Photography v Editing

[NewbieD70]

I may cop a bit of flack over this post, but I have been wondering lately if photography these days is dependent on how good you are with a computer editing software as aposed to actually being able to take a decent photo.

Dont get me wrong, there are some very fine looking pictures out there, but when you really take stock of some of them, they are saturated, cropped, had some kind of action run on them, and totally nothing like the original product.

I wonder if many photo competitions these days actualy stipulate no processing and go for raw talent.

[gstark]

but when you really take stock of some of them, they are saturated, cropped, had some kind of action run on them, and totally nothing like the original product.

And when you look at the published photo of Kim Phúc from the Vietnam war, and compare that with the image as it was originally shot, you will see that it, too, was heavily cropped.

And when you look at images in magazines from ... whenever ... you'll see that they, too have been heavily cropped, the colours are saturated ....

No, Trevor, nothing has changed except the tools. We used to work in a darkroom with chemicals. Now it's done on a computer.

But I have yet to see anything done in a PC that cannot be done in a traditional darkroom.

[Greg B]

I don't think that "raw talent" and post processing are mutually exclusive.

There is no universal law that says that post processing is intrinsically bad, or cheating, or wrong, while
the lack of post processing is just good and pure.

(We had a nutbag here a couple of years ago who had some sort of obsession with this issue, it was funny
for a while, then ridiculous, then annoying, then he disappeared )

There are many ways to approach the creation of art. If you choose an approach involving no post processing
as a style preference, great! If you choose to apply any amount of PP as a style, great! It is about ending up
with an image of which you are proud. The journey is a matter of personal choice.

Over at Red Bubble, there are some absolute masters of PP producing stunning works. There is a huge amount
of talent involved. (Effective use of PP is not easy, whether it is to correct, tweak, enhance or change an image).

[TonyH]

Getting it right in the camera is still the number one requirement.

The tweeking that comes after is really the bonus, however you are right to a certain degree, the better your digital darkroom skills are the better the photo will be.

As Gary said, in film days it was done with chemicals, dodge, burn etc only available to a few. Nowadays available to most if they want to invest the time to learn and experiment.

At the end of the day the most important factor is still the same, having the "eye" to pick the shot to begin with, and knowing the equipment being used to get correct aperture, exposure and focus.

[gstark]

(We had a nutbag here a couple of years ago who had some sort of obsession with this issue, it was funny
for a while, then ridiculous, then annoying, then he disappeared

Greg,

You surely are not referring to my good friend Energypolice are you?

[Greg B]

(We had a nutbag here a couple of years ago who had some sort of obsession with this issue, it was funny
for a while, then ridiculous, then annoying, then he disappeared

Greg,

You surely are not referring to my good friend Energypolice are you?

Yes Gary, that is the nutbag in question

[sirhc55]

(We had a nutbag here a couple of years ago who had some sort of obsession with this issue, it was funny
for a while, then ridiculous, then annoying, then he disappeared

Greg,

You surely are not referring to my good friend Energypolice are you?

Or the Polish Connection

[Grev]

There are some old dinosaurs out there that think post processing on the computer is blasphemy, but in the darkroom is totally acceptable.

Either way, they're fine, unless it's some 16 year old putting too much effects in photoshop.

[aim54x]

I have to say that I dislike post processing, I try to avoid it (out of laziness and to challenge myself) I wil only turn to photoshop and the like to crop and watermark.

BUT for some images post processing will save a shot that would otherwise be wasted.

I find getting it right in camera is much more rewarding than salvaging a shot that could have been done correctly in the viewfinder. I prefer to be out there shooting rather than in front of a computer processing.

There is nothing wrong with post processing in moderation!

[Ant]

I think, traditionally with film, a large percentage of the population were unaware of what post processing was happening in the lab so they thought that the shots they were getting back from the local pharmacy were "as shot". If this were not the case, why would I wait a week to get my film back from a good lab when I could have gone to the local 24hr place.

Now, with digital, people are more aware of the manipulation going on (that has, too varying degrees, always been going on) and seem to believe this is a new practice and is, in some way, cheating.

Ant.

[Glen]

Trevor, great question! I think in the past a lot of professionals cropped, dodged, burned, etc but not as many hobbyists. Now with the digital darkroom instead of a chemical darkroom that capability is in the hands of many, many more than ever before. I would say that most homes which have a digital camera in them have a PC, I doubt that previously even most homes with an SLR had a darkroom. So this capability is now available to the masses, we see a lot more of it. The second reason is that with most digital slr you need some sharpening, etc to optimise the images. Eg if you set your D70 to zero sharpening you may find some images a bit soft. Of course you could set your sharpening a bit higher, but all you are really doing is post processing in camera rather than in PC. So the nature of the capture device now demands some PP.

