[redpigeons]

ever got that reaction from ppl?

every couple of weeks or so I will get a friend of mine popping the question...

"How come you pictures so saturated and colorful?"

then I say " I am using Photo shop"

then usually the reaction is "ah... its photo shoped that is why"

now any of you guys that does PP know that its a lot of work .

there is no "make pretty picture " button in PS. it takes a lot of decision making and artistic choices.

yet I always feel bad about it . as if I am cheating or some thing

in film days life where easy you had your fan with the camera, took the roll to a lab , asked for a mate paper and saturated colors.
come back a day later ... all the pictures looking awesome and no body asks any question

even thou I am not sure how good my film pictures would look like with out the lab working and fixing the slides

so bottom line on digital you end up doing more work and get less credit ... BC... Well ... its photo shop

[mtroute]

ever got that reaction from ppl?

every couple of weeks or so I will get a friend of mine popping the question...

"How come you pictures so saturated and colorful?"

then I say " I am using Photo shop"

then usually the reaction is "ah... its photo shoped that is why"

now any of you guys that does PP know that its a lot of work .

there is no "make pretty picture " button in PS. it takes a lot of decision making and artistic choices.

yet I always feel bad about it . as if I am cheating or some thing

in film days life where easy you had your fan with the camera, took the roll to a lab , asked for a mate paper and saturated colors.
come back a day later ... all the pictures looking awesome and no body asks any question

even thou I am not sure how good my film pictures would look like with out the lab working and fixing the slides

so bottom line on digital you end up doing more work and get less credit ... BC... Well ... its photo shop

I just mentioned this in another post. I struggle with evaluating photography today, primarily because you can fix any fault in post. In the film days, that million dollar shot took talent and an eye for composition, subject and especially lighting. Today any of those can be manipulated in post.

That being said, digital post is in itself a talent. I struggle just trying to correct exposure, and levels in Aperture. I never know if I have gone to far or not far enough, never mind adjusting the tonal qualities.

But to me, frankly, I am significantly more impressed with a photographer that can capture what he/she envisioned in their mind, with a camera and lens, than I am with someone that "creates" the image in a computer.

[redpigeons]

see that's what I am trying to say.

I take pictures EXACTLY the same I used to with my K1000
its true you can crop a little in phtoshop (and loose IQ), and you could do the same in film days. but sill good composition is made in camera, nothing changed

any thing you can do in photoshop you could do in a film lab I really do see ant different

[MRRiley]

Gawd, here we go again. Photoshop (or Gimp or Lightroom or whatever) is just the darkroom for the digital medium. There is virtually nothing you can do in photoshop that a skilled darkroom master could not do in a traditional wet darkroom.

See Jerry Uelsmann

There is nothing intrinsically "dishonest" about digital post processing. Nor is it illegal or evil. It is in fact a necessary part of a digital workflow. Even if you print your digital photos straight out of your camera, they have still been post-processed. The camera does that itself, and you can tune that by adjusting the presets. All PS gives you is the ability to effect finer control over the image than is possible in the camera. Liken this to slide film vs. negative film. With both you could influence the image at the camera (lens selection, shutter speed, aperture, filters, etc) but with slides, discounting push or pull processing, once the shutter was clicked you had what you had. With negative film there was still a large range of post-processing possibilities in the darkroom both for the negative and in the printing process.

Can Photoshop be used to do amazing or fraudulent things? of course it can, but so can film.

Naturally I agree, that the more care you put into your photographic process prior to and at the moment of image capture, the better off you will be. Photoshop should not be used as a crutch or as a substitute for skill behind the camera, but there is nothing wrong with using it to perfect the optical or tonal qualities of the image which were beyond our control when we clicked the shutter.

Mike

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Last edited by MRRiley; 07-21-2009 at 11:10 AM.

[mtroute]

see that's what I am trying to say.

I take pictures EXACTLY the same I used to with my K1000
its true you can crop a little in phtoshop (and loose IQ), and you could do the same in film days. but sill good composition is made in camera, nothing changed

any thing you can do in photoshop you could do in a film lab I really do see ant different

Right but in the film days you were limited to what could be corrected in the darkroom. When I was doing B&W enlargements years ago, I was limited to a few adjustments, pushing, contrast, brightness, dodge & burn, and certain filters. Color processing, I never did but I am sure it was similar with the addition of saturation and color manipulation.

If you failed on just one aspect, exposure, you were stuck, you couldn't create highlights and shadows very well if they didn't exist. It was much more difficult to save an image with poor exposure. That is not a problem with RAW and PP today.

So digital post gives you significantly more options to correct or manipulate an image beyond anything that could have been done in a darkroom. That makes images that rely on heavy post, to me anyway, not better or worse, but different than if they came straight from the camera.

