pet peeve - photoshop being recommended

ian_greant · Oct 17, 2004

Hopefully this doesn't come off as a rant but I've noticed something in the last couple weeks that has me a bit puzzled.

Recommendations for using photoshop in image critiques.

In general I am a bit surprised when someone recommends specific tools/methods for improving an image. When their recommendation is to use PhotoShop.. well.. can't we rig a hand to come out of the monitor and slap them?

This site is about using traditional photographic methods. Telling someone they could fix some problem you see with their photo using PhotoShop makes no sense.

I could go on, and on but then I'd really start to sound like someone who'd spent too much time alone in the dark.

Chuck (CA) · Oct 17, 2004

Andy K · Oct 17, 2004

Ditto.

Dave Miller · Oct 17, 2004

It's alright for you darkroom equipped people, mine is still a building plot, so I'm currently struggling to print an inkjet of a Photoshop mangled image for a club competition due at the end of the week. It is not going at all well, and I'm completly pissed-off with the process. It's sympathy I need here, by the processing drum load. Having said that, the forty-something print attempt has just fallen out of the printer and is looking good - or at least as good as it gets. It will have to do, where's the matt.

glbeas · Oct 17, 2004

ian_greant said:
Hopefully this doesn't come off as a rant but I've noticed something in the last couple weeks that has me a bit puzzled.

Recommendations for using photoshop in image critiques.

In general I am a bit surprised when someone recommends specific tools/methods for improving an image. When their recommendation is to use PhotoShop.. well.. can't we rig a hand to come out of the monitor and slap them?

This site is about using traditional photographic methods. Telling someone they could fix some problem you see with their photo using PhotoShop makes no sense.

I could go on, and on but then I'd really start to sound like someone who'd spent too much time alone in the dark.

I would only recommend such to get the scan to look like the print, knowing how poorly a raw scan looks for the most part. We do have to have a digital representation of our work to post online. I get annoyed when I see something done in photoshop with an image that is darn near impossible to do in the darkroom and then passed off as a straight scan.

TPPhotog · Oct 17, 2004

Dave Miller said:
It's alright for you darkroom equipped people, mine is still a building plot, so I'm currently struggling to print an inkjet of a Photoshop mangled image for a club competition due at the end of the week. It is not going at all well, and I'm completly pissed-off with the process. It's sympathy I need here, by the processing drum load. Having said that, the forty-something print attempt has just fallen out of the printer and is looking good - or at least as good as it gets. It will have to do, where's the matt.

Dave - You must remember to stop trying to inkjet print on RC is just doesn't work, even on the back I've tried it for postcards

Dave Miller · Oct 17, 2004

TPPhotog said:
Dave - You must remember to stop trying to inkjet print on RC is just doesn't work, even on the back I've tried it for postcards

Dam! Is that why the inks running?
:confused:
Anyway I've given up and retired into a dark corner to sulk, so there.

TPPhotog · Oct 17, 2004

Dave Miller said:
Dam! Is that why the inks running?
:confused:
Anyway I've given up and retired into a dark corner to sulk, so there.

If that corner is dark enough try running off a few wet prints whilst your sulking

Jorge · Oct 17, 2004

Dave Miller said:
It's alright for you darkroom equipped people, mine is still a building plot, so I'm currently struggling to print an inkjet of a Photoshop mangled image for a club competition due at the end of the week. It is not going at all well, and I'm completly pissed-off with the process. It's sympathy I need here, by the processing drum load. Having said that, the forty-something print attempt has just fallen out of the printer and is looking good - or at least as good as it gets. It will have to do, where's the matt.

Sorrry, but I have no sympathy. I said it before. If the inclusion of digital was allowed in this site, it would spill into the main areas. I was ridiculed and told I was stridently anti digital. Well, here is the result.

People telling other people to use PS to "fix it", people just showing negative scans, shown as positives. Etc, etc...

You want to dicuss your ink jet problems, do it in forums appropriate for that. I am sorry your light room is not working for you, but I have no sympathy for you.

TPPhotog · Oct 17, 2004

Jorge I fail to see the difference between scanning a print, scanning a positive slide or scanning a negative and inverting to positive. If the scan is manipulated then I agree but we have to get them up here somehow. But I get the feeling this has all been discussed before in the posting you refer to in passing.

