Virtually everyone who has been out with their camera, and around other photographers, has heard someone say that they’ll ‘fix it in post’ when they get home. We may have even used those words personally.

Semantics can be extremely important in life as they guide our behaviour, and shape our expectations. The purpose of this article is to encourage readers to reframe the work they do with post processing… and move past the concept of ‘fix it in post’.

NOTE: Click on images to enlarge. Photographs have been added to serve as visual breaks.

It is interesting to consider the meaning of the word ‘fix’.  Depending on the dictionary used, fix as a verb is defined to mean ‘to repair’, ‘to mend’, or ‘to put in order or good condition’, The inference that I get from these dictionary descriptors is that something is currently broken. And, that corrective action is required to bring it back to an acceptable state. Fixing denotes a pedestrian state of affairs… not a creatively energetic one.

In my mind, the question that begs to be asked is why a photographer would want to spend any time at all working in post on a ‘broken’ image by fixing it? If a photograph is fundamentally broken then we should just throw it away. Or better still… not even bother wasting our time creating it in the first place.

Some folks reading this article may think that I’m splitting hairs even mentioning this phrase at all. Or make an issue of it. Doesn’t everyone say that they’ll fix it in post? Don’t we all think that way? The short answer is no.

Once we start accepting that we can just ‘fix it in post’… we tend to lower our photographic standards. We spend less time trying to get things ‘right in camera’. We get lazy when we’re out in the field. We accept things that we shouldn’t by thinking it doesn’t matter right now… since I can fix it later. We fail to recognize the symbiotic relationship between capture and post.

We become less diligent with our creative approach. We begin to cut corners with our compositions. Why be exacting with how we compose an image when we can just fix it in post later by cropping? We don’t assess photographic opportunities as critically. And, most importantly, at the moment of capture we don’t see an image through to its finished state in our minds.

There is a world of difference between thinking that we’ll fix a photograph in post, versus the thought that we’ll finish an image in post. Finishing something infers that we have a crystal clear understanding of what still needs to be done. It suggests that we’ve done everything possible to get it right in camera up front. That we have a plan for the future completion of that photograph. That we have a vision that needs to be brought to fruition.

We may see well beyond the subject matter that is in our viewfinder. Our intention may be to adapt… or to create with a photograph. Surely this transcends merely fixing it in post. This change with the words that we use is much more than just semantics. Words direct our behaviour, and set our expectations. And, they define our personal standards.

Regardless of the camera that we hold in our hands, when our words change… our perspectives of the world around us follow. The realm of what is possible expands… as does our photographic potential.

We see new opportunities when we finish an image in post. To adapt an image in post. To create with an image in post. We’ve left the banality of fixing it in post behind. We are more precise with our initial image captures. We know exactly how far we can reach with our initial capture. And, like an Olympic relay race runner, we are already totally prepared for a smooth handoff to the next stage of post processing. All of that happens before we fully depress our shutter release.

If you are committed to improving your photographic craft, then try this simple exercise. Eliminate ‘fix it in post’ from your vocabulary. Replace it with ‘finish it in post’, ‘adapt it in post’, or ‘create with it in post’. Keep one of those phrases in your mind as you are contemplating a composition… and listen to the how the words in your mind change. Then… observe how you execute your photographic craft differently.

If you discover a newfound appreciation for the symbiotic relationship between capture and post… you have taken a very important step forward.

The other thing that will likely happen is that you will find yourself taking far fewer duplicate photographs of the same subject. This will lead to spending far less time working in post, culling through those duplicate images. And, while there is no monetary savings to be had, it can lead to saving a lot of one of our most precious commodities… time.

 Technical Note

Photographs were captured handheld using camera gear as noted in the EXIF data. All images were produced from out-of-camera jpegs or from RAW files using my standard process in post. This is the 1,339 article published on this website since its original inception in 2015.

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