[RobA_Oz]

Taking a photograph is an exercise in manipulation to some extent, regardless of the photographer’s intent. Elements such as time of day, lighting source, choice of viewpoint, selection of camera and lens, choice of exposure variables all contribute to the image that is captured. What happens after capture is post-processing, regardless of the medium used – to suggest otherwise is to ignore what happens in-camera in the case of digital capture or in development in the case of film. I don’t see much of the later post-processing as being different in kind, merely degree. Substitution of compositional elements is another matter.

We do, however, need to distinguish between documentation and art. Documentation requires the closest possible adherence to faithful representation of the subject. In the case of conventional still photography, that must occur within the limitations of a two-dimensional image and its technological imperfections (such as colour gamut and dynamic range). Nonetheless, an image is still a representation, not the subject itself.

What is allowable in art depends on your definition, and that definition is as broad as humanity, but a quick survey of contemporary sources suggests that there are some common elements that can be expressed (in my view) no better than the start of the Wikipedia entry on Art:

“Art is a diverse range of (the products of) human activities involving the conscious use of creative imagination to express technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas.”

So, if your intent is to express any of those things through photography, as the old song lyric has it: “anything goes”.

[pschlute]

Photography is making a picture of what I see in a moment of time and which I want to share with others. But it has to be true

Take this example..... A bright spring morning. The lawn in my garden has dew on it, and the morning sun is reflecting off it. The area at the back beyond the lawn, is still in shade and under the trees is still very dark. But I can see detail in both, because that is how the human eye/brain works.

Now I take a photo of the scene. The matrix metering tries to balance things out to give a "correct" (can of worms alert !) exposure. My jpeg image has the lawn a bit brighter than I remember it, and the specular highlights from the sun hitting the dew are very bright. There is no detail at in in the dark area under the trees, it is almost black.

So I get to work in Photoshop. I lower the exposure on the lawn, and tone down the specular highlights. I increase exposure in the dark area to bring out detail.

My edited picture now looks much more like the view I saw with my eyes, but bears no resemblance to the original image from the camera.

Have I created a forgery ?

[Dartmoor Dave]

Take this example..... A bright spring morning. The lawn in my garden has dew on it, and the morning sun is reflecting off it. The area at the back beyond the lawn, is still in shade and under the trees is still very dark. But I can see detail in both, because that is how the human eye/brain works.

Now I take a photo of the scene. The matrix metering tries to balance things out to give a "correct" (can of worms alert !) exposure. My jpeg image has the lawn a bit brighter than I remember it, and the specular highlights from the sun hitting the dew are very bright. There is no detail at in in the dark area under the trees, it is almost black.

So I get to work in Photoshop. I lower the exposure on the lawn, and tone down the specular highlights. I increase exposure in the dark area to bring out detail.

My edited picture now looks much more like the view I saw with my eyes, but bears no resemblance to the original image from the camera.

Have I created a forgery ?

No, you haven't created a forgery. It's a great example of using processing to compensate for the limitations of the gear, which is something I'm sure almost all of us do. Even a straight from the camera jpeg will have done it to an extent.

But now let's imagine you start thinking, "Well, that sky hasn't got much interest in it, so I think I'll clone in that amazing sunrise from Hawaii last year instead. And I actually took the photo in mid-morning light, so I'll use a Topaz filter to make the ground look like it was just after sunrise as well. Oh, and hey, I took that nice photo of a deer out in the woods a few weeks ago -- I can drop that into the frame so that it looks like it was grazing right at the end of the garden. Man, this is gonna get soooo many likes when I post it!"

Of course I know that you'd never do such a thing, but it's exactly what more and more people are doing using the latest software that makes it easier and easier. So it's hardly surprising that there's a corresponding rise in the number of people who are asking more authenticity in photography.

I'm going to stick with my original position on the question: how far each photographer is willing to go in manipulating their shots away from reality is a question for them and their consciences alone.

(And I even kept my fingers out of the can of worms that says "There's no such thing as a correct exposure" on the label.)

[pschlute]

Of course I know that you'd never do such a thing

Never !!

[Dartmoor Dave]

Never !!

Well that one can't possibly be faked. Everyone knows the Clangers are real!

[StiffLegged]

So where’s the Soup Dragon then???

