking photos of people when we are a ‘tourist’ (as opposed to a foreigner actually living in the country/region, and in which case is it being argued that its okay if the subject is the same race, culture or socio economic background to ourselves, but not okay if their skin colour or culture is different)? Or is the issue now putting photos up on websites that were taken of people from another country/culture/race (and if so is the issue all such photos or just the images that are being considered as of inferior quality)? Should those of us who are less experienced and skilful photographers and still learning be required to only take images of inanimate objects or people with the same skin colour as ourselves until we have attained a certain level of proficiency, or is it being said that while we may take these images we should not dare post them anywhere? Or has the point now become the overall behaviour of foreigners (as a stereotype) towards local people and insults (intentional or otherwise), lack of respect and cultural ‘faux-pas’ which occur?
Sorry don’t mean to be disagreeable, am just now confused 🙂
Hugs
Sue
Suzie – I will let Nat speak for her self. But I will say what I heard and what I responded to. What I heard was that there are people, as we said that snap any kind of picture without out context or any real story and yet they push it as some great shot. Thus the “self backslapping”. Plus, people like this can often be out shooting for “their shot” and to hell with understanding the culture or the people. That is what I read.
As for taking down my image above, that won’t happen.
Doesn’t go over any better when you do it in your own culture. The proliferation of street people photos and of the city poor in the western world is akin to the same thing. Trophy hunters are a sad breed anywhere and should be regulated out of existence, if not by law, by those witnessing the act. Unfortunately you can’t pound sense into some things.
If I can chime in on this subject, I agree with the original comment in so far as it’s also a pet peeve of mine that there are seemingly many photographers who get “…a picture of the old guy with the wrinkly face in focus…” and it’s acclaimed as anything from “cultural” to “earth-shatteringly important” when in reality it IS little more than an un-suck filter of sorts.
Having said that, the point Nat makes at the beginning is most important “its so weird to photograph it like its a freak show.”. It’s that intent, the ‘Why?’ behind the image which is all-important, or perhaps as important as the image itself, at least in so far as its having value, sucking or un-sucking.
One of the reasons this subject is my pet-peeve is because there is so much mis-understanding in the world, so much negativity from mis-placed patriotism and feelings of nationalist superiority to outright hatred. For some reason many people seem to think it exists only for so-called world or cultural photography destinations, but it doesn’t. It happens right at home too with often-expressed negativity towards other European countries that I hear from here in the UK, especially Eastern European. The ignorance of and ignorance towards cultures and people who are relatively speaking our neighbours is something I find incredible and scary. As is our ignoring of it in favour of the un-suck shot.
One way around this ignorance is to learn and to teach understanding, to show through our images that we are all equal or all the same .. by which I mean in the sense of in God’s eyes or in Stings lyrics “I hope the Russians love their children too” depending on your religious preference. If that is the reason behind the ‘why?’ of the photograph then I think there is a strong validity in it. I remember Matt in one of your DoF’s you mentioning a monk (I think it was) giving you his business card with his email address on it. That’s a great mental picture but it also demonstrates how often we can be surprised by some of the simplest discoveries. In your picture above, I know the ‘why’ behind it will certainly have been right and good, from there, what I see in it may be a simple story, but it’s those two things combined which make it no un-suck filter and instead, a valid message.
I think this is very, very well-said. When I first got into photography as a hobby, I realized that putting people first and foremost into your images makes the photo look much more interesting than without. That seems to be a simple theme that draws people in as an audience. Will I be able to capture this person’s complete story in proper context? No.
However, if properly done, I think cultural photography can be used as a sort of window. I try that just to show my family what I’m doing here in Taiwan. I try to show my friends in the US what Taiwan, an often-overlooked country, is like in terms of daily life.
I fully agree with Nat though, that any sort of trophy hunting is reprehensible. It’s why Matt has mentioned time and again why we need to respect the cultures – and in some SAD cases not take that amazing photo in order not to “step on toes.”
My own un-suck filter has to be the split tone sliders in Lightroom. I don’t often use them for spicing up B&W images, where I do tend to use them a lot though is in adding subtle tones to an image or canceling out a white balance setting i:e using a warmer than usual white balance, then adding blue to the shadows to cancel it out whilst retaining the warmth in the highlights, or vice-versa.
