Isn't using software cheating?

PeterM69

PeterM69

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Pete
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Ok, probably going to open up a big can of worms here but I've been thinking lately about software used to enhance, manipulate, etc etc....... do you feel like you're cheating?

Now don't get me wrong, I love using software to tweak my photos. I use CS5 and Nik plugins to get, what I think, are some great looking pictures, but only yesterday, a friend who is semi-pro, complemented me on a landscape photo I had manipulated with CS5/Nik to give me an infrared looking shot. He commented on my photo stating he hadn't experimented with infared filtered photography and wanted to give it a try and how good mine was. I must admit I felt a little embarrassed.

I guess my point is do you really have to be that good now a days to take great looking photos and do you feel like you're cheating when the shot isn't 100% perfect and you correct it using software? Under/over exposed, sharpening, adding filter effects, they can all be modified/corrected/manipulated with software today.
 
Nope. People spent hours in the darkroom doing the same thing since photography was invented.
Using software is no different, just more modern.
 
PeterM69 said:
I guess my point is do you really have to be that good now a days to take great looking photos and do you feel like you're cheating when the shot isn't 100% perfect and you correct it using software? Under/over exposed, sharpening, adding filter effects, they can all be modified/corrected/manipulated with software today.
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Do you really think all those iconic Cartier Bresson or Ansel Adams images are sooc with no manipulation in the darkroom?
 
And also, from a simplistic point of view, if you shoot in jpg you are 'cheating' as the camera is applying preset default adjustments to what the camera actually records.

Also, the camera is not capable of capturing a scene as the human eye sees it so using PP to make an image look more like what you saw when you took it hardly seems like cheating.

Photoshopping fairies in on the other hand would probably count as cheating :D
 
I never got into the developing you're own and darkroom techniques ,just sent the film away and got it back how the factory thought it should be...........:(



Oh! the sheer luxury of elements 8.....................DO NOT FEEL GUILTY....:cool:.....................................It is you're chance to be an artist.........even a feeble one :D
 
Flash In The Pan said:
Do you really think all those iconic Cartier Bresson or Ansel Adams images are sooc with no manipulation in the darkroom?
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No, I'm under no illusion about what goes on and whats been going on for years. Modern technology :shake: everything is so easy nowadays. I guess I find it hard to take compliments about my photos when I know I've tweaked/manipulated them. But, I love and enjoy it and thats the most important thing and the reason I do it.
 
Not guilty, just frustrated that my very expensive camera needs me to do it!
 
PeterM69 said:
I guess I find it hard to take compliments about my photos when I know I've tweaked/manipulated them.
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Be thankful that your getting compliments. ;)

There have been many threads about this very subject, one large one recently.

Everyone has their own limit as to the line they will not cross when it comes to the final image :shrug: (many professionals don't have a line ;)). If you're feeling uncomfortable about the compliments then maybe you've crossed your own line.


Rather than let people think that they could get a similar pic like one of mine they may like straight out of the camera, I'll say I did some jiggery pokery in the computer (especially if it's HDR). If they are interested as to what, I'll go into more detail. Most don't, and just like the picture. :)
 
TCR4x4 said:
Nope. People spent hours in the darkroom doing the same thing since photography was invented.
Using software is no different, just more modern.
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Yup. And even before us lot get our sticky fingers on the camera someone must have thought about the image it'll produce and taken some design decisions that will affect it.
 
The question is - cheating at what?

It's certainly not cheating at producing nice images. It might be cheating at claiming to be a good photographer, but that's only if you make those claims in the first place. But then if you're a good photographer, it gives you the chance to create great images.

It's just all part of the process, and it makes it all the more interesting.

Some would say digital is cheating. When I started, I could barely afford film, then developing, and all the rest of it. You couldn't just take a shot, check the sharpness and exposure on screen and adjust accordingly. You had to wait two weeks for that..

Times have changed. It's more of the same with emphasis being on more. More control. Mediocre photographers with a flair of imagination can produce great results, but great photographers will always produce the great natural images.

One is not better than the other. It's just different.
 
