Post Production
(Post-production, or postproduction) is part of the process of filmmaking, video production and
photography. It occurs in the making of motion pictures, television programs, radio programs, advertising, audio recordings, photography, and digital art. It is a term for all stages of production occurring after the original shooting or recording.
Professional post-producers usually apply a certain range of image editing operations to the raw image format provided by a photographer or an image-bank. There is a range of proprietary and free and open-source software, running on a range of operating systems available to do this work.
The first stage of post-production usually requires loading the RAW images into the post-production software. If there is more than one image, and they belong to a set, ideally post-producers try to equalize[further explanation needed] the images before loading them. After that, if necessary, the next step would be to cut the objects in the images with the Pen Tool for a perfect and clean cut. The next stage would be cleaning the image using tools such as the healing tool, clone tool and patch tool.
The next stages depend on what the client ordered. If it's a photo-montage, the post-producers would usually start assembling the different images into the final document, and start to integrate the images with the background.
In advertising it usually requires assembling several images together in a photo-composition.
Types of work usually done:
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Advertising that requires one background (as one or more images to assemble) and one or more models. (Usually the most time consuming as a lot of times these are image bank images which don't have much quality, and they all have different light and color as they were not controlled by only one photographer in one set location)
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Product-photography that usually requires several images of the same object with different lights, and assembled together, to control light and unwanted reflections, and/or to assemble parts that would be difficult to get in one shot, such as a beer glass for a beer advertising. (Sometimes to composite one image of a beer glass it requires 4 or 5 images: one for the base, one for the beer, one for the label, one for the foam, and one or more for splashing beer if that is desired)
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Fashion photography that usually requires a really heavy post-production for editorial and/or advertising.​