I personally don't do a lot of PP beyond crop, sharpen and maybe contrast but can well understand why someone does. I think you will find many examples of minimal PP, it is probably the heavily PPed images though which stick in your brain as you notice them.

If you are after a photo comp with minimal PP have a look at the front page of this very website! We are only allowing global PP, meaning sharpening, white balance, etc but not cloning or spot changes such as making the sky purple or cloning a second head on someone. I think to disallow global PP would be harsh, as these are similar changes as what is done in camera.

[olrac]

Ansel Adams did allot of PP in the darkroom and you cant accuse his work of not being artistic.

I have absolutly no problem with retouching and huge amounts of PP as long as wherever it is presented it is honest about how the result was acheived.

[devilla101]

Mate I for one am glad that I don't do anymore darkroom work to convert my photos the way I want them. Also I can only take in so much of that vinegar and burnt tyre smell.

With the advent of faster computers and all these digital tools, we have simply just evolved.

[Ant]

Also I can only take in so much of that vinegar and burnt tyre smell.

Funny, I love that smell. I think it reminds me of my dad. He had me in the darkroom before I was 8.

Ant.

[Pa]

This image shot almost into the sun is usless as is...with a bit of pping it's a much better shot.

[phillipb]

I find nothing wrong with PP, I don't even care if the photographer tells me that he has PP'ed or not. I look at the end result and if I like it I like it , if I don't I don't. No drama.
I may take a photo of something that catches my eye, compose it in a way that is pleasing to me, when I display it on the screen, I may get inspired to change a particular aspect of the photo so I do it, it's still me making decisions. It's not like i feed it to the computer and ask it to spit something out as it sees fit.

[Dave-D40]

At the end of the day the most important factor is still the same, having the "eye" to pick the shot to begin with, and knowing the equipment being used to get correct aperture, exposure and focus.

As a newbie this is more important to me at the moment because you cant turn shite into gold.

[ATJ]

Unless you are talking about shooting with slide film with available light using a full manual camera, this is a moot point. (This assumes that you are also processing said slide film to the manufactures specifications). Anything else is going to be manipulation or at the very least relying on the camera to do stuff for you. With digital it is actually impossible not to do post processing, so where do you draw the line?

[Reschsmooth]

Unless you are talking about shooting with slide film with available light using a full manual camera, this is a moot point. (This assumes that you are also processing said slide film to the manufactures specifications). Anything else is going to be manipulation or at the very least relying on the camera to do stuff for you. With digital it is actually impossible not to do post processing, so where do you draw the line?

And then, shooting at 2.8 vs 16 is another form of "processing" (pre-, that is). And if you use slide film - each emulsion will be different - Velvia vs Provia, etc, and therefore the colours, etc will be different.

But, as has been mentioned, this discussion seems familiar?

[moz]

But I have yet to see anything done in a PC that cannot be done in a traditional darkroom.

I think the main thing is that with digital it's all so much quicker and more accurate, not to mention the joy of "undo-redo". The freedom to experiment due to the low cost is also a huge benefit that helps us all learn so much faster. With film I used to think I was doing well to shoot 3000-4000 exposures a year, with digital I can do that in a busy month, plus whip through and do crop-WB-sharpen-saturate on the keepers in a day or two. I don't think I've ever managed to get a really good print of something non-trivial in less than half a day. So even the editing that chemical photography can do, it almost invariably does not do as well.

De-fishing seems the most obvious example of something that not do-able in a darkroom. I know that in theory you can mostly de-fish using the original lens but I never had much luck doing that and getting a nice even, saturated print out the other end.

HDR is another example, and together with pano stitching was a huge pain if you were working above snapshot size, which IMO was a significant part of the attraction of larger formats for landscape work. Why bother with stitching 20 images together and making multiple prints to get everything just right when you can shoot 8"x12" plates and get it in one hit? Good luck with your plan to do the same to print a 5mx2m HDR pano though, I just don't see that ever coming out of the darkroom looking good.

Finally, anything that uses partial layers is a pain to do in the darkroom. If you've ever hand-cut templates to get a nice crisp transition you'll know that it's not easy or fun. And again, for larger prints it's not possible to do it at all. You just run into the problem of easy to cut templates being too floppy to line up accurately and ones that are rigid enough being too labour intensive to be worth making.

On that note, I've never seen hand-colouring look like anything other than the poor cousin of the computer version. Ditto retouching - it can be done but oh, the time it takes. The clone brush is just so much better and faster.