Its the same as saying is driving a car with power steering cheating, or walking up a mountain in expensive purpose designed boots instead of bare feet..

Things move on, technology advances. Only a muppet wouldnt embrace it in some form.
 
From the day you first purchase a digital camera you are accepting that any image you produce will, to a greater or lesser degree be manipulated by electronics and computer technology. In the days of film you we're accepting a lab, or yourself was going to manipulate the final image. Now, with film not everyone had the patience to set up and use a darkroom, but technology has progressed to the point where we can sit a a machine which has multiple uses. Yes the now humble computer. Do we feel that we are cheating when we search google for quick answers to questions instead of reading books? No! And it's the same with our image software. We use it because we can. It's cheaper, quicker, user friendly, and just as interesting and fulfilling as using chemicals and an enlarger. If a pro can't produce better, than my images with the same equipement, then that's tough.;)
 
Without any software, your digital camera would not be able to create any images. You can either shoot raw and 'develop' the image yourself on your computer or you can use camera presets/JPG and let the manufacturers software developers decide how your images are processed.

Some people may be more concerned about the process and the way in which images are made.

Personally, I don't feel the need to spend time worrying about such things and just get on with making my photos look the way I want them to look.

To truly create something without 'cheating' make your own paper, pencils and then draw what you see.
 
Nope you have to be talented to make a bland photo look great also
 
I used the word cheating, maybe to strong a word. I think its been such a long gap between when I owned the CanonT90 film camera to the D7000 I own now, everything is a lot easier nowadays, just a few clicks away from perfection :) but as you all say, that's progress.
 
Just about everything about photography is about subjective image manipulation to an extent - if it wasn't, why would you make the conscious decision to put something like a wide angle lens on your camera if it wasn't to achieve a specific effect?

I'm a guitarist, and it's a bit like comparing someone like Eddie Van Halen to U2's The Edge... any muppet can play a million notes a minute, but to me, music is all about songs, feel and sounds - and you can't deny that U2 use modern technology amazingly well. Musicians or composers have generally used the most up-to-date equipment available to them. Would Beethoven or Tchaikowsky still be using pen and paper to write scores these days if they were still around? I very much doubt it...

Photography is the same - it's all a means to an end - the 'end' being the final image that you'd sell, aim to get published, or even just hang on your own wall. As long as YOU are happy with the end result, who really gives a damn how it was achieved?
 
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Urban Grimshaw said:
Times have changed. It's more of the same with emphasis being on more. More control. Mediocre photographers with a flair of imagination can produce great results, but great photographers will always produce the great natural images.

One is not better than the other. It's just different.
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I'd question whether someone with flair and imagination is a "mediocre photographer", to me those are more fundamental to being a great photographer than purely technical exellence.

To use the musical annalogy again digital seems rather like punk/new wave reducing the importance of the technical aspect of the art(or at least making it much easier to learn) and so opening the door to those with greater imagination.

That said I think the skill needed to manipulate images well is greatly underated, the net is cloged with terrible HDR and/or oversaturated pics.
 
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Richard King said:
Unless you are a forensic photographer, no
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That really made me laugh.

In reference to thread, I asked myself the same thing, but no matter what lens or camera body you're going to splash money on, I would always need to do something to the RAW file. I just know that as good as camera technology may be, they don't think like the eye of the photographer. I try to utilise the scene, the camera, and later on what both of them can't produce that my imagination (could be as simple as a crop, a slight hue change, fixing exposure) or experience knows what will make an image better.

A lot of my friends while travelling will ask: "Did you Photoshop that?". I always tell them yes, but you can't really get into technical aspect of why you need to process a RAW file, the difference between it and their P+S, what exactly I did to edit it, all to someone who has not much of an idea in the basics of photography (as harsh as it sounds, it will go over their heads). As a landscape photographer, I still have to go to the scene with the intention to take photographs, experiment and try to find the "money" shot, and use my eye and my camera to get what I need for a photograph. Everything after that is interpretation. You can change colours and brightness, but you can't change the scene, the composition, the light effect, the way the clouds and time can influence a shot, the waiting in the cold with numb hands over a shutter trigger wondering what this next one is going to look like... you need to be out there taking photographs to do that.
 
