Discussion: How Much Photoshop Is To Much????

Rovers_Andy

Rovers_Andy

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Would be interesting to see what peoples views/reactions are to this article

http://nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2009/04/denmark.html

This is something i often ask myself, When does a photograph stop being a photograph and become a piece of graphic design (if this is the right term for it)

Im hoping this will bring about some informed and Inteligent debate about peoples views of what is acceptable editing/manipulation


Personally Im undecided as yet so it will be interesting to here othe peoples views on this

Cheers

Andy

(Apologies if this isn't in the right forum Mods, feel free to move if required?
 
For me it depends on the use of the photograph, if it's for documentary or news use, then very little, infact pretty much along the lines of the rules of that competition.

"That is cropping, burning, dodging, converting to black and white as well as normal exposure and color correction, which preserves the image's original expression."

If the photo is for any other use, then for me anything goes, as everything else is purely subjective and down to personal interpretation.
 
Firstly, it's 'too' much, not 'to' much.

Now I have that out of my system... ;)

I would say all photography is art as so many decisions are made in even the most snapshot of pics - aperture, speed, focal length, subject distance, focus etc etc.

The camera may decide or the shooter may decide, but a decision is made.

And it is further removed from reality by having a limited range of light being able to be recorded.

That only leaves us with degrees of artistic ability as judged by our peers.

Graham
 
I'd say it depends on the image.

i quite like PeteMCs hdrs on the whole(as an example of hdring),although not all and some of the light things as submitted by flash in the pan etc for the monthly comp but again not all of them.

i also like standard images. most portraits are better with minimal touchups. not keen on the whole skin smoothing etc. a little can work but is often overdone.

since photography is essentially an artform, id say anything goes on the whole
 
For me it depends on the use of the photograph, if it's for documentary or news use, then very little, infact pretty much along the lines of the rules of that competition.

"That is cropping, burning, dodging, converting to black and white as well as normal exposure and color correction, which preserves the image's original expression."

If the photo is for any other use, then for me anything goes, as everything else is purely subjective and down to personal interpretation
Click to expand...

I can certainly see your point but would you say that burning and dodging are too much as they are removing some of what the camera captured?
 
i dont view any manipulation of an image too much.
If it is documentary then obviously masking out, or merging should be ruled out.
but if it just tweaking pixels that are already in the pic, then i dont see that as too much, no matter what you do with them.
It is all part of the art of photography, just ps makes it easier. if i dogde or burn under an enlarger with film does that make it any different.
 
I think pictures should be judged on their merits not by how "real" or "unreal" they look, particularly so in a competition. Both those pictures look "unreal". The first looks overworked and the second looks washed out, typical of a raw image. I don't think these judges knew what they were talking about.
 
Totally with the judges here because the changes to these shots are way over the top,sure we all add a touch of saturation change the levels or curves and occasionally remove an offending crisp packet or coke can.However when people start treating the Raw file as a blank canvas and spend hours making a totally different image to what was there when they pressed the shutter then the result is manipulation not photography and should be presented as such
 
Who's to say that what the camera captures is accurate? We all have our own individual visual specification. Who's to say what I see with my eyes is what someone else sees with theirs or what I interpret with my brain coincides with someone else's interpretation of a scene?

Maybe the camera just got it all wrong...
 
DigitalRelish said:
Who's to say that what the camera captures is accurate? We all have our own individual visual specification. Who's to say what I see with my eyes is what someone else sees with theirs or what I interpret with my brain coincides with someone else's interpretation of a scene?

Maybe the camera just got it all wrong...
Click to expand...

Exactly!
Without digging up an old argument, Nikon and Canon files look different, in fact different models from the same factory don't match exactly. Different raw converters look different and if you shoot jpeg then the camera edits it before you see it.
I've never shot film in anger, but from what I've read then different types represent colour differently.
All that said, I do agree that journalism, documentary and natural world photography should have as little PP as possible.
 
blue max said:
I would say all photography is art as so many decisions are made in even the most snapshot of pics ..... That only leaves us with degrees of artistic ability as judged by our peers.
Click to expand...

idigitize said:
i dont view any manipulation of an image too much.
If it is documentary then obviously masking out, or merging should be ruled out.
but if it just tweaking pixels that are already in the pic, then i dont see that as too much, no matter what you do with them.
Click to expand...

aberal said:
I think pictures should be judged on their merits not by how "real" or "unreal" they look
Click to expand...

