In the first three parts of this article I wrote some hints about the correct behavior of a live concert photographer, the settings of their camera and a way of managing the shoot. This fourth, originally unplanned part, introduces a tutorial I wrote about the work to do at home, that is post processing the photographs to get the most out of them.

So, the show is over, you are back home again, checking the pics you just downloaded to your pc. You realize you've taken the best shots ever, but... Yes, there's a "but". With those damn concert photographs, there's always a "but".

Some are a bit blurred... singers never stand still, drummers less than ever, uh?

Most of them have wide underexposed areas that you can't lighten, or you will blow out well exposed lights... spotlights are just spotlights, aren't they?

And... all of them show noise. Lighting is never intense enough and you had to shoot at top ISO settings, I know.

Well, a simple and totally inexpensive digital darkroom can do so much for your photographs, if managed with just a little skill. You can restore details adding sharpness to an image, for example. You can also apply a simple workflow to compensate the exposure of dark and light spots. Even digital noise can be smashed down to an acceptable level most of the times. More, you can optimize black & white conversions and get rid of chromatic aberration fringes.

And, what adds fun, you don't need cutting-edge, famous-branded, market leader and expensive software to do that! Free software, immediately available on the Internet, can be your perfect digital darkroom.

An in-depth analysis of a post processing workflow is clearly beyond the scope of a news article, since it would eat lots of pages and, after all, it wouldn't be even a "news", strictly speaking. This is why I collected that info into a tutorial (Barninga's live shots post processing tutorial), that you will eventually find of some use if you happen to take shots at jazz concerts (and maybe not just jazz).

This last part of the news has the goal to spread the word and suggest you to think twice before you decide that a shot is not worth the while of some care and restoring work.

Now, it is my pleasure to invite you to look at one more series of really great jazz portraits.




Barninga's live shots post processing tutorial