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Just about every photo package has an “auto” button to process a photo. A one-click option to get a good exposure, fix colors, and get your image close to finished. In the last several years, the auto button has gotten very, very good. Yet it is not always the best starting point for your photo, especially when it ruins the mood of an image.

In this unprocessed photo of the Siuslaw River in Florence, Oregon, I very much like the mood of the image. The subject is the river, the rippled water catching the fading sunlight just so. The pilings provide context and the land in the background is a secondary element.

As with most of my edits, I started with the Auto button. And I was not pleased. The land opened up too much, the dream nature of the sky was gone - the sky actually pulled too much attention…. the entire feel of the image shifted - for the worse.

This was a clear case where the Auto settings would not be a good starting point. Although, the Auto settings did offer up some ideas for post-processing. I did like the subtle orange-yellow tone in the clouds, and used a sample of that for some color grading.

While the Auto button didn’t help me with the editing of the image, it did provide some ideas for editing. So I’ll still be using the Auto button as a regular part of my post-processing workflow. But I won’t always take its results.