It is very hard to articulate I guess, but I certainly see your point. It's like when some one see a picture that I am particularly proud of and says, "wow, you have a nice camera" and I just look at them and think, wtf...

[Ash]

Lots of lay people are ignorant on the place PP has in producing an image.
The trick is to create an image that pops out as best it can without looking doctored/unnatural (unless that's the intent).

Without PP, just as with dark-room editing in the film days, photography would be a lot blander.

[dsittler]

Being new to this and reading the comments here about PP makes me question the pictures I am taking. I look at the other people here who have vast amounts of experience and admire the pictures they have posted in the forum and wish that I could do something like that. Some of my pictures that I take I really like but unsure whether they are "worthy" of the effort of PP. How do you really know if you have a "good" picture to start with? I know this is all subjective but I am second guessing every picture on whether it should be deleted or not before loading them to my computer. Do I post the pictures to the forum that "I think" are good and ask for suggestions on what should be done with them in PP. Or do I play around with them in PP and then post them to the forum and ask for comments?

Does this even make any sense????

Being a mechanic my whole life, things work or they don't and there really isn't any room for art so to speak which makes it a challenge for me. But life isn't living unless I am challenged.......if that makes any sense?

Derek

[mtroute]

Being new to this and reading the comments here about PP makes me question the pictures I am taking. I look at the other people here who have vast amounts of experience and admire the pictures they have posted in the forum and wish that I could do something like that. Some of my pictures that I take I really like but unsure whether they are "worthy" of the effort of PP. How do you really know if you have a "good" picture to start with? I know this is all subjective but I am second guessing every picture on whether it should be deleted or not before loading them to my computer. Do I post the pictures to the forum that "I think" are good and ask for suggestions on what should be done with them in PP. Or do I play around with them in PP and then post them to the forum and ask for comments?

Does this even make any sense????

Being a mechanic my whole life, things work or they don't and there really isn't any room for art so to speak which makes it a challenge for me. But life isn't living unless I am challenged.......if that makes any sense?

Derek

I hear ya, I think it's doubly difficult when it's your own art. I have no trouble looking at someone else's picture and right off I know if it's good or not. But my own images challenge my ability to make that easy judgment.

[kcmadr]

Being new to this and reading the comments here about PP makes me question the pictures I am taking. I look at the other people here who have vast amounts of experience and admire the pictures they have posted in the forum and wish that I could do something like that. Some of my pictures that I take I really like but unsure whether they are "worthy" of the effort of PP. How do you really know if you have a "good" picture to start with?

It's trial and error. Sometimes one of the most boring shots turns into a really excellent shot months after it was taken, and just because you happened to notice something special about it.

I know this is all subjective but I am second guessing every picture on whether it should be deleted or not before loading them to my computer.

Since digital storage space is so inexpensive these days, I save virtually every image I record simply because I can never get them back if deleted.

Do I post the pictures to the forum that "I think" are good and ask for suggestions on what should be done with them in PP. Or do I play around with them in PP and then post them to the forum and ask for comments?

You do both. That's the only way to open one's eyes to the general opinion of the masses, and also to learn new ways of approaching the presentation of one's images.

Does this even make any sense????

It's in english so yes, it makes sense to me at least.

Being a mechanic my whole life, things work or they don't and there really isn't any room for art so to speak which makes it a challenge for me. But life isn't living unless I am challenged.......if that makes any sense?
Derek

So you work in a profession that's [largely] black and white, but play in a profession that's [largely] grey area and completely open to interpretation. It's fun. And also remember that nobody can tell you an image is lousy if you really like it. It's subjective, and not everybody likes the same things.

[raz-0]

Right but in the film days you were limited to what could be corrected in the darkroom. When I was doing B&W enlargements years ago, I was limited to a few adjustments, pushing, contrast, brightness, dodge & burn, and certain filters. Color processing, I never did but I am sure it was similar with the addition of saturation and color manipulation.

If you failed on just one aspect, exposure, you were stuck, you couldn't create highlights and shadows very well if they didn't exist. It was much more difficult to save an image with poor exposure. That is not a problem with RAW and PP today.

So digital post gives you significantly more options to correct or manipulate an image beyond anything that could have been done in a darkroom.

Just because you didn't know how to do such things, does not mean you could not do them in the darkroom. Lots of the stuff I see done with photoshop, I've seen done with a camera, film, and a darkroom.

Probably the only real difference is that it took more time, money, and effort to do those things. Now more people have integrated it into their skillset and use it on a regular basis.

The other thing that has changed, is that if I took someone and showed them a picture that was the results of lots of screwing around in the darkroom, they'd say how did you do that. If you showed them what you did, they'd ask you waht the heck were you doing.

