By Fedor Vasilev – Corporate Photographer in Berlin
I wrote this article a few years ago as a challenge: what if I stopped relying on editing and tried to get every photograph right inside the camera? I still think this is a useful exercise. It forces you to pay more attention to the light, exposure and composition before pressing the shutter. But my view on the subject has become a bit less romantic since then.
For me, editing is not simply a way to rescue a badly taken picture. It is part of how I photograph. I can take a strong image straight out of the camera, but most of the time I will still see something that could be improved. Maybe the highlights are slightly too bright, maybe the colour is a little too green, or maybe the subject does not stand out as clearly as I wanted. A finished photograph, for me, is a photograph where I no longer know what else I would improve.
The Editing Paradox
Even though it requires less work, only highly skilled photographers can consistently capture and publish great photographs without post-processing. At the same time, it is rare for a skilled photographer not to edit their work.
Experienced photographers usually get better results straight out of the camera because they understand exposure, light and composition. Yet they also know what editing can add. They use it to make small decisions more precise: which parts of the picture should be brighter, where the strongest contrast should be, and how the colours should relate to each other.
Beginners often underrate this part. Sometimes they avoid editing because they want the photograph to remain authentic. Sometimes they open editing software but mainly adjust the overall exposure, without deciding what should actually be bright or dark inside the frame. I did that too. Learning to edit is partly how I learned what I wanted a finished photograph to look like.
The Challenge Still Gives You The Right Mindset
So what if we put editing aside for a while and focus on what comes out of the camera? I often rely on post-processing, and some of my photographs look completely different before and after it. Precisely because of that, limiting myself can be useful.
When I photograph street scenes or create fine-art work, I often make the lighting more interesting in post-production. In the example above, I brought more attention to the main subject by applying a local adjustment and making the centre of the frame brighter.
But what if I deliberately search for that light while taking the picture instead? On a sunny day I can move around, change the angle and wait until the subject enters an interesting patch of light. On a cloudy day the light might be flat everywhere, so the challenge becomes finding contrast in the location, colours or background. There is less room for error, but that is the point of the exercise.
What I Actually Do While Editing
Editing is not only making a picture brighter or adding contrast. I look at the whole range of light and colour in the composition and decide which values should have which brightness. I might protect the highlights, lift the face a little, reduce attention on the background and keep the colour palette more restrained. The purpose is usually to make the photograph more focused on its main subject.
This is why editing can teach you photography. While adjusting a picture, you start noticing that one highlight is pulling your eye away, or that two colours do not work well together. Then you begin seeing these problems earlier, while you are still taking the photographs.
AI editing can sometimes produce a decent result for one picture, especially when someone is only starting. But at least from what I have tried, it is almost useless for editing a consistent client gallery. It might make individual photographs look impressive while treating the colours, skin tones and contrast differently in every frame. Consistency is exactly what I need.
Why Commercial Photography Needs Editing
For my commercial and corporate photography, avoiding editing is basically impossible. At a conference I cannot control every source of light. I might photograph a stage, a dark audience, networking beside a window and another session under completely different artificial lights, all within one hour.
The final gallery still needs to look like one body of work. I need to match white balance, exposure, contrast and colour between rooms and cameras. I also need to keep skin tones natural and make sure important details are visible without making every image look artificially bright. The editing is not an optional effect added afterwards. It is part of delivering consistent professional work.
Phone Pictures Are Already Edited
People sometimes say that phone cameras have become so good that their pictures no longer need editing. But the phone has already edited them. It applies a predefined look and a lot of computational processing, including automatic adjustments to colour, contrast, noise, shadows and highlights.
If you bypass that processing and capture something closer to the raw sensor data, the result usually looks flatter and greyer. That does not mean the camera is worse. It means the file contains more neutral information and expects you to decide what the final image should look like. Comparing an automatically processed phone JPEG with an untouched RAW file from a professional camera is not really a fair comparison.
Film Simulations And Picture Profiles
There is another approach: deciding on the look inside the camera. Fujifilm cameras are known for film simulations, and Ricoh cameras also allow quite extensive image customisation. Even some older Canon cameras, including the 5D series, can use custom picture styles or firmware that imitate many different films. In a way, this is automatic editing based on a look you have chosen in advance.
For a complete beginner, this can genuinely improve the pictures. A predefined profile already gives the colour and contrast some direction. The same can happen when someone starts with film: the photographs might not yet be very good, but the film stock gives them a recognisable palette, so they can look more finished.
