[Joel B]

I'll make it simple: If a person wants to no PP, sweet! I f a person wants to significantly alter their image, sweet! all spots in between, sweet! It is all art! The image is what YOU want to make of it!
Met a pro a while back, and he used any camera to take any old shot. His thrill was to turn whatever he captured into something stunning. Now this guy had worked for 40 years in the business and is now retired. If he wants to create art in this manner, good for him!

[house]

Leaving the questions of the ethics of PP to the side and knowing photographs are alway 'manipulated'.

The fact that so many, even press, photographs look decidedly unreal is worrying. Why has this esthetic become so dominant. There is always a society and an 'ideology' behind trends such as this. Computer games and movie posters have had this painterly unreal quality for a long time but only with serious PP can photography achieve it. Why on earth would you want photographs meant to portray very real events to have the quality of fantasy?

I've been annoyed that films have been over estheticized for so quite a while. Compare say Alien to Alien (4) Resurrection and this is sci-fi where if anywhere this might be considered called for. Seeing it in so much photography is disconcerting.

[MJSfoto1956]

I've been a professional photographer since 1977, which is to say a decent amount of time. We always "manipulated" our commercial photos back then: either with complex lighting, elaborate sets, scale models, styling, makeup, darkroom work, pin-registration, filters, and even airbrushing. I don't see much difference with the tools we have available to us today with one exception: there is a preponderance of poor use of these tools which back in the day you didn't see because it was simply too hard for the average Joe. Perhaps that is what you are complaining about. Frankly it doesn't bother me a bit -- good work will still shine through the noise.

YMMV

Michael

[mattb123]

While I appreciate getting a shot perfect in-camera, if I shoot raw some degree of processing is required to get a shot that looked like the scene. I know I have been guilty of heavy-handed editing when learning these tools but try really hard not to overcook my shots, using editing to get the look I was after when I made the shot. Every now and then I like to process heavily which maybe makes it a photo AND a piece of digital art but that is just semantics as far as I'm concerned. The photo is my primary focus but developing it is part of the process whether it's in a darkroom or at a computer.
Anyone who is "blindly snapping" isn't going to make much worth looking at, over-processed or not unless they are very lucky.

[WPRESTO]

I have not read all the responses here, but the notion of what-was-recorded-when-the-shutter-was-tripped being the only "pure-true" photography has been nonsense since the 1800's. B&W photographers never hesitated to crop, dodge, burn, add or subtract vignetting, combine multiple images, use gauze over an enlarger lens or directly over the print paper to get an ethereal look, or tilt the easel to straighten architectural lines.Ansel Adems always regarded snapping the shutter as just the beginning of creating a photographic image. During the chrome era almost any post-exposure manipulation was impossible, extremely difficult, or gave unsatisfactory results. Even so simple a PP manipulation as cropping presented challenges to chrome shooters. Now we can do almost anything in B&W or color. We even have the long dreamed of telephone & electric wire filter. Not use these technological advances? Sure, take yourself back to wet plates, tin types, pop off the lens cap and wait twelve seconds to complete an exposure using a Cooke triplet of at least eight-inch focal length and equipped with Waterhouse stops, but don't criticizing we who are making use of 175 years of advance in imaging technology.

[amp]

I hear ya, buddy! :-p Wouldn't be the first time I've been called a "dinosaur," either. Don't get me wrong. PP has always been done in some form or other (as those above point out), and I do it too. But... that being said... I do feel there are sometimes those "amazing" photographs where the PP has been very overdone. To me (and of course I can only speak for me), the end result should somewhat resemble what it was your eyeballs actually saw. These landscapes (for example) that look like they're filled in with crayons - hues adjusted, overly saturated etc. are good examples. A lot of other people look at them and go "Awesome!" "Outstanding!" "Beautiful!" but I look at them and go "Yeah, I can see that in a kid's coloring book.

PP is great and can help produce some jaw dropping images, but as the ancient Greeks used to say - "Everything in moderation."

Kyricom, I think you did a better job of expressing some of my own sentiments. Thanks.

I'm definitely glad I posted/ranted. I certainly have a better understanding of the uses, views and opinions regarding PP. Thanks for the free education!

[Alex645]

The only purist that I know of was a classmate at UCLA that shared with me that when she was at the University of Bath, their final project required them to be exiled in some remote area and from the environment, they had to create their own 'camera', emulsion, chemistry, and permanent print from raw materials, plants, lichens, soil, etc.