[pschlute]

On a more serious note, I agree that adding things to a picture (a car or a person for example) are generally wrong unless one makes clear it is a composite. Most of my extensive editing will be selective dodging and burning to either bring out detail (correcting exposure limitations) or to give "form" to objects. The latter may be considered a step too far by some.

Sky replacement is an interesting subject. I would not add a Florida sunset to a landscape just for effect, but there are circumstances where a replacement can both enhance an image and deal with the limitations of a cameras exposure system. In a high contrast scene one can end up with a washed out sky. Taking a number of photos and doing a HDR merge (subtly) I have no qualms about, as I consider it the digital version of using a ND grad filter on the lens. But if there is no detail like clouds to bring out, it can have limited effect. Here is an example where I replaced the sky completely in photoshop. A step too far ? I don't think so.

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[savoche]

Well, both are played by musicians. I have never seen a raw file straight out of camera. I always see a jpeg representation. Photography is making a picture of what I see in a moment of time and which I want to share with others. But it has to be true. I should not make it more glamorous than it is. Photography should be honest, give a representation of what I saw and wanted to share. Post processing does not fit the bill for me as I am afraid it is done to enhance the scene, to make it more beautiful than it is. Some corrections I can live with. Might be best to say that my interpretation of photography as an art differs from how others see it. And making good forgeries is an art in itself.

Interesting discussion

First off, I think there's a big difference between an image intended as documentation and an image intended purely as art (whatever that may be). But let's stick to the documentary kind for now.

I think much of the (perceived?) disagreement here stems from how we look at photography as being able to capture the truth. In my opinion a photograph can never be a true picture of what I saw. The gap between how a camera works and how my eye and brain work is too big. The best we can do is to make a picture that is as close to "how I saw it" as possible.

When I look at a scene, my eye/brain will dynamically adjust aperture as I look around, likewise adjust white balance continually. My brain will even edit out stuff that is unimportant to the scene; how many times haven't you come back and discovered a pole growing out of a subject's head, or a heap of garbage in the background? One could even argue that removing these items afterwards is more true to "how I saw it" than not removing them. I'm not, though

Speaking of being true; how acceptable is it remove items from the scene before taking a picture? Or to change one's viewpoint so that a trashcan is hidden from view? I do that all the time, and isn't that as much "forgery" as removing them afterwards? To take it one step further, how truthful is it to stage photos?

How about changing lenses? With a wide angle lens I can make distances look much longer than they really were, and with a tele lens I can compress a scene. Neither of these will be true to what I saw. What about a Lensbaby? Totally unrealistic without a touch of post processing.

Not to speak of black and white photography. That is most definitely not a true representation of what I saw (as I'm not colour blind). It is a perfectly valid artistic representation, though.

Taking an image at a wide aperture will result in a much shallower depth of field than my eye has. Using a slow shutter speed will blur water like nothing I've ever seen in real life. Likewise, using a very short shutter speed allows me take a tack sharp image of a speeding bullet. I have never seen a speeding bullet, so again it's not true to what I saw.

My point is that the border between "truth" and "forgery" is very, very blurred. And I struggle to see how "pre processing" is any different from post processing. For me, what it boils down to is intent and honesty. In my view, I can do whatever I please with my images as long as I'm honest about what I've done. Staging photos is not a problem as long as you disclose that they're staged.

[pacerr]

. . . as long as I'm honest about what I've done.

Sez it all, no?

Although I'd add that must also include our acknowledgement and understanding of the technology and processes we employ.

Selecting a Pentax body and lens combination includes an unavoidable degree of 'processing'. Likewise the OEM's RAW-to-JPG translation.

Leads me to wonder how this discussion would develop from the point of view of an 'artist' employing interpretive tools and intent rather than the inherently documentary sensors of photography.

[pacerr]

Then there's also temptation aplenty . . .

http://https://www.shutterbug.com/content/save-time-using-luts-color-correct...-you-use-video

[AfterPentax Mark II]

Take this example..... A bright spring morning. The lawn in my garden has dew on it, and the morning sun is reflecting off it. The area at the back beyond the lawn, is still in shade and under the trees is still very dark. But I can see detail in both, because that is how the human eye/brain works.

Now I take a photo of the scene. The matrix metering tries to balance things out to give a "correct" (can of worms alert !) exposure. My jpeg image has the lawn a bit brighter than I remember it, and the specular highlights from the sun hitting the dew are very bright. There is no detail at in in the dark area under the trees, it is almost black.