Hey Matt ( & all ) , Just writing my feelings, but when I said wrinkly old man I was actually thinking of this image I took ( of an old man who happened to be of Karen ethnicity, dont know what to do with it, cause it probably wont help him any) Not this one above. The ten second goldfish memory had already scrolled down 🙂 No offense intended. I respect you and your imagery very much. So yup I guess Im asking myself , Who is that man? Who are his children? Whats important to him? I think when we label someone with only an ethnicity we can get really flip about people. So yeah my point is, How many people understand that theirs (or especially their childrens) photo will be used to promote a photographers professional reputation? Do they get asked if their image can be reproduced whether they agree with the context or not? Are Westerners the only people predominantly doing this? Do I do it? Its a question of power for me. I wasnt commenting on skill level at all ( I aint good at it btw )
Today I photographed around eight different ethnicities. That is fascinating to me, because I know that this Wa or Karen, Akha, Lahu, Hmong, Burmese, Mien people are members of groups with amazing and rich cultures , but they are also my mates. So if I put up a picture of them and say “A Karen Woman in the Traditional Dress for the Unmarried” It would feel super weird and impersonal. I dont personally paint travellers or expats with the same broad brush stokes, so I dont have an opinion there. As we know there is selfish people everywhere. I simply question this role , in this life. I dont want to live a selfish life. If that means I put down my camera and never pick it up again I can live with that.
In regards to whether your the same race as the person. I dont know. Im sure I could be pretty insensitive and self serving and backslapping in my own country.
Okay because Im really not a fan of people who spread negativity on the net, I just wanna say that I really didnt want to offend anyone. I think its just that to be honest these thoughts roll around in my head and its not real revelation to anyone else that “This is everyday life”.
Today I met a little girl who was just sold by her parents. I photographed her and she giggled and smiled and that felt really real. It wasnt about her ethnicity it was about her spirit.
And cause its annoying when people ( even unintentionally ) divery blog subjects. My unsuck filter is usually going nuts with the burn tool. Cool topic BTW. Bit of honesty.
Infared seems to be another popular substitute for technique these days.
Good post! Needs to be said again and again. It seems some are actually reading this to “find/get” an unsuck filter.
Just keep taking pictures is about as close to an unsuck filter as I can think of 🙂
I have been delving with Photoshop a decade before I picked up a camera and started the hobby. So basically, I had no idea what a “Rule of Thirds” is. But I have a fair grasp of the fundamentals of balance, relationships of elements and their particular places. Most of the images that I encounter are (safe for me to say) shot by amateurs. And in this case, the “un-suck” filters are [1] Heavy cropping [2] Levels – adjustment of midtones. [3] Curves – this is an and or situation when the levels are not enough. [4] last (but I think irrelevant in this post) is converting to CMYK which is required for the post print. In the case of a professional photographer’s work. As far as I could remember, he “worked” on his set (which was all about Arabian horses) with this workflow. [1] Brightness/Contrast – a slide here and there [2] Dodge/Burn – a little here and there and the [3] Sharpen/Blur. I never got the chance to ask him about his workflow. And just recently I understood that what he did were normal practices during film developing days. So every now and then I look back to these to “enhance” a shot not for the purpose of saving it.
I think it is not a crime to use an “un-suck” filter. At times I have converted to B&W a landscape shot whenever the sky is gray. A little amount of vignetting will do. Never heavy vignetting. What I consider as “un-suck” filters are those presets. Presetted shots and presented as art. For the record, I have nothing against those companies who sells presets. Believe me they worked hard for it. What I am against of is the mentality of the one taking the picture and applying a preset. It’s just lazy. I appreciate those who studies how this slider or effect does. Another “un-suck” filter I consider is HEAVY HDR. I have seen a lot of art from HDR and they are awesome. But some just resort to HRDing their not so good shots. They are the opposites of the lazy ones. People with a lot of time to waste.
Rad, HDR and Cropping – both should be on my list! Thanks. But don’t confuse normal post processing with an un-suck filter.
We had such a great response from this post that I thought I would take the discussion over to ProPhotoCoalition.com and let others join in. So if you are interested in some ways to photograph people different than ourselves then by all means visit this link and give me your thoughts.
I hate post processing. Outside of a few simple adjustments it better be pretty close to what I wanted when I took the photograph. I like your follow-up post even more!
HDR seemed to be 2010 unsuck filter of choice with cartoon like images cropping up everywhere.
But matt has the good image above also got an unsuck filter on the background, re the halo?
Ok, lets remember, the whole point of this article is if an image is bad, there is no filter that will bail it out. A good image can be helped and quite frankly should have some amount of post processing. Normal work flow is not bailing an image out, it is just normal work flow. Yes, you can over do sharpening, clarity, B&W treatment and even vignetting. But those things are tool that can make a good photo even better. In answer to your question, that image does have vignetting, clarity, vibrance and fill as well as many other things done to it in post. But I would not spend the time on it if it were not a well crafted image. Make sense?
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