[altopiet]

You'll never get an answer to that question, because there isn't one.

It's like pornography - impossible to define with words, but we know it when we see it.

Why can't everyone take wikipedia's definition as a basis to work from?

"Photo manipulation (also called photoshopping or—before the rise of Photoshop software—airbrushing) is the application of image editing techniques to photographs in order to create an illusion or deception (in contrast to mere enhancement or correction) after the original photographing took place"

[Imageman]

Why can't everyone take wikipedia's definition as a basis to work from?

"Photo manipulation (also called photoshopping or—before the rise of Photoshop software—airbrushing) is the application of image editing techniques to photographs in order to create an illusion or deception (in contrast to mere enhancement or correction) after the original photographing took place"

Perfect

[skid2964]

I used to be too concerned about pp also. I wanted to be able to use an image "right out of the camera" but I realized, most great film shots are not "right out of the camera" either!
Film pp, although much more tedious, was usually required to make a spectacular final product.

And... let's turn this around... I've seen people destroy a great image with horrible Photoshop skills also!

[noelpolar]

Perfect

To be perfect it would have needed to be the second post in this thread......

May it have then been thougth of as a masterful post?

[normhead]

I used to be too concerned about pp also. I wanted to be able to use an image "right out of the camera" but I realized, most great film shots are not "right out of the camera" either!
Film pp, although much more tedious, was usually required to make a spectacular final product.

And... let's turn this around... I've seen people destroy a great image with horrible Photoshop skills also!

I've only seen people destroy so so images with Photoshop, unless you're talking about people who are just learning the software and are exploring the limits of what they can do. People have to learn somehow.

SO what do you guys think of this guy? Too much, too little?

http://www.andrewcollett.com

[wildman]

I wanted to be able to use an image "right out of the camera

Since switching over to digital after over 50 years of film I no longer
think of a camera as a device for capturing a final image. Now a camera
is just a temporary data bucket where my only immediate concerns are
limited to composition, timing (when to release the shutter) and
exposing for the most efficient use of the sensor DR. Out in the field
everything is potential and nothing is final and I find that very
liberating compared to my old film days when things were so gear-centric
and thus written in stone.

[normhead]

Since switching over to digital after over 50 years of film I no longer
think of a camera as a device for capturing a final image. Now a camera
is just a temporary data bucket where my only immediate concerns are
limited to composition, timing (when to release the shutter) and
exposing for the most efficient use of the sensor DR. Out in the field
everything is potential and nothing is final and I find that very
liberating compared to my old film days when things where so gear-centric
and thus written in stone.

I once did a workshop with Buffy Saint-Marie a native american singer who was an early adoptee of digital. Because of her recording career, she had enough money to rent darkroom space in a colour lab and a darkroom tech. and spend up to 3 days post processing getting her film pictures to be the way she wanted them. When I met her in the early days of digital and the very early days of photoshop, she was probably one of the most enthusiastic adopters you'd ever want to meet, because she was used to paying big bucks for not as much flexibility.

[vonBaloney]

Since switching over to digital after over 50 years of film I no longer
think of a camera as a device for capturing a final image. Now a camera
is just a temporary data bucket where my only immediate concerns are
limited to composition, timing (when to release the shutter) and
exposing for the most efficient use of the sensor DR. Out in the field
everything is potential and nothing is final and I find that very
liberating compared to my old film days when things where so gear-centric
and thus written in stone.

What I miss most about film (negative film) vs digital is that you could overexpose your heart out and pretty much always able to get a good image out of it -- exposing for the shadows and knowing the highlights can always be recovered is much easier (I think) than knowing if you blow a highlight, it is gone forever. So digital is like shooting slide film -- the dynamic range we get now beats film which helps, but I'd still prefer the old model. I'm awaiting the sensor tech to take care of this problem...

[wildman]

What I miss most about film (negative film) vs digital is that you could overexpose your heart out and pretty much always able to get a good image out of it -- exposing for the shadows and knowing the highlights can always be recovered is much easier (I think) than knowing if you blow a highlight, it is gone forever. So digital is like shooting slide film -- the dynamic range we get now beats film which helps, but I'd still prefer the old model. I'm awaiting the sensor tech to take care of this problem...

This is a difference but not a deal breaker in my experience:
Just turn the above on it's head - expose for highlights and leave the shadows fall where they may.
Then in PP normalize the exposure by bringing up the shadows.

In this example I spot metered on the highlights and did just that.

Unprocessed and processed RAW file.
Note: the processed image is very close to being perceptually accurate - What the scene really looked like to the naked eye.

What I remember from my film days using, say, Plus X you couldn't do this at all or only with a unreasonable amount of work, fussing, time and skill.

[vonBaloney]

This is a difference but not a deal breaker in my experience:
Just turn the above on it's head - expose for highlights and leave the shadows fall where they may.
Then in PP normalize the exposure by bringing up the shadows.

Fair enough, but I still think it is more challenging exposing for highlights. Negative film has "built-in HDR" as it were and you could effectively post-compress the DR so it could all be printed with detail. Imagine a snow-covered landscape in the sunshine with dark areas of something. On film you could expose for the dark areas and just burn in the snow until the detail showed up. On digital if you expose for the snow the dark areas are very likely too far underexposed to ever be anything but mud -- you have to shoot multiple-exposure HDR to get it. The difference is with negative film you're always capturing more light and so the highlights might be super-dense on the negative but the detail is in there to be found. Whereas if you reverse it and the DR of the scene is just too great you are going to lose one or the other with a single-shot because either the highlights will be blown or the dark areas will simply not have captured the detail at all. Once we get sensors that can "reset their buckets" on the fly during exposure so the highlight detail is never lost, look out. It'll happen...

[Tako Kichi]

SO what do you guys think of this guy? Too much, too little?

The Photography of Andrew Collett

I only took a quick scan through that site but there are many shots I would be happy to hang on my wall. There were a few where I thought perhaps he'd gone a bit over the top in PP but maybe that was the look he was after.

[wildman]

I still think it is more challenging exposing for highlights.

I agree. There is a sharp knee in the luminosity curve of a sensor at the high end where the sensor abruptly turns off if it becomes over-saturated.

It took me a long to time to figure this out but the trick is to think digital rather than film. Any medium has it's strengths and weakness's and whatever one you use, understanding the difference and playing to it's strengths and weakness's can solve a lot of the apparent differences between the two. But you are right that burning the highlights in digital can come up very quickly, abruptly and unexpectedly if you are not careful.

For me at least, the overall advantages of digital over film are so obvious that I don't lose any sleep over film's few remaining advantages at this state of digital technology.

Good luck.

[vonBaloney]

For me at least, the overall advantages of digital over film are so obvious that I don't lose any sleep over film's few remaining advantages of film at this state of digital technology.

More! I want more! Wwaaaaaa!

[tuco]

What I remember from my film days using, say, Plus X you couldn't do this at all ...

Right because with film you placed the shadows and develop for the highlights to get the same results. And in fact you can actually capture more stops of light in a single exposure with BW film than you can with your digital. And remember our digital cameras are advertising Engineering DR where you really don't want to use the bottom 2 or 3 stops of that dynamic range.

If you sent your BW film out to get developed or used the standard developing time plus metered with the camera's average meter than you really never experienced metering for the shadows and developing for highlights kind of thing.