So I get to work in Photoshop. I lower the exposure on the lawn, and tone down the specular highlights. I increase exposure in the dark area to bring out detail.

My edited picture now looks much more like the view I saw with my eyes, but bears no resemblance to the original image from the camera.

Have I created a forgery ?

You did and you did not! What your camera captured is the exact scene as it was, your eyes are wonderful optical instruments and captured the same. Only somewhere in the brain there is some exposure compensation that corrects things a bit. Not only did it send a signal to your eyes to minimize the "aperture" of the eye it also compensated for the difference in light. The problem with the camera is it has only one eye, so all the information comes from one source. That is why quite often I am deeply disappointed from the result I get, it does not look like the scene I saw. But I agree with you that in that instance you were right to use a bit of post processing. I think I would do it myself as well, as it fits in with what you could do with film at that time. Would have loved to see the picture (as I saw a splendid picture of you dog some time ago!). Perhaps that one was corrected as well, but it did not show.

[savoche]

as it fits in with what you could do with film at that time

I'm not sure I quite understand. Are you saying that post processing is fine as long as you don't anything you couldn't do with film? It's a perfectly valid limitation to put on oneself, if a rather arbitrary one, but I'm curious to hear the reasoning behind it.

[pschlute]

You did and you did not!

This is dilemma of the argument for and against post-processing. There is no hard and fast rule.

What your camera captured is the exact scene as it was, your eyes are wonderful optical instruments and captured the same

I disagree on both counts.

The camera captured the scene according to the way it had been programmed to. Even in film days the choice of film/paper would dictate how the image turned out. The camera has no idea what the scene really looks like and is incapable of portraying that.

As far as the eye/brain rendering the image correctly, people have different perceptions of the same scene....remember the gold or blue dress story many years ago ? The dress - Wikipedia In fact none of can know for certain what colour we are really looking at because it is an interpretation of our brains.

Another example here

You Tube

You Tube

It is for these reasons I do not subscribe to any notion of a "correct" rendition of any scene at all.

[AfterPentax Mark II]

I'm not sure I quite understand. Are you saying that post processing is fine as long as you don't anything you couldn't do with film? It's a perfectly valid limitation to put on oneself, if a rather arbitrary one, but I'm curious to hear the reasoning behind it.

I think that what you capture on film/sensor should be truthful. Nothing more, nothing less. So the moment you add something to a picture it is a false representation of what was actually there in that moment of time. pschlute's example in post #37 is a bit to far. It might enhance the picture, but it is not real. The original picture shows clearly a gate and you see immediately it is about a gate. The other one with the added clouds takes away the gate being the center of the picture. It became an overall dark picture and I asked myself what is it that he wants to tell us. I think the absence of the clouds makes it a better picture than the photoshopped one, because it is far more clear what the picture is about. But it all is just a matter of taste, perhaps. Thinking the way pschlute did, in my case I would have deleted the picture, because it was not satisfying me.

[savoche]

I think that what you capture on film/sensor should be truthful. Nothing more, nothing less. So the moment you add something to a picture it is a false representation of what was actually there in that moment of time. pschlute's example in post #37 is a bit to far. It might enhance the picture, but it is not real. The original picture shows clearly a gate and you see immediately it is about a gate. The other one with the added clouds takes away the gate being the center of the picture. It became an overall dark picture and I asked myself what is it that he wants to tell us. I think the absence of the clouds makes it a better picture than the photoshopped one, because it is far more clear what the picture is about. But it all is just a matter of taste, perhaps. Thinking the way pschlute did, in my case I would have deleted the picture, because it was not satisfying me.

Ok, I think I see what you mean. And arguing for or against adding/removing objects, swapping skies or using other composite techniques is quite straight forward. It's quite obviously not "the truth" in a documentary sense, but whether or not it's acceptable for other uses is another matter.

I don't quite agree on the basic criterium that what the camera captures is truthful, though. It never can be. Maybe if we only use a lens with more or less the same view angle as our eyes (to avoid distorting perspective) with a close to infinite depth of field. But how do we decide on a correct/truthful exposure, especially if the scene has a wider dynamic range than the sensor/film? A blown sky will "remove" clouds, too-dark shadows will also "remove" objects that might be there. And then there is colour rendition and contrast - both of which can be heavily influenced just by changing film. Etc, etc, etc...

Really, I don't think there are any simple answers in this matter, but I do think it's a very interesting discussion.