Post processing in the 1890s

[ajo43]

I often think of post processing a digital image as a form of 'cheating'. That is, fudging something from the original that is just not quite right in the real world.

I have always thought that the masters of yesteryear didn't fall victim to this kind of fudging and that they took what they were given when the photo was processed.

How wrong I was. There is a display on at the moment in the Mitchell Wing of the Sydney library. It shows the history of Australian photography from about 1850 onwards.

I was amazed to see two photos which were clearly post processed - in 1890!!!. The narrative explains that the photographer didn't like the original (which is also on display) so he cropped down the image (no magic here) and removed one a woman from the scene to improve composition!!! How did he do it. I probably haven't got this right but it was something like he soaked the negative in oil and then painted over the bits that he didn't like to force underexposure of those parts. Kind of like a pre-historic clone out.

I also saw hand colour touch ups and a whole new sky added for dramatic effect - all all before 1920.

So I stand corrected - post processing has been going on for ever

[sirhc55]

And that is why we have dodge and burn in PS ajo43 - a leftover from the old days of printing from film.

My father, many years ago, used to hand paint photographs as a profession

Chris

[Matty B]

Thanks for passing that on.........I don't feel so guilty and inadequate now. Everything that is old is now new.........very interesting.

Cheers

[the foto fanatic]

As has been posted elsewhere in the forum, Ansel Adams who was perhaps the greatest landscape photographer ever, spent days in PP mode for some of his prints.

I guess we are so lucky to be able to do it so quickly these days.

[atencati]

Ansel was notorius for hiking for days, setting up and waiting for hours, snapping one pic, hiking out, then spending weeks in the darkroom to come up with a single image. There were insances where he would just miss the time of day he wanted and just not take the picture, wait 24 hours and try again. But 90% of his time was in the darkroom. Yes, pp has been around since photography began, it's just a part of the process.

[Greg B]

This issue was discussed at length in another thread, and I think it will reappear many times in the future.

I think that for PP to be considered "cheating", there would need to be some univeral "rule" that PP was not allowed (and of course, then it would be even more fun).

You can see one of those Farenheit 451 style movies, a world where special police enforced the strict NO PP laws, but a brave young group of underground Photoshop enthusiasts defiantly applied unsharp masks and cropped their photos until one day, due to some careless oversharpening, their cover was blown.....

Jonesy, I am not sure that something has any more correctness just because it has been done for a long time. However, in my view, PP is a part of creating an image and always has been and always will be and there is no issue whatsoever.

(I can recall having great fun in the darkroom inserting a flying saucer into a photo at the printing stage. Fairly rudimentary, but better than I expected.)

[sirhc55]

Consider also that film be it negative or reversal had PP. Developing was PP - mounting slides was PP - printing negatives was PP.

Film did not magically give you a picture straight out of the camera.

PP was necessary then and is necessary now.

Chris

[Hlop]

That's actually why I went digital - to be able post-process my images and control whole process. I had simple but good Nikon F60 and was using it mostly in point'n'shoot style, bringing films to the lab and getting back what they were giving me. Almost no controll of the process. But as I'm not professional photographer I couldn't afford to have dark room to handle evrything myself.

About post-processing itself ... When you developing film - keep it too long in chemicals and you'll get it too dark, use different type of photo paper and you'll gettin less or more contrast. And those just simpliest things, I'm not talking about tonning, cropping, masking etc.

[MHD]

and then you go to photo-montage... where photogs of old would make stencils and use them when they use an enlarger to expose the photopaper

[darb]

ive had the 'post processing' argument with ignorant people before ... they eventually come to realise theyre wrong and that the "elitist" mentality they subscribe to, doesnt even exist.

(these are people who felt that even changing colour saturation or levels was a no-go, or sharpening, despite the fact its part of life, and theyre things that used to be decided automatically for you by the lab.)