What's the limit of "basic" editing?

[EOM]

Where would you guys draw the line on what constitutes "basic" editing? This can be as part of an entire workflow or just single pictures.

Is it just culling, cropping, white balance and exposure adjustments? Does it include some spot removal? Color adjustments? What items would you consider advanced?

 

[Rifter]

Anything i can do in lightroom. Anything needing photoshop is advanced.

 

[corkyg]

Depends on how you define basic editing. I crop, cull and spot adjust using Irfanview or Paint. Photoshop for me is advanced, and Lightroom would be in the middle.

 

[EOM]

I'm not really talking about the distinction between what tools you would use to accomplish each particular task, but what specific techniques would fall under the umbrella of "basic" and which would be, i suppose either intermediate or advanced. For example, I've seen sample contracts online for photographers and it stipulates that the photographs will receive "basic editing". I'm just curious if you read that, what would you put into that bucket?

 

[Rifter]

in that specific case of how that add seem to be worded i would assume it includes very basic editing such as white balance/cropping/spot adjustment but nothing too advanced.

 

[ronbo613]

Super Basic: Crop and size.
Basic: Brightness, contrast, dodge, burn, sharpness
Cherry on top: Color adjustments

 

[CuriousMike]

Anything i can do in lightroom. Anything needing photoshop is advanced.

I'd agree with this. Crops, color adjustments, shadow/highlight adjustment is all pretty basic.

Doing a complete sky replacement or other compositing gets into advanced.


But you're asking this in a photo enthusiast forum, not a smartphone forum.

 

[zCypher]

I'd consider basic to be what anyone can figure out just moving sliders around in Lightroom or similar programs. If you need training or extensive research to accomplish it, then it's not basic anymore. So things like adjusting the white balance, contrast, exposure, whites/blacks and highlights/shadows, colour tones and hues, cropping, spot removal, post-crop vignetting, sharpness and noise reduction.

You don't even need to know what any of those things are, you can just fiddle with them blindly and make a reasonable judgment for what looks better or has the effect you want for your image. Obviously an understanding of each feature and experience makes a difference, but I would consider all of what you can fiddle with in Lightroom to be "basic editing".

I'd say other stuff like merging exposures, stacking multiple images, using masks and other things to be more advanced as you need to really learn and perfect those techniques, you can't just stumble upon them and fiddle for a few seconds and end up with anything good.