I think part of the issue here is there is a history between me and Sazmobile so Saz felt a need to point out the "edit" I did was not as good as the original they did..
then the thread drifted way beyond what I did, beyond photography and away into a little world of its own..
Lets just pull it back to editing photos good vs evil..
There are two ways to look at this, digital art or lightroom processing.
For me digital art involves using a photograph as a prop or a skeleton, something on which you hang your artwork. There are digital artists out there who are extremely artistically talented and for the most part I don't think they even claim to be photographers as such, they are artists. I would love to be one but alas I do not have an artistic bone in my body when it comes to drawing etc.
Then there is lightroom processing. This is the digital equivalent of the darkroom of old. Now this may come as a shock to you but EVERY single photo you ever saw in your entire life has had processing done.
And, every digital photograph that you have ever seen in your life (including the ones you took yourself) have also already had processing done. The plain and simple fact is that without some processing the photo would be what can best be describes as shite.
Right now you are relying on your camera to do that processing for you, you are placing your faith in a microchip to look at your photograph as taken with an artistic eye and asking it to process the image. It has done what it thinks is the right thing to do, and presented you with a set of photos with a blue colour cast.
I do not entrust that processing to my camera very often, in fact with regard to white balance I would say 90% of the time I make that call, with exposure setting 99% of the time I make that call.
I shoot raw format, I am presented with the image with virtually no processing done other that that to compensate for the electronics. When I load up the image on my computer I use adobe camera raw or adobe lightroom to then take control of that processing that you entrust to your camera.
In fact, both have the option to auto adjust and basically what that option does is EXACTLY what the camera would do if I shoot JPG with the exception that the software would not drop down the bit depth from 12 bits to 8 bits as the camera processing does.
The cameras estimation of what should be done to process the image is also passed in the file, the only difference is it is not applied to the pixels and burnt in, I can then choose to fine tune all the aspects of the photo to best represent the scene I saw with my eyes.
This processing is in no way an alternative to taking a good photo, it is in actual fact an essential part of it. Before digital this was achieved in the dark room by using different chemicals, or different exposures, or coloured filters. But as with most other things (except benifit claims and tax refunds) the digital age has streamlined the process. It has made thousands of pounds worth of equipment redundant, but the techniques are still the same basic exposure adjustments that have always been done.
I did two things to your original, I corrected the white balance which your camera should, or would have in an ideal world, done for you. That in no way could be classed as artistic improvisation, it is purely a technical issue. I basically told the software "this pixel here is actually white and you think it is blue, please sort it out" and it then does the correct colour shift of every pixel in the image.
The second thing I did was to cut off two edges of the photo, here you could argue that artistic licence was used, but as I have said before I have no artistic talent - I simply chopped off the edges to bring the photo more in line with the rule of thirds. As a photographer it makes absolutely no difference if I do that looking through the lens or I do that after taking the shot, the process is EXACTLY the same. These are not really editing in the way that people think of editing, they are part of the processing of the image.
Now I do not claim to be an artist, I am very much a logic controlled being, but I will go out on a limb here and say your comment regarding preferring the original was at best half hearted, at worst a downright lie. I think pretty much everyone would agree that the edited version is better.
The problem as I see it is you think that to create that photo is too complicated, where in actual fact it is not, it is very very simple to do even through the lens. But you are resisting taking on board how such a very simple concept can result in a very dramatic improvement in your photography which is really a shame because you are capable of doing so much better.
Please do not take this as I am attacking or bashing you round the head, nothing would give me greater pleasure to see you post a well framed photo or two which has that bit extra that takes it to the next level, life is a learning experience from the day you are born to the day you die and there really is not any reason for you NOT to learn. In fact we have spent far more time arguing about it that it would have actually taken to learn about it and be able to put it into practice
On a more technical note, I suspect the white balance error is caused by the camera detecting outdoor lighting through the window when the subject is lit from the inside. If the camera has the ability to adjust the white balance (which it probably does) then for shots such as this you would need to set the white balance to the type of light which is illuminating the subject (the cat) to over ride the stronger light from outside influencing the camera. This will result in the outdoor colours being less than perfect but as they are not the focus of the photo the eye will ignore that error where the eye will not ignore the error when it is the point of interest in the photo.
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