Today’s Question: As all the various editing software continues to be updated, we have more and more adjustments available for our photos. Is there an argument to be made that we have too many options, and that we should perhaps consider limiting ourselves to the more basic adjustments?
Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, there is most certainly an argument (perhaps more than one) that using fewer adjustments would be reasonable.
More Detail: As much as I love having options, I also think it would be reasonable to say that we have more options than we necessarily need when it comes to optimizing our photos. There are most certainly adjustments I never use, and even more that I use only rarely.
To some extent my opinion here might make me a bit old fashioned. I am, after all, a proponent of the long-held notion that the image should be created as close to perfect in the camera, so that minimal processing is necessary after the capture. I often find, however, that my favorite photos are those that don’t require much editing, because I’m mostly happy with how they were captured in the first place.
For the vast majority of my photos, I only need the basic adjustments related to tone and color, sometimes with a bit of fine-tuning for color such as with the Color Mixer and Color Grading adjustments in Lightroom Classic and Camera Raw.
I don’t find the need to use image cleanup tools very often, in part because I try to make sure my camera sensor remains free of dust spots, and because I try my best to avoid distractions and blemishes in my original compositions. I also don’t tend to need to use targeted adjustments (via masking, for example) for most of my photos.
Having said all that, I most certainly appreciate that all the adjustments are available. For example, it can be tremendously helpful to fine-tune the overall tonality specifically for the sky to help balance that area better with the rest of the photo. And while I do my best to avoid blemishes in my photos, sometimes they are unavoidable or I fail to notice them until after the capture.
So, I would not suggest that Adobe remove adjustments from Lightroom Classic or Camera Raw, perhaps with a couple exceptions. But I also think there’s something to be said for being sure not to over-process an image, and that just because a particular adjustment is available doesn’t mean it should be used for every image.