At the same time, I am not sure this always helps with learning. To understand what good highlights, shadows, tones and colours look like, you need to make some of these decisions yourself. A profile can give you better results before you understand why they look better. That is useful, but it can also remove part of the learning process.
I tried creating looks inside my Sony A7 cameras by adjusting picture profiles, shifting the white balance and adding contrast. Sony does not make this as simple as choosing a ready-made film simulation, so I had to build the look manually and write the settings down. The results were good, but my eyes still noticed that some photographs looked slightly flat or underexposed, especially because I normally expose to protect the highlights. Once I brought them into Lightroom and added a little more punch and colour adjustment, I liked them more.
If you like the result straight out of the camera, that is completely fine. Not every photograph has to be pushed to its absolute maximum. I just tend to look at mine and think: this could still be better. Then I edit it.
Studio Photography And Complete Control
A studio is probably the closest I get to producing a finished photograph inside the camera. I can place every light, adjust its strength and choose the background. When everything is set properly, I need much less correction afterwards. I still normally do some retouching, but I try to keep it natural.
Still, even complete control does not guarantee that I will skip editing. I recently photographed products using four or five lights at the same time. I controlled every source of light and could make small adjustments before taking the picture. I edited the photographs afterwards anyway. There were still colours, reflections and tonal differences that I wanted to make more precise.
[Add the product photograph here]
Why Getting Everything Right In Camera Is Difficult
- Light changes. Natural light can shift during a shoot, while different rooms can have completely different colour and brightness.
- RAW files are meant to be interpreted. Their flatter appearance preserves information, but it is rarely the final look I want.
- Composition is not always perfect. Cropping is one of the edits I use most often, especially when the moment matters more than leaving an ideal border around the frame.
- Cameras have limitations. Wide lenses distort, highlights can clip and sensors do not always reproduce colour in the way I saw it.
- A series needs consistency. One photograph may look good by itself but feel wrong beside the rest of the gallery.
My Way Of Taking Photographs
I do not think I could completely separate my photography from editing because it is about half of the job I do. Sometimes I cannot create perfect light on location, so I make particular parts of the photograph darker or brighter afterwards. I also crop almost every kind of work. Composition is crucial, and sometimes a relatively small crop improves the picture significantly.
At the same time, I always try to take the picture as well as I can on the scene so that I am not relying on editing to repair everything. It is better to start with strong light, exposure and composition. Editing should continue the decisions I made while photographing, not invent the whole picture afterwards.
Even with film, I often make small adjustments to the digital scans. Maybe the scan looks slightly too green, or the highlights are darker than I wanted. The changes are usually lighter than with a digital RAW file, but they are still changes. And of course, photographers also manipulated exposure and contrast in the darkroom long before Lightroom existed.
Try It As A Challenge
Despite everything I wrote above, I still recommend trying to photograph without editing from time to time. Treat the file from the camera as the finished result. You will probably spend longer choosing the angle and exposure, and you may miss some frames because of that. But the limitation makes you pay attention.
If you are trying this on film and need a roll, my friends at Berlin Photo Studio have a good variety of film and film photography equipment. This is an affiliate link, so buying through it also supports me.
A Few Things To Try
- Adjust the composition as carefully as possible before taking the picture.
- Watch the highlights. I often underexpose slightly because I would rather protect them.
- Use JPEG and choose an in-camera profile if you want a more finished result immediately.
- Use light, a reflector or a flash to separate the subject instead of planning to do all of it later.
- Do not crop. This one is painful, but it makes you take the edges of the frame seriously.
To continue practising, you can also read:
Top 10 Ways To Improve Photography Skills
5 Photography Exercises For Creativity
A Short FAQ
Can a photograph be finished straight out of the camera?
Yes. It is most achievable when the light, exposure, composition and in-camera look are controlled carefully. I can get very close in a studio, but I still often notice something I want to adjust.
Are phone photographs unedited?
Usually not. Phones apply extensive computational processing before displaying the final JPEG. The result may look finished without manual work, but editing has still happened automatically.
Why do professional client galleries need editing?
Because the photographs need to remain consistent across changing light, locations and sometimes several cameras. Editing is how I match colour, exposure and contrast so that the final gallery feels coherent.
A Few More Words
I like the idea of producing a perfect photograph at the moment I press the shutter. Sometimes I even get close. But most of the time, when I look carefully, I still find something I can improve. For me, that last part of the process is not separate from photography. It is where I finish the decisions I started making while taking the picture.
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