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hayley.price

hayley.price

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hayley
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please excuse me if this offends any of you but is it only me that gets seriously anoiged when you read a so called photography magazine and the majority of it is about photoshop and photoshop tecnics, when i first got into photography there was no photoshop and photos were good because of the time and effort someone put into getting that photo!! now a days you can make a good photo without even having to leave your house!!!
 
No sorry I dont agree- Photoshop ( and I have CS5) cannot make a bad image into a good one, there has to be some photographic skill involed in getting a good image to start with :eek:

Photoshop or any editing suite can in reality fine tune an image - even more so when shot as a RAW file

an old saying " you can't Polish a T*rd"

even in the good old days of 35mm film, photographers would manipulate negatives in the Dark Room to produce an acceptable image

Les :D

may I ask so called Photography MAGAZINE youre reading?
 
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If it annoys you, just don't use it... simples :)

There are a lot of things that would seriously annoy me, I just don't let them (most of the time) :)

The world has moved on since the days of film, sometimes for good sometimes for bad. I personally just use the tools available to visualise what I have in my head. They are all just tools to do a job, some use them well, others use them badly, same as anything in life.

The good thing is, that you have the freedom to choose whether or not to use them, and also to effectively ignore the things that annoy you.

my 2p :)
 
that me re word that....


i have nothing against photoshop but when someone uses photoshop to improve every photo they take and cant simply upload a photo as they took it, thats not what i call photography and when these people do it to the point where the only thing the same as the original photo is the subject thats not a photo anymore its more like art! i might not be the best photographer in the world as many of you know, but i take pictures of the things i see, not what i think i should be seeing because it looks good,
 
I dont use Photoshop to Improve all of my images only the ones that need it and take it or leave it when I say this, PP is a part of Photography, so it annoys you- then it annoys you- learn to live with it :lol:

Les :D
 
this magazine had one photo of a pyramid in it and they had this photo witch i thought was a nice simple photo that had a good look to it, but then they went and added it to the background of a picture of people and there camels witch wasn't even taken in the same location, no yes the end result looked a good photo, but it wasn't even real anymore it wasn't a picture of what the photographer saw it was a picture of something that would get him noticed the most
 
and it ended up in a magazine that paid for that same image :shrug: did it not

Les :thumbs:
 
hayley.price said:
that me re word that....


i have nothing against photoshop but when someone uses photoshop to improve every photo they take and cant simply upload a photo as they took it, thats not what i call photography and when these people do it to the point where the only thing the same as the original photo is the subject thats not a photo anymore its more like art! i might not be the best photographer in the world as many of you know, but i take pictures of the things i see, not what i think i should be seeing because it looks good,
Click to expand...

You actually take pictures of what the camera sees, not what you see. You see far more than a camera can (i.e. dynamic range)

If you are happy with the straight out of camera image then great. If you want to spend a few seconds improving it then great. If you want to spend an hour improving it then great.
It is your time and your resulting image.
 
yes it did and thats what i mean photography isnt photography anymore its just something people make to what gets paided for! surly it would be more rewarding to take a photo thats all round right first time and get paided for it then have to edit it for it to be good enought to even keep
 
hayley.price said:
yes it did and thats what i mean photography isnt photography anymore its just something people make to what gets paided for! surly it would be more rewarding to take a photo thats all round right first time and get paided for it then have to edit it for it to be good enought to even keep
Click to expand...

Oh yes it would, without a doubt Hayley, I for one do not yet have that skill or ability :D

so its CS5 for me :lol::lol:

Les :thumbs:

Ps Chris - I couldnt have put that better myself
 
I cant agree with the original statement, Id say I use photoshop on every image I take, mostly to adjust levels and add a touch of unsharp mask - id go as far as to say photoshop is essential in today's day and age.

I dont think it takes away from the base image because a few minor adjustments are added in PP. Yes adding camels to a pyramid sounds horrendous but used properly PS is an absolutely integral part of any photographers 'kit'.
 
hayley.price said:
that me re word that....
i have nothing against photoshop but when someone uses photoshop to improve every photo they take and cant simply upload a photo as they took it
Click to expand...

If you shoot RAW (which is a good idea if you have the time), PP is actually a necessity, not many photo uploaders can work with or display RAW files.

hayley.price said:
yes it did and thats what i mean photography isnt photography anymore its just something people make to what gets paided for!
Click to expand...

What, you mean like with film when you had to pay for developing and printing?
 