Where chemical photography used to outshine digital was colour gamut (saturation) but we're very close to the point where digital displays exceed anything that chemical film can produce. I'm specifically comparing backlit transparencies of green-heavy nature scenes with the monitor here, and so far the digital stuff mostly lacks resolution - the 100ppi screens just don't cut it against transparencies. But even transparencies don't have the dynamic range that LCD does...

[surenj]

Either way, they're fine, unless it's some 16 year old putting too much effects in photoshop.

Not sure I completely agree. check out Joey Lawrence http://www.joeyl.com/.. Apparently he is only 17!!! Personally I think his images are brilliant! (But I am only comparing him to myself).

[Aussie Dave]

I think that with digital photography, post-processing is part & parcel of a photographer's toolkit. Whilst it seems easy to do for so many people, to do it well takes alot of patience, practise and skill.....just like taking the photo.

I think there is a difference between the average PP that most photographer's do (such as adjusting levels, WB, colours, cropping, straightening, de-fishing, etc) and full-on image manipulation (where talented photoshop users can turn an image into an incredible work of art - but change the image to something that may no longer resemble reality).

Yes, they are both technically changing what the camera captured, however as many have already mentioned, this was occuring even with film cameras....the difference is that these days a larger majority of people have "electronic darkrooms" sitting on their desks and are aware of "at least" basic editing (brightness & cropping - or even the AUTO function), whereas the average person 20 years ago would not have had much knowledge on what was happeining in darkrooms/labs to produce their printed photos.

At the end of the day, (IMO) it all comes down to how the photographer uses light to portray an image - whether that be solely from what the camera captured during that moment in time, or enhanced later on using a PC or darkroom. To me, that is photography.

[sirhc55]

Either way, they're fine, unless it's some 16 year old putting too much effects in photoshop.

Not sure I completely agree. check out Joey Lawrence http://www.joeyl.com/.. Apparently he is only 17!!! Personally I think his images are brilliant! (But I am only comparing him to myself).

Absolutely feckin’ brilliant - Oh to be 17 again

[wheels]

Given the quality of cameras and the relative availability to the masses of said cameras it is pretty hard to take a really bad photo these days, especially in green mode (auto). The camera will just fix most things automatically and if you really do stuff it up the software that came with the camera can fix up just about everything else, (less cropped off heads etc of course). In the past you needed to be proficient in the darkroom to pull off those adjustments and everybody just assumed that was THE photo. If PP is done with the right amount of vigour, nothing has changed - as far as the masses are concerned that is THE photo. All that has happened over the last few years is the darkroom has changed locations and has become a consumer skill rather than a specialist skill.
Thats my 2 cents anyway.

[surenj]

Given the quality of cameras and the relative availability to the masses of said cameras it is pretty hard to take a really bad photo these days, especially in green mode (auto). The camera will just fix most things automatically and if you really do stuff it up the software that came with the camera can fix up just about everything else, (less cropped off heads etc of course). In the past you needed to be proficient in the darkroom to pull off those adjustments and everybody just assumed that was THE photo. If PP is done with the right amount of vigour, nothing has changed - as far as the masses are concerned that is THE photo. All that has happened over the last few years is the darkroom has changed locations and has become a consumer skill rather than a specialist skill.
Thats my 2 cents anyway.

I think there is a proliferation of really bad photos taken because it's cheap to do so. There may be a slight increase in the good photos that happen by chance but not by much...
Didn't the labs adjust the contrast, brightness of photos for the consumer in the past??

[Glen]

Wheels I think I would have to agree to disagree with you on the first point. Whilst cameras can make a technically perfect shot, they don't compose and cant pick what to shoot. I do take your point that they are far easier to get technically correct.

[wheels]

Wheels I think I would have to agree to disagree with you on the first point. Whilst cameras can make a technically perfect shot, they don't compose and cant pick what to shoot. I do take your point that they are far easier to get technically correct.

Yeah, I think I may have oversimplified that comment a bit. In my defence I did say " a really bad photo." For those who are not as passionate about photography as we are and mostly shoot for record more than anything else it has become much easier. Mum and Dad shooting little Johnny's 2nd birthday now have the ability to have just about every shot perfect as far as they are concerned. I mean, P&S cameras now even have smile recognition for christs sake With it now costing you nothing to get film developed they can afford to fire off 200 shots on jpeg fine with the camera and while their composition etc might not be spot on every time ultimately they will get a couple of really good shots. Thats where I was going with that.