Even without PP, every jpeg is a processed image, and arguably so are RAW files. With film, every emulsion was a manipulation and how it was processed in the lab, an interpretation of desired results. The second we decide how to frame the world, the moment we push the shutter release, the lens used, the time of day, are all a manipulations by the photographer. Yes, there is good craft and bad craft, good art and bad art, and images with potential in PP and images ruined by PP. But any of us shooting B&W are doing more to the color saturation than any HDR Fusion processed image.

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Last edited by Alex645; 12-07-2015 at 02:15 PM.

[savoche]

I have not read all the responses here, but the notion of what-was-recorded-when-the-shutter-was-tripped being the only "pure-true" photography has been nonsense since the 1800's. B&W photographers never hesitated to crop, dodge, burn, add or subtract vignetting, combine multiple images, use gauze over an enlarger lens or directly over the print paper to get an ethereal look, or tilt the easel to straighten architectural lines.Ansel Adems always regarded snapping the shutter as just the beginning of creating a photographic image. During the chrome era almost any post-exposure manipulation was impossible, extremely difficult, or gave unsatisfactory results. Even so simple a PP manipulation as cropping presented challenges to chrome shooters. Now we can do almost anything in B&W or color. We even have the long dreamed of telephone & electric wire filter. Not use these technological advances? Sure, take yourself back to wet plates, tin types, pop off the lens cap and wait twelve seconds to complete an exposure using a Cooke triplet of at least eight-inch focal length and equipped with Waterhouse stops, but don't criticizing we who are making use of 175 years of advance in imaging technology.

As a follow-up to this, I'd recommend reading this short article on Petapixel about the darkroom work behind some of the classic photos. Some telling examples there.

Marked Up Photographs Show How Iconic Prints Were Edited in the Darkroom

[DeadJohn]

Until I started to regularly visit this and other sites, I naively went on the assumption that most of the photos I saw and loved were the result of hard work, patience and a little luck. That doesn't seem to be the case. Why does every single photo seemingly have to be meticulously strained through PP just to be acceptable? Am I the only one that thinks this is a little disingenuous on the part of some photographers to call themselves photographers when all they're doing is blindly snapping and then PP the results. Am I so off base? Anybody agree/disagree?

Considering my rant, which is the best software out there for PP pentax camera pix?

Thanks

I disagree. Calling it "blindly snapping" is over-exaggeration. PP is just another skill in the photographer's toolbox. I might dislike the way someone used PP, not their technique but their result, and that's similar to liking or disliking someone else's composition. PP let's you take a potentially good photo in suboptimal conditions and turn it into an actually good photo later.

Let's say a photo opportunity unexpectedly presents itself while you have a 40mm lens on the camera. You see the scene in a way that would look better with more zoom but you don't have time to swap lenses or move forwards. Take the photo at 40mm and crop away the distracting edges later.

Or you take a photo in tricky lighting (colored LED concert lighting!) and get some ugly reds and blues. Maybe fix the color. Or convert to B&W. PP let's you evaluate both approaches.

I like Lightroom for processing. Easy to use and it also helps organize all your photos. If you are just starting with processing, though, maybe experiment with something free (https://picasa.google.com) before committing.

[Joel B]

exiled in some remote area and from the environment, they had to create their own 'camera', emulsion, chemistry, and permanent print from raw materials, plants, lichens, soil, etc.

I see the potential for a reality show!

[rawr]

Photography has always been 'impure', and heavily subject to retouching/ the creative requirements of the photographer or client, even in the good old days of film.





etc

[clackers]

Yep, nothing more traditional than PP! ☺

[Joel B]

Not to stir the pot. But think of what the responses of the portrait painters were when photography first started encroaching into their realm!
Good thing there was no social media then!

[quant2325]

It the old days we filled in dust spots with the right toned pencils, used diluted potassium ferrocyanide to "lighten" parts of photos, used different papers for different effects, etc. Now it is done on the computer. So what? Everything is easier now. And guess what? Most of the iconic photos ever taken were taken before digital photography. The only difference is that PP expertise today can be quickly learned by looking at a YouTube video as opposed to gaining expertise from experience. Expertise isn't what it used to be.

[mohb]

Expertise isn't what it used to be.

Talent is still what it used to be.