Photoshopping, a good or bad thing to do?

[awty]

Once I see a photograph heavily manipulate a photograph by adding or removing major constituents, I automatically dismiss all the rest of the photographer's work as fiction and not worth wasting my retinas viewing anything else from him or her. It is a good way to get blown off.

Im the complete opposite. I look at a picture first to admire the technique and then stand back to see if there is any meaning to their picture and if I only see a photograph I dismiss and walk away.
We are like yin and yang.

 

[mtjade2007]

As far as altering a photo goes, what is considered altering by this elite, esteemed group of experts? If a photographer burns part image to minimize or obliterate it, is that an adulteration of the photo?.

You are twisting my point. That's not what I meant. It probably takes one or a few clicks to remove a mountain from a pic. A few more clicks a river is stitched in. These are what I meant. Do you still consider that art work? I call that cheap creativity, not art.

 

[Sirius Glass]

You are twisting my point. That's not what I meant. It probably takes one or a few clicks to remove a mountain from a pic. A few more clicks a river is stitched in. These are what I meant. Do you still consider that art work? I call that cheap creativity, not art.

+1000
It is definitely not a photograph nor is it art. More like a brain fart*.


* I apologies for stating or implying that farts are that low.

 

[RPC]

Once I see a photograph heavily manipulate a photograph by adding or removing major constituents, I automatically dismiss all the rest of the photographer's work as fiction and not worth wasting my retinas viewing anything else from him or her. It is a good way to get blown off.

In time, I think it will get that way with more and more photographs we see.

You'll never know just how real or fake they are. Did a photographer go out and actually shoot a real scene to produce that great looking photo or just create it on a computer? The artistic value of photographs will go down when anyone can just bang one out with software, just like gold would have little value if it were plentiful.

 

[Pieter12]

You are twisting my point. That's not what I meant. It probably takes one or a few clicks to remove a mountain from a pic. A few more clicks a river is stitched in. These are what I meant. Do you still consider that art work? I call that cheap creativity, not art.

And when did I say I liked any of this? Or this asinine discussion for that matter?

 

[grat]

You are twisting my point. That's not what I meant. It probably takes one or a few clicks to remove a mountain from a pic. A few more clicks a river is stitched in. These are what I meant. Do you still consider that art work? I call that cheap creativity, not art.

Takes a bit more work than that for now. On the other hand, Luminar makes replacing your sky terribly easy-- So if I build a library of skies for my area, and replace a flat, hazy sky with a slightly more interesting one (from the same region, taken by me) without changing the composition, or any structural element, have I cheated?

Should I remove that person who wandered into my shot just as the light became perfect? I mean, they're actually hard to notice, but it stands out to me every time I look at that photo.

Should Ansel Adams be considered a hack for burning the rocks that spelled LP in his "Winter Sunrise, Sierra Nevada from Lone Pine” image, and eventually, having the negative altered so they didn't have to burn it every time they made a print?

I personally feel that as soon as something is an absolute, it's more ideology than anything else-- you have closed your mind to other possibilities.

I also would answer the three questions I asked with "Probably, maybe, and no".

 

[awty]

I look forwards to having a few operational enlargers when I build a new darkroom enabling me to mask and do multiple exposures on a print. Too painful to do on a single enlarger. Cheap creativity is what I do it for.

 

[laingsoft]

You are twisting my point. That's not what I meant. It probably takes one or a few clicks to remove a mountain from a pic. A few more clicks a river is stitched in. These are what I meant. Do you still consider that art work? I call that cheap creativity, not art.

You're just not appreciating the work that went into the software that made that "cheap creativity" possible. The algorithms used for photo manipulation are art that produces art. It really is pretty beautiful if you are able to appreciate it, much the same way as the chemical process behind film is beautiful.

As for the main question of this thread: Photoshopping, good or bad? I don't think it matters. I choose not to edit my photos too much as I'm much more interested in the process rather than the product.

Sub question of the thread: Why shoot film just to scan it? For black and white I don't see a whole lot of point. I like printing black and white and I think it looks best doing that. As for color negative, I like doing the processing and I find the end product more rewarding than if I was just to take the same image from a digital camera and use a film preset. RA4 printing is also a pain in the ass. It looks great and all, but honestly scan -> inkjet gives me good enough results for physical images that I don't see the point in re-kitting my darkroom for ra4.

 

[albireo]

Sub question of the thread: Why shoot film just to scan it? For black and white I don't see a whole lot of point. I like printing black and white and I think it looks best doing that.

