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04-21-2009, 07:38 PM   #1
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Post processing- true artistic interpretation?

I'm starting this thread to get feedback from all the different photographers and artists here on the forums.

This isn't a posture thread or myself wanting to take a stance, but I've been mulling this over for a bit in my head, and I thought it would be an interesting debate.

Basically, I'm a self-taught designer who was an avid snapshooter when younger who's gotten back into photography in the last couple years because of the Pentax DSLR system. And now, having used digital tools for design for such a long time, I'm finding that the PP phase is just as exciting and driving my desire to create more images.

What I find is that because of the bit depth advantage of shooting RAW digital format, I can move into a phase of artistic interpretation of shots in the post-processing phase: in the "Lightroom" (and Photoshop) is where I start to feel an image come together, and I can go beyond what the actual recorded pixels are in the image to create something closer to what I want to express.

I don't want to discount great shots in and of themselves, but when I want to express something artistically, the base shot is just the canvas and paint, as it were. To capture a photograph is just that- a capture. Yes, it has to have all the right technical aspects in place, but sometimes I find a shot that on first review is not quite right in terms of the technicalities of the photo has a hidden potential that doesn't come out until post processing begins- and often leads me down an experimental path with surprising results!

We have SO MANY advantages in this digital age- starting with a data set (RAW) that actually contains more information than any of our current display formats (monitors, printed output) can actually display! Incredible processing power at the hardware level to applications that become more and more refined to let us explore the visual medium in so many billions of iterations that we can't even imagine all the possibilities.

Yet I find that sometimes I get a sense of reticence to go and "push" those pixels to create an image that expresses more than just the photograph itself. It might be said that a good photograph doesn't need post-processing. True. A good "photograph" doesn't. And not every shot needs post-processing to meet the expression the photographer/artist was searching to achieve.

But there are so many more expressions lurking in all those pixels- a way to communicate a thought, feeling, mood, atmosphere, that isn't there in the original photograph. That's what I'm talking about.

As Ansel Adams said:
"You don't take a photograph, you make it."

Thoughts/experiences/opinions, I'm open- just wanted to get this out of my head out into the fantastic Pentax community.

04-21-2009, 07:57 PM   #2
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Quite a philosophical point of discussion.
Although one needs both sets of skills IMO (photographic and PP) to get the best results possible.

There is no doubt the best photos don't need PP, although if applied would significantly enhance them.

I made an earlier analogy in another thread of a similar vain: to create a great photo is like making a great cake:

The ingredients, flavours and texture of the cake mix makes the foundation of the cake just as the lighting, pose and uniqueness of the subject and technique and style of the photographer makes the foundation of a great photo.

The icing on the cake brings added richness, palatability and reflex-salivation (the X-factor) to the cake just as PP adds richness, impact and pop (the X-factor) to the already great photo.

Just my take...
04-21-2009, 07:57 PM   #3
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There have been other threads about how much post processing is no longer photography. I think that if I could do it in a darkroom with smelly chemicals and an enlarger, there is no reason at all that I should not do it in Lightroom + PS Elements 6 + DxO Labs + PTLens + The Panorama Factory + Photomatix + Focus Magic (my current set - FM on trial so far). Many moons ago, I did darkroom work all the way up to montages, but did not really enjoy it once I got over the high of getting to be able to do it.

Lightroom adjusts exposure and white balance. So does an enlarger with a colour head and a set of filters. It also catalogues my "negatives" so I can find them, just like I used to do with notebooks.

Elements 6 lets me dodge and burn. Dodging and burning was used to take out power lines and other nasty things man has put in the way of the image back then, it's just easier now.

DxO Labs allows me to tilt the easel and correct keystoning. It also allows me to fix lens distortions - well, actually it does it for me, I still don't care for much time in the "darkroom".

PTLens overlaps DxO, but does some other similar neat darkroom things with perspective.

The Panorama Factory lets me take a big long roll of paper and expose it with several negatives to create one bigger print. It was much harder to mark the points where things had to line up, and correcting the exposure on the overlap was a nightmare, but we did it.

Photomatix allows me to digi magically dodge and burn the sky and land to show both sets of details in an image that is beyond the contrast range of the paper.

Focus Magic was done a tiny little bit, with extreme difficulty by using contrast modifying filters and a few other tricks with art pencils on black and white. (I have a wedding portrait of me that shows this last).