[Glen]

Agree with you 100%, Wheels

[wheels]

Now not to hijack this thread or heap scorn upon the p&s cameras but they have made life so much easier. I actually own one - an Olympus waterproof jobby. Can't remember its real name and don't care to look it up. The reason I bought this was - it's waterproof down to 10m. 10M It cost bugger all too (compared to an underwater housing for my 20D). Underwater housings make nervous but thats another story. So now the consumer can take his p&s to the beach, go for a dive or a surf, reel off 100 or so photos and get some really nice stuff. Chuck it into PS, remove the bluish cast and you've got a great photo. That used to be the domain of a fairly specialised group of people. Now with a combination of camera and software we are getting better photos taken by the average punter. I think it's great.
Thread hijack over, pls return to your seats!

[Grev]

Either way, they're fine, unless it's some 16 year old putting too much effects in photoshop.

Not sure I completely agree. check out Joey Lawrence http://www.joeyl.com/.. Apparently he is only 17!!! Personally I think his images are brilliant! (But I am only comparing him to myself).

I was only generalising, of course not all youngins are like that, it's just that the majority of the younger demographic have a much lower standard of what's called photography nowadays because it's so abdundant.

And just last night I was asked if this photo of mine



http://grebbin.deviantart.com/art/Eamon-1-83427219 was "processed" in anyway to make it look good... I said no, it's straight out of the camera and she was highly amazed... And most of her "photographer" friends are amazed too.

It's funny ultimately but tragic of course.

[ATJ]

So now the consumer can take his p&s to the beach, go for a dive or a surf, reel off 100 or so photos and get some really nice stuff. Chuck it into PS, remove the bluish cast and you've got a great photo. That used to be the domain of a fairly specialised group of people.

As an underwater photographer, I have to disagree with this, and quite strongly, too. Even a very experienced photoshop user is going to have a very difficult time correcting the colours of an underwater shot taken without strobes. It is far more than a "bluish cast". You lose red light very quickly with depth and even at 5m there isn't a whole lot of red left. With the image you have left there is no way to tell how far any particular area of the picture is from its true colour. Was is brown? Was it purple? Was it red?

[wheels]

Andrew;
I agree with you no question at all. I've been fortunate to dive in places like the Solomon Islands and I'll agree p&s underwater cameras do have their limitations. Try taking a photo of a clownfish any deeper than 2-3m and the colours all go bad even in that crystal water. But I'm talking about the consumer here not a pro. As far as they are concerned they have a great photo. To you it may not be all that great but to the average punter it is something that they would never have got were it not for the advent of cameras and software that is now available.

[wider]

im with aim54x on this one - try to stay away from PS except for a crop and watermark. i too am too lazy to spend lots of time on one image and enjoy the challenge of trying to get the image right the first time.

i do feel however if you have that shot that you need to rescue, a certain amount of PS work is excusable ^_^

[aim54x]

im with aim54x on this one - try to stay away from PS except for a crop and watermark. i too am too lazy to spend lots of time on one image and enjoy the challenge of trying to get the image right the first time.

i do feel however if you have that shot that you need to rescue, a certain amount of PS work is excusable ^_^

That is exactly what I said! Thanks for agreeing with me wider!

[karenkwan]

Like most have said before, post-processing has been happening way before the introduction of a digital camera and adobe, it's just easier now to correct photos or process them in a way you desire. There isn't a rule where photographs have to be completely untouched to be deemed a good 'photograph'.

As one of my friends says: "you can't polish a turd" - atleast in most cases. Take for example - Lara Jade, who I think is a wonderful photographer but often gets criticised for her processing, I personally find the photos beautiful but the extra colouring just adds a bit more to the photo.

I guess it's all subjective, I personally love processing my photos in lightroom, I just get more freedom with what I want to achieve - but then, I've also been heavily criticised by some friends for doing so.

[petermmc]

Everything other than the real image is only at best a close approximation of reality. Photography by its nature is already editing as you choose which rectangle to contain your image.

I have had much more fun on my computer than in my dark room in the pp stakes. I always found that pp took too much of my time in the dark room and I was too impatient anyway...ah the smell of fixer in the morning.

When you are colour blind like me, pp is a god send....I think.

Recently at my daughter's school's bollywood production of 'A mid summer night's dream,' I took 1400 shots over 2 performances. The lighting was as crazy as the production and changed constantly. I pp'd about 400 of the shots which made a real difference. The school received all my good shots (which makes me look better ) and all concerned were happy.

PP is a fact of life and makes people like me able to do arguably outstanding work with a few clicks of the mouse.

Humble thoughts. Still a good topic.

Have a happy day.

[mickeyjuice]

im with aim54x on this one - try to stay away from PS except for a crop and watermark.