Agreed, I shoot RAW and its in my opinion a kind of Digital Negative - which means for me at least, that some sort of PP would be needed in Photoshop - great for recovering blown skies etc etc

I never include BG's that were not on the original shot- a crop,Unsharp mask and some curves and levels work, does the job for me

MOST Photographers edit their work :thumbs:

Les :D
 
Photography is an art and many many other things, since it invention it has been a evolutionary process, first as a mean of chronicling our lives and of those that surround us, as a creative force for the enjoyment of many and to the point, today, of being an every day activity as common as brushing your teeth in the morning. Photoshop is such a small part of what photography is, but is the latest development and making the field even in terms of rectifying your mistakes and pushing the boundaries of creativity with images.
 
hayley.price said:
yes it did and thats what i mean photography isnt photography anymore its just something people make to what gets paided for! surly it would be more rewarding to take a photo thats all round right first time and get paided for it then have to edit it for it to be good enought to even keep
Click to expand...

Largely depends on what you find rewarding. Some may like to take a photo and not touch it while others may actually enjoy and get reward from the editing process.

To get the best out of a photo sometimes actually requires editing. What you actually captured may have been limited by what the camera could do at one time, i.e you may want to reduce highlights, lessen shadow, sharpen etc,. All basic and quick editing that can make a good image that little bit better.
 
I personally think that you are slightly missing the point of the pp articles in the magazines. They aren't taking rubbish shots and trying to turn them in to keepers...they are taking shots worth keeping and making something different from them. Not everyone will sit and go 'wow that looks good' but at the end of the day it is another aspect to the art of photography...some people like it some don't!
Usually the magazines (well the one's I've read) have a balance between how to get the best from your camera with out the pp and then a section all about having a play and experiment with your images!
All just my opinion of course!
 
PP is part of the fun when shooting RAW. If you don't want to do PP shoot in JPEG, choose Vivid etc in the camera settings and let the Camera do your PP for you.
 
In the film days photographers manipulated images and even if they didn't the look and how images were rendered was still thought about and decided by someone at Kodak or Fuji and the processing lab so I really don't see any difference.

All that's changed is that more people can change images, faster, and by using different technologies but I'm pretty sure that whatever is possible now was possible at least to a degree if more difficult and requiring a different skill set in the days of film.
 
hayley.price said:
that me re word that....


i have nothing against photoshop but when someone uses photoshop to improve every photo they take and cant simply upload a photo as they took it, thats not what i call photography and when these people do it to the point where the only thing the same as the original photo is the subject thats not a photo anymore its more like art! i might not be the best photographer in the world as many of you know, but i take pictures of the things i see, not what i think i should be seeing because it looks good,
Click to expand...

What's wrong with improving every photo you take in post? Until you get an image up on a decent sized screen, you can't tell much about it. Post is simply the last part of the photographic process. How is it different from improving every photo you take by buying a better lens? Do you have all your camera pre-set options - sharpening, saturation, contrast - at neutral? Do you never use auto focus and auto white balance?

The aim, or at least my aim, is to produce the best end result of which I am capable. Post production is part of this.
 
I was at an exhibition last night by an FRPS. Many of those images were composites but absolutely stunning and exhibited a very creative mind. I enjoyed looking at them but I would not wish to go down that line myself. The chap was very open about the shots and explained in some detail how he had produced them. I think that right and proper.

What I do have issues with are "photographers" who produce such images and then try to pass them off as an image produced at one time by the camera.
 
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I think your dislike of the type of mags your describing is natural and shows your progression in this field. I suffered the same facepalming a while back with these mags especially digital photo, that ones a real treat for the manipulators and i think i must have bought two copies over three years! lol but like my previous post with the link shows, photography and tampering have gone hand in hand from the beginning.
That's not to say its wrong or right but there are the good and the bad and the down right horrendous attempts at manipulation but it goes with the territory.
Surely you make decisions on settings, methods and kit at the point of capture? Do you regard these choices as manipulating the scene before you? We can't see with our eyes what a Telephoto can so should we walk around with 50mm primes? We can't see the ugly green cast that fluorescent tubes create on skin, should we not adjust our white balance to compensate?
 
I think Photoshop has now become to mean editing software in same way as a Hoover means a vacuum cleaner. Or almost anyway.
 
ernesto said:
I think Photoshop has now become to mean editing software in same way as a Hoover means a vacuum cleaner. Or almost anyway.
Click to expand...

I suppose if you said you Gimped your photos people might think you were a little strange :cuckoo:
 
hayley.price said:
yes it did and thats what i mean photography isnt photography anymore its just something people make to what gets paided for! surly it would be more rewarding to take a photo thats all round right first time and get paided for it then have to edit it for it to be good enought to even keep
Click to expand...

So are you against all the film photographers that use darkroom techniques?
Such as cross processing, airbrushing, dodging and burning etc or are we assuming that this all started with photoshop and everyone just used to get their film processed in boots?
 
