When do I resort to some post processing...

Lets get something straight first.. We all do some sharpening, contrast adjustments etc for at least most of our images.  So when I mean post processing here, I mean things that you have to resort to something like Photoshop to sort out properly. I myself is no more than a beginner in post processing compared to some of my fellow photographers. Part of the reason is that I believe highly on getting (or trying to get) things right in the camera itself. This had turned out very well for me over the years and enjoyed finishing my work with minimal time in front of the computer. Just like Zack used to say, "During a shoot if you think that you ll correct that later.... just slap yourself hard!".. Although I don't go that extreme, I rarely leave something for post work rather than getting it in camera.. (except for HDR, which I do very little of).

So needless to say, I v been using post processing for either correcting for foreseen situations or things I v missed during a shoot. Given below are some cases like that where I had to resort to those software to get the job done.

Example 1 - Happened during the shoot for the Western Software Eng brochure shoot. Even though we knew about what kind of a shot is needed, we had no specific requirements for what the model should be wearing. But after the shoot had been done and dusted, the lack of university colors (Purple) came up as an issue and had to fix this within a very short period of time by changing the color of her sweater...

Example 2 - This was more of an mistake I did during the boxing look lighting exercise. I thought I had all the details nailed during the shoot in the camera... But it was only after I posted it that someone replied "Your hands are too clean for you to be that sweaty" :(.... I was so shocked when I realized my mistake.. that I forgot to rub it against some food coloring or dirt (and make it B&W) to have solved this. The post processing fix I used it a very basic one.. but the fact I had to do something like that in post was a grim reminder of what we miss when we look through the view finder.

(Due to some formatting issues I had to make them small. Please click on them to bring the larger version up)

Would be great to hear when you had to resort to Photoshop in similar situations. Let me know if anyone needs to know the techniques used to get these things sorted out.

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Btw, Seasonal greetings to all of you out there......

Thanks
Akila.