Actually, I'm not sure it is all that much easier... it's just a
different skill set. And I am still confused as to why lines need to be drawn...:confused: ... but remember that I have a testosterone defficiency...
. Film and digital both offer
many opportunities to alter the scene that was taken in the camera so that the output becomes different. Does no one here realize that even negatives can be changed or sandwiched???
I agree with Chris... why in the name of Pete (or Ansel for that matter) do we have to draw a line? If we strive for purity in photography does that mean we have to stop dodging, burning & cropping in the darkroom? These "either/or" arguments are drivel. :rolleyes:
It is much easier in Photoshop let say to take two photographs, make them simillar (by adding or remove noise, make colour or tone correction, etc...) and to combine them than in analogue darkroom. Imagine make combination of two photographs, one made with APX25 and developed in Perceptol and other made with Delta 3200 developed in Rodinal, and on resulting photogaph not to see anything which will make you think it is not combination of two (or more) photographs.
Next, when one dodge/burn photograph, or crop it, it is still original scene, scene which existed in particular time and space. Photograph like in link in my previous post never existed in time and space. That make huge difference and also that make argument that cropping, dodging and burning in analogue darkroom are same as Photoshop combining is not valid.
If we take for example cropping as argument, and say this photograph is excerption from scene because it contain not whole scene, then argument also can be that anything is excerption from scene. In that case any photograph should contain whole Cosmos, because anything which don't contain Cosmos is excerption from scene, not complete scene. It is pointless, so cropping as manipulation argument is not real argument.
Yes, I can make photograph for example of man with raised hands, and not to show his fists. It would look as photograph of man who surrender. In reality, he holds a riffle in his fists over his head, and not surrending. But, even if that photograph doesn't show whole reality, his hands were riased, and it is reality, only part of reality. But, having photograph of man with raised empty hands, and having other photograph of riffle, and combining them to put riffle in his hands shows something never existed in reality, nor as part nor as whole scene. That is difference.
Yes, photo manipulation allways exsisted, but that is not point. Point is, as Ari said, digital made manipulation so easily avaliable to wider audience, and people are so ready to do it because of how easy it is (compared to analogue).
And because of people's readyness to do it, it make all difference.
It is not photography anymore, it is design. That is all difference to me. Photoshop is designers software. Photographers needs about 20% of Photoshop tools to do what they did in analogue darkroom. Other 80% of Photoshop are designers tools, not photographers tools.