I'm in the opposite camp. I find that most amateur-made wet lab prints look poor or uninspiring. I find that a really well made scan of a really well exposed and processed negative can be a better device to enjoy an interesting photograph than a wet lab print, apart from a few rare cases. I'm fortunate enough to have attended countless exhibitions by professional photographers, having lived in three European capitals - plenty of opportunities to see the work of top photographers and often associated top printers. Well - apart from a few rare cases, in which I was wowed by the quality of the print rather than by the composition/message, I never thought that I would have enjoyed some of those masterpieces less if I had seen digital scans of those negatives on a large flat screen in the museum, or say projections of interpositives on a white surface. The limited post-processing I tolerate in a post-processed negative (contrast adjustment, dust removal, crop - nothing else) can be done equally well on a scan, in photoshop, or on a print, in a darkroom. All the post-processing classically done on a print to rescue a somewhat poor negative and make it interesting (dodging, burning, adding hues, adding toning) does nothing for me.

Also, I find I can detect when the the digital image I'm looking at is a well made scan of a negative, rather than a shot taken with a digital camera and then converted to monochrome. I myself am unable to achieve, from, say, the raw file of a Nikon D700, a look that satisfies me as much as what I get from scanning the negatives exposed in my Olympus OM2n and developed by myself. It literally takes _me_ 2 minutes to crop and prepare a negative scan raw using my workflow, and get a result I'm completely happy with. I cannot say the same about that raw file from the D700. Sure, there might be ways to tinker in photoshop for half an hour to obtain the look I'm after from the D700 file - but why bother? I have already what I want, and I know how to get there with my negative and my film scanner. Also, the OM2n is an *utter* pleasure to use. I would not carry a D700 around when I can use my nimble beautiful OM2n and its tiny primes. This is just an example of course.

In general, and in my experience at least, I find scanned film presents obvious qualities (tonal qualities? grain?) that cannot be immediately reproduced via conversion of a digital camera file to monochrome *by me*. So yes, scanned film makes a huge amount of sense.

 

[removed account4]

It may be an artist's rendering but it was fabricated from photographs, with the intention to give it the authenticity of a photograph--"In 1930, International News Photos distributed this manipulated photograph. At the time, no airship had docked at the Empire State Building. That didn’t happen until September 1931, when a privately-owned dirigible docked for a mere three minutes, in a 40-mile-per-hour wind."

here's some more info on the mooring mast including plans &c
http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Empire_State_Building.html
https://www.google.com/search?q=emp...YaM0KHakXAaIQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1817&bih=1041
the superman building in ri ( the industrial national bank building ) was built in the late 20s (27?) and also had plans for a zeppelin mast. at the top floor of the deco tower is the "leather lounge" where wealthy travelers could wait in luxury before being floated away in an air ship.
fact or fiction, cut and paste image or 3 minute docking, its still kind of fun

You are twisting my point. That's not what I meant. It probably takes one or a few clicks to remove a mountain from a pic. A few more clicks a river is stitched in. These are what I meant. Do you still consider that art work? I call that cheap creativity, not art.

How is what you described less creative than pointing a camera and clicking the shutter at a bird on a branch or babbling brook or finding someone else's tripod holes and shooting el cap or whatever? I find it strange that its less creative to take a photograph or two or 3 and re-work it the way one wants to re-work it, than a "snapshot". just wondering if this cut and paste job is cheap creativity too?: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/302289

You'll never know just how real or fake they are. Did a photographer go out and actually shoot a real scene to produce that great looking photo or just create it on a computer? The artistic value of photographs will go down when anyone can just bang one out with software, just like gold would have little value if it were plentiful.

why does it matter unless it is photojournalism? every photograph is fake / fantasy, not reality.

 

[RPC]

why does it matter unless it is photojournalism? every photograph is fake / fantasy, not reality.

We all know a photograph itself is not real, but we won't know if what is in the photograph is real unless told, and in general most of us would probably take for granted it is real. But is it?

If it is a great photo and contents are real, it is far more special to me than one just cobbled together on a computer.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

In time, I think it will get that way with more and more photographs we see.

You'll never know just how real or fake they are. Did a photographer go out and actually shoot a real scene to produce that great looking photo or just create it on a computer? The artistic value of photographs will go down when anyone can just bang one out with software, just like gold would have little value if it were plentiful.

Why get up at 3am to catch the sunrise in your shot when you can sleep late until 10am and during breakfast clone in a sunrise using your computer that looks better? In fact, why shoot pictures at all? The only honest and valuable pictures left will be those snapshots people take with their families while on vacation and stuff in a photo album. Just like 50 years ago. People will laugh at all the Photoshopped silliness and ignore them as being common.

 

[eddie]

Why get up at 3am to catch the sunrise in your shot when you can sleep late until 10am and during breakfast clone in a sunrise using your computer that looks better?