So presumably you guys all think the OJ Simpson magazine cover was OK then?
 
I presume that time magazine didnt have access to the actual police mug shot of oj, if that is the case, there are huge moral issues as to making one by adding the identity numbers etc, that come along way before the darkening of the skin.
Editing an official police photo on one of the worlds biggest murder trials when your one of the biggest mags in the world, cant be compared to what a togger does to their pics before they publish them.

In your view, does the editing paint a diff picture of Oj?, then yes i guess it does, should it be allowed, then yes again, i dont have an issue with it, I think its no different to posting a pic of his as a mug shot, compared to posting a nice smiley pic of him in naked gun or something.
 
I know at college I was asking one of the tutors the same question. He basically shrugged and said "it depends".

However I did find that he told me often to "rein in" my adjustments, and we both agreed that the results were better.

What I do now, is make all my changes via adjustment layers, then when I'm finished, I go and reduce the opacity by 20-50% on everything to see if it looks better. It generally does.

For me, if the image suits its purpose, then it's OK. As others have said, documentary shots should be relatively untouched, whilst anything goes for "Fine art" type prints.

Then again - a good deal of documentary is shot in B&W. Isn't that quite a severe adjustment to focus the viewer's eyes? (choosing B&W film over colour could even be construed as being "manipulation" if you see what I mean...?)

Bah - All I know is that I know what I like. :thinking:

-H
 
I'm only interested the finished image, i have no problems with how it's achieved...
And i'm only curious as to how it was done to try and learn...

In the old days of film in club competitions it was mainly darkroom techniques, if you
didnt have a darkroom you were screwed.

Photoshop is just a tool to help you produce the image you want....

.
 
Rob_W said:
I'm only interested the finished image, i have no problems with how it's achieved...
And i'm only curious as to how it was done to try and learn...

In the old days of film in club competitions it was mainly darkroom techniques, if you
didnt have a darkroom you were screwed.

Photoshop is just a tool to help you produce the image you want....

.
Click to expand...

:agree: and the camera is just a tool to capture the image.
 
CaptainPenguin said:
Totally with the judges here because the changes to these shots are way over the top,sure we all add a touch of saturation change the levels or curves and occasionally remove an offending crisp packet or coke can.However when people start treating the Raw file as a blank canvas and spend hours making a totally different image to what was there when they pressed the shutter then the result is manipulation not photography and should be presented as such
Click to expand...

A raw file is exactly what was captured by the sensor, you can do a lot to manipulate the way it looks but it is definitely not a blank canvas.

It is perfectly obvious to me that the images in that link are from the same raw file. Nothing has been added to the photo, there is nothing in the edited image that is not in the first. When I say nothing has been added I mean there are no extra people or objects or anything that wasn't there when the photo was taken.

Of course contrast and saturation has been boosted to bring out colours and the sky has been tweaked to make the clouds stand out more. Photoshop is a brilliant tool for making photos stand out, people need to move with the times IMO.
 
It is perfectly obvious to me that the images in that link are from the same raw file. Nothing has been added to the photo, there is nothing in the edited image that is not in the first. When I say nothing has been added I mean there are no extra people or objects or anything that wasn't there when the photo was taken.

Of course contrast and saturation has been boosted to bring out colours and the sky has been tweaked to make the clouds stand out more. Photoshop is a brilliant tool for making photos stand out, people need to move with the times IMO.
Click to expand...

Good point there

one of the things i dont like is when things are added to an image in post production, Like taking a night shot then adding a big clear shot of the moon from a completely separate image and blending them.

Still forming an opinion on other areas, but i think its all coming down to what we define as a photograph. The purpose of the photograph i.e journalistic or purely as a means of representing what some one has seen in their eyes.

I think i have always thought of photography as being a true depiction of what the photographer saw but now that view is changing........
 
Well at 4.30am with Photomatix and Photoshop running and trying (and failing miserably at the moment) to create a piece of photographic fine art then you van guess which side of the argument I'm on...!?! As long as rules for competitions like this are clear then abide by them. If you want an accurate photo journalistic record then don't play with cloning and selective tools too much, if your producing photo fine art anything goes...
 
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