Dave1 said:
Good link to bookmark.

It seems to be happening more and more often that an ill-informed poster happens along with a complaint of how true photography has died since digital manipulation was "invented".
Click to expand...

Too true...Photoshop isn't exactly new is it? And before digital came along, manipulating images in the dark room never happened either?

It would be fantastic if you could get every image you took perfect SOOC, but that is never going to be the case so PP is a necessary evil. If post processing was never required it would be a bit pointless being able to shoot RAW!

And yes, photoshop is always referred to when it comes to post processing techniques, maybe because it is the most widely used?
 
I don't think it's even a necessary evil, I think it's a perfectly valid, highly skilled and very artistic part of the process. People used make entire careers as film developers in dark rooms, they weren't a bunch of soulless cretins but skilled artists.

This thread,IMO, is taking a big crap on art, but without meaning too, it's one of my biggest issue with photographers that somehow post production is bad and not real photography. Get real, every big photographer that you follow has done heavy post production on some images and less on others
 
mart77 said:
I don't think it's even a necessary evil, I think it's a perfectly valid, highly skilled and very artistic part of the process. People used make entire careers as film developers in dark rooms, they weren't a bunch of soulless cretins but skilled artists.

This thread,IMO, is taking a big crap on art, but without meaning too, it's one of my biggest issue with photographers that somehow post production is bad and not real photography. Get real, every big photographer that you follow has done heavy post production on some images and less on others
Click to expand...

the referal to it being a necessary evil was from the OP's point of view....I PP all the time and enjoy doing so. It enables a degree of artistic scope and allows you to push boundaries that little bit further :razz:
 
antihero said:
the referal to it being a necessary evil was from the OP's point of view....I PP all the time and enjoy doing so. It enables a degree of artistic scope and allows you to push boundaries that little bit further :razz:
Click to expand...

Yeah I was agreeing with you essentially but taking it further, the post was aimed at the OP
 
Even if you took your film to Boots someone at Kodak and someone in the lab at Boots decides how your pictures look.
 
Lez325 said:
No sorry I dont agree- Photoshop ( and I have CS5) cannot make a bad image into a good one,
Click to expand...

But it can certainly make a decent one bad........................

There is actually a point here though. Pre digital people did manipulate images but I'll guarantee there's not too many on here that did. For most people it was 36 clicks, down to Boots and then see what you got back.

Now, digital imagery is so cheap that everyone thinks they're some sort of artist and some quite frankly hideous efforts at PP are all too often justified in the name of "art".

I don't have anything against PP per se, although I keep it to an absolute minimum nowadays, but I do think it's value is sometimes over emphasised.
 
hayley.price said:
[snip]...when i first got into photography there was no photoshop and photos were good because of the time and effort someone put into getting that photo!! now a days you can make a good photo without even having to leave your house!!!
Click to expand...

You realise Photoshop was first launched in 1990 Hayley...before you were born? :lol: Sorry hun, not having a dig, but it has been around a long time, but I do agree, I don't bother with magazines that seem to concentrate more on 'shopping than photographic technique either. I do use it when needed, just like I use lightroom too, and several other tools that are available to me to 'enhance' a raw image from a camera, but how much you do is very much down to personal choice, as already mentioned, art is subjective and photography is art [imho] :thumbs:
 
I think you make a valid point in that some of these magazines are a bit "PhotoShop" heavy leading you to think it's the only technique that matters. I always find these magazines very content light at the best of times, and would much rather they spent more time getting into a photographer's mind and their practice than run another PhotoShop article.

But IMO post-processing is very much a key photographic technique, in some ways as important as field work in the creation of the final image. A quote I often think about here is by David duChemin "there are three images that go into making the final photograph – the one you envision, the one you shoot, and the one your refine in post-production". Not doing the PP bit is like only having a 2/3 complete image and is completely relying on the piece of glass and electronics in your hands to represent your vision - not something it tends to do terribly well on its own. Good field craft is essential but thinking it can completely replace PP is a mistake in my opinion.

Note the point is "refinining", not creating. PhotoShop has a bad rep because of introducing "fakeness" into what people believe should be a pure and honest depiction of reality. Well, the camera has already altered that reality (unless you see the world in 2D!). Most (perhaps even all!) images would benefit from at least some subtle post-processing to make it it's best.

I always think of it as the difference between taking your film to Snappy Snaps to be developed v developing it yourself in the lab. There is art and skill involved in taking the in-the-field image to the final image, we shouldn't leave it to computers to do it for us. Be under no illusion PP is happening - either in camera or by you. I'd rather be in control of the output rather than relying on "auto".
 
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