Btw Dave's humurus comment I'm sure was meant as such

Alex Hawley · Oct 17, 2004

ian_greant said:
Recommendations for using photoshop in image critiques.

I've hated this from the getgo. It goes hand-in-hand with what some people define as "distractions". The classic line is "Why didn't you remove that 'distractor' with Photoshop?"

I guess I'm a Troglodite. I will never understand such a mentality.

Jorge · Oct 17, 2004

Jorge I fail to see the difference between scanning a print, scanning a positive slide or scanning a negative and inverting to positive. If the scan is manipulated then I agree but we have to get them up here somehow. But I get the feeling this has all been discussed before in the posting you refer to in passing.

Yep, certainly has, and it is not worth it to rehash it. All I am saying is APUG is not all that A, and when Sean made a poll about allowing digital, most did not vote or said digital was fine with them, well here are the results. As I said, I have no sympathy for anybody who comes to APUG and complains about their ink jet prints not looking good. I understand their frustration, but I have no sympathy.
I am just being honest here, I have nothing against Dave Miller. OTOH your comment is part of the problem, lines have blurred so much people no longer see the difference. Last I knew, when doing analog photography in order for you to get a positve image from a negative, you had to print it.
Do you recall a thread a few weeks back where someone commented that other online galleries looked much better than APUG's? We all jumped down his throat and said " ah well, the images here might not look so good because they are scans from prints" etc, etc. What excuse do we have now? We are not becoming better and mastering one side or the other.

I could go on, but I just loaded some holders and rather go out and take pictures than rehashing this.

lee · Oct 17, 2004

well said mi amigo!

lee\c

mark · Oct 17, 2004

I agree with Jorge. The line has been crossed. There is an image in the critique gallery that started as a color image and then converted in PS. That is manipulation.

Slowly, digital is making its way in and I for one feel it is not welcome in this forum. If I wanted to post a digitally converted image I would do it in a gallery that was appropriate, like Pnet, or some other digital forum. Here is the image in question. It is nice but does not beong on an analogue site.
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

There is a great place to discuss inkjet prints. P.net digital darkroom would be the place to start. Just remember to make the distinction between PPi and DPI. People get a bit pissed if you don't.

This is a great community with a specific purpose, let us not blur that purpose.

doughowk · Oct 17, 2004

Attended a Jerry Uelsmann lecture Friday night; and he mentioned his technique for post-visualization included using 3 enlargers set-up with separate negatives, then moved the paper/print thru the enlarger setups to produce his surreal images. While viewing his images, I felt I've frequently seen similiar images at photo.net. Post-visualization, including the conversion of image from color to B&W, is so much easier to do now with photoshop. It is a valid artistic methodology, and I do like the image in question.
That being said, however, I come here to learn traditional methods for photo creation, not desaturation, levels, layers, etc.. I can sympathize with those without access to darkroom usage but yet who want to have their images critiqued by more knowledgeable photographers than those usually found at photo.net, etc.. As I initially did on this site, I'd suggest contact printing on AZO - all you need is a light bulb, a few trays & a bathroom (what could be simpler).

Les McLean · Oct 17, 2004

I'm very pro digital and would love to have some digital discussion within this forum for I do respect the views of the membership but I have to agree with Jorge on this issue. APUG is an analogue site and whilst we have to use some digital means to prepare images for inclusion in the gallery maybe too much discussion about photoshop and other digital issues are creeping in.

ian_greant · Oct 17, 2004

Dave Miller said:
It's sympathy I need here, by the processing drum load.

You have my sympathy Dave, If you lived over here I'd let ya use my darkroom to make that print

Flotsam · Oct 17, 2004

When I first came across this old tree clutching stones in it's roots I thought that it was an interesting subject for a photograph. Unfortunately, there was a small dead sapling leaning across the frame in front of the trunk, distracting and interfering with the composition and ruining the shot.
I took off my shoes, rolled up my pants and waded the twenty five feet through swiftly moving, knee deep water over slippery, moss-covered rocks, arms comically spinning like propellors as I desparately tried to retain my balance (alas, retaining my dignity was already a lost cause). It was like trying to walk on bowling balls covered in axle grease. Once across, I easily snapped off the sapling, pitched it down the river and made the precarious journey back across the stream where I had wisely left my equipment.