Today, you show someone a picture that is the result of a lot of manipulation, they ask how did you do that. If you show them, they just say oh that's photoshop, you clicked a few buttons. They still can't make the same picture, but somehow they think anyone could.

[panoguy]

there is no "make pretty picture " button in PS. it takes a lot of decision making and artistic choices.

yet I always feel bad about it . as if I am cheating or some thing

My friends and family don't even ask. I spent 11 years as a professional fashion retoucher - always in digital (starting with the Quantel, before Photoshop 1.0 existed). They know I "step on" every pixel, but they'd be surprised how little I do compared to the old days. My personal photos have a very forgiving Art Director.

You simply do what you feel is neccessary to get a picture you like. Use anything you like; ND or polarizing filters, multiple exposures, push-processing the raw files, dodging, burning, multi-image compositing, or even "cloning" (the only thing in this list that wasn't common with film retouching). Get an image you like and consider that *you* made the image - not the camera, not photoshop, not the computer.

What works; "works."

Ask your friends and family if they "want to learn Photoshop" to make their pictures "prettier." I'll bet they'd say yes every time...

[ozlizard]

It depends on your attitude to photography and what you want to produce. I use PS and LR because I want to create an artistic interpretation of the landscape. It still starts with the best image you can capture at the time, but this, to me, is only the beginning of the creative process, the raw material if you will. How far you go with each photo is somewhat determined by the nature of the image and what you want to portray or convey to the viewer. The abilty to transform images into wonderful works of art and the fact that this is accessable to most people is one of the biggest steps forward in photography since the start of the digital age.

[Wombat]

Photography challenges not only one's artistic sensibilities but also one's ego. Most of us have been through that "It's not fair that I've spent thousands on getting a "real" photographer's kit together and some kid with a skunjy Cheng Wah plastic camera just blew my pictures away because he cheated in Photoshop" syndrome. Been there, suffered the pain! But when you can get the ego out of the way, isn't it a wonderful thing that technology has become so affordable that millions and millions of our fellow human beings can now experience the joy of a little creativity in their lives. Isn't that a good thing? Why do you burn, really, over whether the picture in front of you was a mediocre one "rescued" with Photoshop or whether it came straight from the camera because it was skilfully taken? If it gives pleasure, let it be and enjoy the moment. Let the serious photographers enjoy all the challenges of craftsmanship and let the happy snappers be happy! It's not a sport, there's no competition.

Right but in the film days you were limited to what could be corrected in the darkroom. When I was doing B&W enlargements years ago, I was limited to a few adjustments, pushing, contrast, brightness, dodge & burn, and certain filters. Color processing, I never did but I am sure it was similar with the addition of saturation and color manipulation.

If you failed on just one aspect, exposure, you were stuck, you couldn't create highlights and shadows very well if they didn't exist. It was much more difficult to save an image with poor exposure. That is not a problem with RAW and PP today.

So digital post gives you significantly more options to correct or manipulate an image beyond anything that could have been done in a darkroom. That makes images that rely on heavy post, to me anyway, not better or worse, but different than if they came straight from the camera.

It is very hard to articulate I guess, but I certainly see your point. It's like when some one see a picture that I am particularly proud of and says, "wow, you have a nice camera" and I just look at them and think, wtf...

Actually there was a whole lot more you could do if you knew how. Anything I can do in PS I was able to do in the darkroom. Masks? Sure. You cut them from rubylith or amberlith. Darken the highlights? Sure use masks and internegs and multiple exposures on one sheet. Increase contrast? Again copy the original neg to an orthochromatic film an mask and multiple exposures again.

[flippedgazelle]

Photography challenges not only one's artistic sensibilities but also one's ego. Most of us have been through that "It's not fair that I've spent thousands on getting a "real" photographer's kit together and some kid with a skunjy Cheng Wah plastic camera just blew my pictures away because he cheated in Photoshop" syndrome. Been there, suffered the pain! But when you can get the ego out of the way, isn't it a wonderful thing that technology has become so affordable that millions and millions of our fellow human beings can now experience the joy of a little creativity in their lives. Isn't that a good thing? Why do you burn, really, over whether the picture in front of you was a mediocre one "rescued" with Photoshop or whether it came straight from the camera because it was skilfully taken? If it gives pleasure, let it be and enjoy the moment. Let the serious photographers enjoy all the challenges of craftsmanship and let the happy snappers be happy! It's not a sport, there's no competition.

I agree. But it can be... I don't know, maybe "underwhelming" is the word... to capture a photo you are really proud of, perhaps even an inspired shot, and yet so many people assume that that camera did all the work, or Photoshop did all the work, and it wasn't the skill and vision and inspiration of the photographer, but rather only his technological resources. I think this is reflective of the current state of society and it's interaction with technology, that where technology is present skill and craftsmanship are not necessary.