Back then, people even did the colour on the subject with black and white surrounds. It was done with "masks".

Use Photoshop all you want. I reserve the right not to like the result, or to love the result, but the result can only be known as art either way. I love and play baroque music and cannot stand metallica. So what?

Enjoy!

And Ansel was exactly correct. You don't take a photograph, you make it.
04-21-2009, 09:54 PM   #4
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Reminds me of an article on Luminous Landscape that I read ages ago, but came across again recently that might be relevant: Just Say Yes

04-21-2009, 11:04 PM   #5
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QuoteQuote:
Elements 6 lets me dodge and burn. Dodging and burning was used to take out power lines and other nasty things man has put in the way of the image back then, it's just easier now.
I disagree with this seemingly common held belief that it was a common and regular occurance that people could achieve this. Any goose can do this digitally, very few can do it under an enlarger.
04-21-2009, 11:42 PM   #6
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QuoteOriginally posted by HGMonaro Quote
I disagree with this seemingly common held belief that it was a common and regular occurance that people could achieve this. Any goose can do this digitally, very few can do it under an enlarger.
Yes everyone can do it digitally... but only if they learn how to. Just as everyone could do it in a darkroom... if they learnt how to. The difference with digital is that it is more accessible.

Professional film photographers never use a Ritz or a Costco, they either develop and print themselves or have a master developer/printer do it for them.

IMO a photograph that doesn't have some post processing be it digitally or in the darkroom is a snapshot.

This discussion is about the artistic interpretation side of photography. A good photographer sees the finished result before they even press the shutter button. The taking of the picture the post processing and the printing are what go together to make what the photographer saw a reality.
04-22-2009, 03:59 AM   #7
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"Post processing- true artistic interpretation?"

I've reread the OP a couple of times. Interesting musings but I have to ask:

What is the question?

Putting a question mark at the end of a line of text does not necessarily make it a coherent question.

Wildman


Last edited by wildman; 04-22-2009 at 04:15 AM.
04-22-2009, 04:33 AM   #8
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True, wildman. I left the question open ended, but here is what it should have read.

Post processing- a path to artistic interpretation?

I was wanting to see if others find post processing as a way of finding the "art", as it were, in a shot that they want to express.

One point I want to make- sometimes I'm shooting. I know there are elements in the scene before me that are exciting, and I want to use the scene to express an atmosphere or feeling that I have at the moment. But I can't possibly stand there long enough in an urban setting, lets say, or when the light is "just right", to find the exact expression that I'm seeking. That's what I'm talking about here- that in post, I start to find that expression.

I guess this process is particular to myself. I'm not a "see the whole thing in a flash" kind of artist- I find that ideas start, morph and change as I start to look into the image I have before me and start with PP.

I'm just opening the question up, to see if others see PP as a vital part of the art of photography.
04-22-2009, 07:51 AM   #9
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Post Processing

Back when I was in high school, I used to do my own darkroom work. Now I use my computer and PS Elements.

I have no problem with those who consider the camera image as only a starting point, and do major post processing modifications to the image. This is just as much a valid artistic technique as any.

However, I prefer images that have minimal changes done in pp. This is just my personal preference, just as some people like watercolor paintings over oil on canvas, or sculpture over drawings. I have always enjoyed the process of composing the image in the viewfinder and trying to get the image and exposure the way I want them, right then and there, in the camera. In this sense, its a little like the difference between a film negative and a slide. With a negative, you have some room to manuver in the dark room. With a slide, you pretty much have to get it right in the camera.

In the old days, people used to cut up prints with scissors or an x-acto knife and paste them together in a collage. Some exposed mutilple negative onto a single print, to form a similar result. Combining multiple images in layers in Photoshop is, to me, no different.

While I prefer minimal PP, I'm not an absolutist. Do what your artistic sense tells you to do. I look at an image and judge the content, not the technique. Is the image interesting; does it evoke an emotional response; does it bring to mind an old memory? These are the same criteria I use to judge a painting or sculpture.

I do not worry about whether it is "photography" or not. The result is what counts. Likewise, I don't much worry about whether the photographer used a Pentax, Nikon or Canon. Its the image.

So, I guess my answer would be that, yes, post-processing is a valid path to artistic interpretation. It is not the only one, though. I have seen some fantastic images that could never be captured by a camera alone, but were created using PP. Likewise, there are some great images that come right out of the camera.