Crop? CROP? Geez, why don't you get it right to start with? Cropping is clearly PP, which is verbotten.

i too am too lazy to spend lots of time on one image

So everyone should be lazy. I like where this is going.

and enjoy the challenge of trying to get the image right the first time.

Like lots of people.

i do feel however if you have that shot that you need to rescue, a certain amount of PS work is excusable ^_^

The generosity is only matched by the condescension.

Seriously, this is quite ridiculous. Given that virtually every shot taken with a DSLR in RAW needs sharpening (due to the AA filter), do we declare that anything taken with a DSLR is somehow tainted and not 'real'? Man, don't get me started on those cameras that don't exactly match everybody's range of vision, they must be poor as well, as they're not showing the 'real' scene. And people who change lenses? Deadset.

And those jokers like Ansel Adams - if only he hadn't done all that work in the darkroom, he could have been really good, instead of someone we can all pity.

[seeto.centric]

geeeeeeeeettttingg back on topic, as many of you have pointed out - the images which come out of the camera already do undergo some sort of processing/editing.
for me, i personally feel that a photographer's style of editing is as unique as the photographer's technique/skill in capturing the scene. In a way, this is also what makes folk like Ansel Adams and many of us on this forum unique.

I'm also pretty lazy with PP - i do it when i must or when i feel like it, otherwise if it's good enough then it will suffice. I'm yet to get paid for any of my work so that might be another reason i dont really bother. Lately i've been shooting RAW so sharpening is a must, and RAWs just beg to be adjusted so i do that before outputting to JPEG also - no major surgery, just global tweaks. then again, most of my images in the past have never made it past my HDD or DVD archives.. so there's another reason for less need to edit. Nowadays with a flickr account i guess i am pressured to post better stuff up there and often editing is needed.

Cameron, as for getting it right in-camera - isnt that what we all try to do? otherwise we'd be wasting memory and uselessly wearing our our cameras. then again, there's the lomography perspective of happy mistakes.......... but lets not go there.

so in response to the OP's question, i think the perceived quality of a photograph these days depends on the photographer's photographing skill/technique as well as their editing skills/techniques. and i guess their equipment might also play a role in achieving the final result. there are things which can only be done in camera and things which can only be achieved in PP.

-j

[Greg B]

And those jokers like Ansel Adams - if only he hadn't done all that work in the darkroom, he could have been really good, instead of someone we can all pity.

Nice work, this had me in stitches......

[Reschsmooth]

Ansel Adams

Who???

[ATJ]

Ansel Adams

Who???

I think he has something to do with condoms or gloves.

[the foto fanatic]

And those jokers like Ansel Adams - if only he hadn't done all that work in the darkroom, he could have been really good, instead of someone we can all pity.

I happen to have a copy of Ansell Adams' book, "The Negative", out from the library ATM. In his introduction (written in March 1981) to the book, he says this:

"It is important to realize that the expressive photograph (the "creative" photograph) or the informational photograph does not have directly proportional relationship to what we call reality. We do not perceive certain values in the subject and attempt to duplicate them in the print. We may simulate them, if we wish to, in terms of reflection density values, or we may render them in related values of emotional effect. Many consider my photographs to be in the "realistic" category. Actually, what reality they have is in their optical-image accuracy; their values are definitely "departures from reality." The viewer may accept them as realistic because the visual effect may be plausible, but if it were possible to make direct visual comparison with the subjects, the differences would be startling."

If I can paraphrase, he is saying that his images are not manipulated optically, but the exposure values may be nothing like reality.

I'm sure that he would be a heavy PP user and promoter.

[phillipb]

If photography was meant to represent reality, then it has failed miserably. I don't know about you, but I have never been able to see the world with a sharp subject and a blurred background in the way you can through a 300mm f2.8 lens. Anyone who doesn't believe in pp should sell all their lenses except their standard lens (around 35mm with the 1.5 crop factor) and only use it at f16 without flash.

[gstark]

Ansel Adams

Who???

I think he has something to do with condoms or gloves.

No.

From a 60's TV sitcom.

[ATJ]

From a 60's TV sitcom.

Gomez's cousin?

[gstark]

From a 60's TV sitcom.

Gomez's cousin?

Yes, and his other half brother had a part in another 60's sitcom.

[ATJ]

That's a grizzly thought.

[gstark]

That's a grizzly thought.

Yes, but the wrong one, my little Sunbeam.

[ATJ]

Missed by that much. Sorry about that Chief.

[gstark]

Missed by that much. Sorry about that Chief.

That's the Juan, Don.