On Tobacco Pipe Photography Image Processing (with a tutorial)

(PfP) ... It is a common misconception among many people that good photographs come out of the camera, and that a great photographer doesn’t do any image processing – that it’s all done in-camera.
That’s bunk.
In my real job, I often hire first-rate commercial photographers, professionals who are paid far more than I am. They all post-process their images after the shoot or pay a professional image processor to do it for them, especially product photographers. That’s essentially the sort of photography we do when we photograph pipes: product photography.
While there are some image types that can be made nearly perfect in-camera, most can’t and most aren’t. Continued