Paul Noble
04-22-2009, 09:20 AM   #10
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QuoteOriginally posted by HGMonaro Quote
I disagree with this seemingly common held belief that it was a common and regular occurance that people could achieve this. Any goose can do this digitally, very few can do it under an enlarger.
I did not mean that every Tom, Dick and Harry did it - I meant that it was done. If you could not do it yourself, you paid someone else to do it.

As for taking out black power lines against bright skies, it is very easy to do this with black and white negative film. All we did was (carefully and painstakingly) pencil the line on a duplicate negative and print with that.

For colour film, we made a large print, made the corrections on the print with the special pencils and brushes, photographed the corrected print, and used the resulting negative as the source for the final print.

I was attempting to point out that we did make corrections - post processing - in film days. I don't believe taking power lines out of a picture, correcting exposure, creating HDR images and the like is not photography. It is.
04-22-2009, 11:26 AM   #11
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I think that what we have is so much potential in the digital era.

One thing I love doing is to take an image that in it's base state- well captured with proper framing, exposure and focus- and start to "uncover" what is hidden in that image in terms of the information that you can't see on the initial view because of the limitations of the 8 bit color space.

Lightroom, since v2, has now the ability to quickly and non-destructively start this process. I often start with an image that looks rather plain and start playing with hue, saturation, recovery and fill light to start to see what details are lurking in that image. Then I move onto what colors/shadows/highlights/details are exposed in this process, and find what is interesting in the photo that wasn't visible in the initial capture. I then try and allow this "new" information to open my eyes to possibilities of what to express in the information I am now seeing, and let that direction carry me on to something I feel has some merit in what I want to express.

This is like finding trasures at yard sales (haven't found any great lenses yet! But still trying) and finding out that the thing you bought for a quarter is worth 25.00 on Ebay! Well, maybe not quite that good..

One thing that I think has hurt the idea of PP is all the imagery that has been modified and processed in such repetition that we start to get jaded because the same type of imagery is thrown at us constantly, and frankly, just cheesy bad computer generated images!

Look at the 3d industry (which I love to dabble in, also)- in the late 80's, the block characters in the video for "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits were the pinnacle of 3d animation. Now we have entire feature length films that create new worlds that would have been unaccessible to the creative community, with a sense of artistry and realism that has reached the point where, if the artists want, they can make it next to impossible to tell the 3d imagery apart from the "real world".

It's a great time to be an artist, and with all these amazing tools, I think it's a great way to express and communicate visually!
04-22-2009, 03:24 PM   #12
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They're all just tools, and PP isn't "cheating" if done well.

Does anyone remember Michael Funk? He used to take two disparate chromes (the 70s) and merge them into one image via a cheap screw-on slide duplicator.

Fantastic stuff, but what's the difference if he accomplished it that way or via PP on the Mac?
04-22-2009, 03:31 PM   #13
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By the way:

PP, which you guys are using as post processing, means pre-press in my work world:

Preparing the image BEFORE actual offset printing.
04-22-2009, 06:11 PM   #14
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QuoteOriginally posted by Canada_Rockies Quote
I did not mean that every Tom, Dick and Harry did it - I meant that it was done. If you could not do it yourself, you paid someone else to do it.
I appologise for taking the topic off topic, apparently that is now illegal. And just to add to my woes, the concept that an image needs PP to be anything but a snapshot astounds me.

QuoteQuote:
I was attempting to point out that we did make corrections - post processing - in film days. I don't believe taking power lines out of a picture, correcting exposure, creating HDR images and the like is not photography. It is.
Agreed. Guess I've just seen too many comments over the years that trivialise the skill and time required to make changes in traditional printing that I finally capitulated and made a comment, usually I manage to ignore them. For that I apologise.

regards, Nige
04-22-2009, 06:33 PM   #15
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QuoteOriginally posted by HGMonaro Quote
I appologise for taking the topic off topic, apparently that is now illegal. And just to add to my woes, the concept that an image needs PP to be anything but a snapshot astounds me.


Nige, where did you go off topic did I miss something? And it's certainly not illegal, there aren't that many threads that don't go off topic.

I admit I was generalising a bit with my snapshot comment(could have worded it better), I was basically just distinguishing between photographs taken for pleasure and those taken with art in mind. It was also just an opinion.
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