I'm reasonably adept at PS from using it over the years in my work and it would have been quick, easy (and definitely safer) to use the clone stamp to erase the branch from a scan of the negative... and darken a few things and paint in some nice highlights that nature had thoughtlessly neglected to provide. This isn't a great negative but I'm going to return at an appropriate time of the day and reshoot. I may do a bit of burning and dodging with my hands under the enlarger but I am going to value that print more for the effort.

It could be argued that I manipulated the image physically before exposure rather than digitally after the picture was taken and scanned. Are these comparable sins?

modafoto · Oct 17, 2004

Chuck (CA) said:
APUG

Advanced Photoshop User Group....right?

(Why are you guys putting me on the fire?)

Art Vandalay · Oct 17, 2004

TPPhotog said:
Dave - You must remember to stop trying to inkjet print on RC is just doesn't work, even on the back I've tried it for postcards

My problem is that the ink keeps running when I put it in the developer!!!

Leon · Oct 17, 2004

as someone who habitually posts negative scans made into acceptable images in photoshop, I think I should chip in.

I have sort of found a middle way which has greatly improved my final prints ... I dont make contact/ index sheets then struggle to see the potenital in the 6x6cm square anymore, I scan each negative, look at it very closely and see what can be done with it using only those tools/ actions in p'shop that truly emulate darkroom technique (ie exploire tonal/ contrast relationships,cropping, toning etc) - no cloning , blurring, smearing, adding, fabricating or any other ...ing. If I feel it is acceptable, I then take the neg into the darkroom and realise the potential through traditional methods.

So far, I have only posted about 2 final print scans here - I am a bit concerned about placing them face down on glass then placing the heavy scanner lid ontop, and I can get a better representation of the print from a neg scan anyway. Are these neg scans unnacceptable here? I hope not as the comments I've had regarding my posts have always been really helpful for me making my prints, so I am sort of using the scans to test the water.

So I guess that I dont mind the odd "p'shop" comment cropping up, as long as it's in a context leading towards improving an analogue technique/ method - or in getting a scan right for web showing. But yes, a colour de-sat is not welcome here ... nor would other digital specific queries be either.

*hearing cries of "Burn him - he's a witch, he's a witch"!!!*

blansky · Oct 17, 2004

Flotsam wrote:

It could be argued that I manipulated the image physically before exposure rather than digitally after the picture was taken and scanned.

Flotsam, I see nothing wrong with this. How often have we heard stories of famous unnamed combat photographers who, unable to find any bodies or carnage actually shot a few people themselves to get the shot they desired.

Seems perfectly acceptable to me. However I would have a problem if you took a scene and then photoshopped a couple of bodies from another shot and made a composite. Obviously that would be wrong.

Keep up the good work.

Michael McBlane

TPPhotog · Oct 17, 2004

I agree that this is not the place to discus PS or other digital related manipulation, however the comment Dave made and my reply were jesting and not a discussion.

I also agree that the lines between analog and digital can and have become blurred when using the internet. I for one hate to see images here that have been shot in colour and then converted to B&W in PS. On the other hand am I a hypocrite as we can shoot colour negatives and then but them through our enlargers to produce B&W prints.

The technical; experimental and critiques galleries imho should only be of scanned final prints otherwise there is no point in them being there.

If the Sean and the membership would prefer that we only post flatbed scans of wet prints then I would have not onjection in the least and would be happy to vote for it myself if anyone decides we need a poll.

My sincere apologies if I have offended anyone here on APUG.

Tony

Jorge · Oct 17, 2004

I dont know that you offended anybody, you certainly did not offend me! I was just voicing an opinion but really the time to make a desicion was back when Sean made a poll about digital in APUG, most of the membership was indiferent or did not vote, so why resurrect this horse just so that we can beat it to death again?

IMO it should be left to the individual contribuitors and hope they have the courtesy to realize this is an analog site dedicated to analog topics and presentations. If there is room for disco negatives here, surely there is room for those few who have no darkroom and want to show us what they are doing.

I wish it was not like this and we all presented scans from finished prints, but the desicion was taken to allow digital, so now we have to live with that desicion, which in great part IMO is not a big deal. Personally, as soon as I realize it is a negative scan, I move on.

TPPhotog · Oct 17, 2004

Jorge your points are very valid though and I do agree with you. Happily I have already sold my negative scanner to be able to afford some RC and FB so no more neg scans from me

pet peeve - photoshop being recommended

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