Because you enjoy it. You can also ask why shoot film if digital is easier and faster.

 

[eddie]

If it is a great photo and contents are real, it is far more special to me than one just cobbled together on a computer.

Does that mean you can't like an image you're viewing until you know its provenance?

 

[Sirius Glass]

In time, I think it will get that way with more and more photographs we see.

You'll never know just how real or fake they are. Did a photographer go out and actually shoot a real scene to produce that great looking photo or just create it on a computer? The artistic value of photographs will go down when anyone can just bang one out with software, just like gold would have little value if it were plentiful.

Which is just sand and wrong.

 

[removedacct1]

I think its a mistake for any one of us to decide that its important to either approve or disapprove of which tools are employed by another photographer (and how those tools are used).

 

[Sirius Glass]

Does that mean you can't like an image you're viewing until you know its provenance?

Uh, yes of that is necessary. It is a matter of honestly. If you cannot take the photograph you want, then make it but do not call it a photograph.

 

[eddie]

Is a studio painted landscape less valid than a plein air painting?

 

[markjwyatt]

Takes a bit more work than that for now. On the other hand, Luminar makes replacing your sky terribly easy-- So if I build a library of skies for my area, and replace a flat, hazy sky with a slightly more interesting one (from the same region, taken by me) without changing the composition, or any structural element, have I cheated?

...

It is a bit of cheating, and if you are a commercial photographer maybe shooting a house for a customer, it may be ok. On the other hand it is a step in the right direction because you are cataloging clouds from the region rather than pulling some cloud formation out of a library, which may never happen in the region. Next step would be if you were an expert meteorologist, you might make sure other features lined up. Next you need to examine shadows especially if the % if the sky clouded is significant. If you don't likely the image will start looking un-natural. Next you need to examine reflections, specular and diffuse, and make sure those match the clouds that you are adding, and modify all of this from what you actually took with a cloudless sky. You should also consider the contrast, both at a local as well as global level because the clouds will modify this in both local and global ways. After spending a week or two on your image with your PhD in meteorology, optics, cloud science, etc. you might end up with something realistic looking. Or you could just wait 5-10 years and let AI take care of it for you. On the other hand you could just take shots as they occurred and get natural looking images, perhaps lacking features you would prefer but maybe you could use creative approaches to mitigating the lack of these features (like avoiding having too much sky if clouds are the feature you desire).

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Because you enjoy it. You can also ask why shoot film if digital is easier and faster.

It's disheartening to get up at 3 a.m. in the morning to catch the sunrise and get a really great photo at the end of the day only to have the viewer look at you quizzically and ask suspiciously, "Did you photoshop it?"

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

All the viewer thinks is that it's just another photoshop knockoff.

 

[RPC]

I see in the future photographers selling fewer and fewer great photos since potential buyers know they could just cobble something together just as good on their computers.

Ordinary camera and photographic equipment sales will drop, as sales for image creating software from stock photos will increase.

Yes, why go out and shoot anything real, it has all been done for you.

But why even do that, why not just imagine photos in our minds. Much cheaper and easier. Who needs anything real?

 

[markjwyatt]

It's disheartening to get up at 3 a.m. in the morning to catch the sunrise and get a really great photo at the end of the day only to have the viewer look at you quizzically and ask suspiciously, "Did you photoshop it?"

Agreed, but you can not blame the viewer (and that viewer might be me). Unfortunately, that is where we are today.

 

[markjwyatt]

I see in the future photographers selling fewer and fewer great photos since potential buyers know they could just cobble something together just as good on their computers.

Ordinary camera and photographic equipment sales will drop, as sales for image creating software from stock photos will increase.

Yes, why go out and shoot anything real, it has all been done for you.

But why even do that, why not just imagine photos in our minds. Much cheaper and easier. Who needs anything real?

The market for paintings has probably decreased significantly since photography came into its own, but people still sell them.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I see in the future photographers selling fewer and fewer great photos since potential buyers know they could just cobble something together just as good on their computers.

Ordinary camera and photographic equipment sales will drop, as sales for image creating software from stock photos will increase.

Yes, why go out and shoot anything real, it has all been done for you.

But why even do that, why not just imagine photos in our minds. Much cheaper and easier. Who needs anything real?

I believe that's why there's a trend towards film. People want to get back to basics and feel like they're actually doing something beyond cobbling together a bunch of ones and zeros on a computer sitting at home. The physical on hands film experience, longer shooting time, waiting for the results, adds interest and mystery to the process.

Photoshop can enhance the film process allowing digital display and printing. . But film is more unique to start with.