Anton17 said:
That really the waiting in the cold with numb hands over a shutter trigger wondering what this next one is going to look like... you need to be out there taking photographs to do that.
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Roll on winter :D Already thinking about those frosty covered fields with the sun rising.
 
Moreorless said:
I'd question whether someone with flair and imagination is a "mediocre photographer", to me those are more fundamental to being a great photographer than purely technical exellence.

To use the musical annalogy again digital seems rather like punk/new wave reducing the importance of the technical aspect of the art(or at least making it much easier to learn) and so opening the door to those with greater imagination
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That's a fair point. In no way do images even need to be technically 'good', never mind great, in order to be appealing. Which just adds to the diversity, and the impossibility to quantify a great photographer.

I suppose in my mind, when I open National Geographic, I see great photography. When I see deeply interesting 'snaps' I see great art. But it's all subjective.
 
I have wondered this in the past and seen many discussions on this. Opinions will vary. Here is mine.

Cheating is not the right word for me, I think it is a difference between photography (and the processes around it) and graphic design.

If I take a picture and enhance the it by selective curves levels even HDR processing then this is photography as it is still an image I took and it is now looks the way I would like it to be. Why should the camera decide this for me?

I think it is bordering on graphic design when different images are put together to make a new one such as adding a sky or people into a shot.

Things like cloning is more a grey area. I think cloning to remove distractions and defects is OK.

I feel a lot more proud to discuss my photos when I can say that I performed very little editing to make it what is is.
 
PeterM69 said:
I used the word cheating, maybe to strong a word. I think its been such a long gap between when I owned the CanonT90 film camera to the D7000 I own now, everything is a lot easier nowadays, just a few clicks away from perfection :) but as you all say, that's progress.
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Hi Peter

I can sympathise with your original post, but it's interesting to see it from a different perspective... I began my photographic passion in the nineties, processing and printing B&W like so many TP members have done in the past. Perhaps some still have the joy of doing so now. Then into colour prints, so it was all lab processed. Then into digital about ten years ago, but I just let the camera do it's JPEG things and got my printing done online.

Only in the past few months, following a camera upgrade and a wedding shoot, did I get into PP. I have started shooting raw and bought LR3. The amount of time I have spent over the summer processing and tweaking the raws from the wedding makes the time that I used to spend in the darkroom in the nineties seem like a quick job! :lol:

So my point is... with practice come proficiency. What used to take me fifteen minutes in the darkroom will soon take me five on the computer, but at the moment, I'm only just ahead on speed! What I can say for sure is that LR is much more fun than being in a darkroom.

Neil
 
If you start down the route of calling post-processing 'cheating' then it is an almost never ending argument...

Is flash cheating? Many photographers in the past refused to use any artifical lighting techniques, and instead simply only took photos when the weather provided good natural lighting.

Is using variable aperture lenses cheating? Early photographers made do with pinhole techniques, or fixed aperture lenses, DOF was something they had to work around or with.

Are gels cheating? See above about natural lighting...

Is any lens other than a prime at/near the human FOV cheating? Are filters cheating? ....

If we accept that we're talking about photography as an art form, then using PP is no more cheating than a painter fixing his canvas so that the colours don't fade. It's just part of the process of making 'art' to a certain standard.
 
Met a woman in glencoe recently I was there waiting for sunrise and spent 2 hours in the same spot waiting for the right moment to press the shutter, she jumped out if her car took a shot and said to me"can't wait to get home to add some mist to my shot on Photoshop"
I think she's cheating
 
TCR4x4 said:
Its the same as saying is driving a car with power steering cheating, or walking up a mountain in expensive purpose designed boots instead of bare feet..

Things move on, technology advances. Only a muppet wouldnt embrace it in some form.
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Agreed- although it reminds me about the new 5.10's a while back- my mate came down off his first 8a and had been banging on about how great the new anasazi's were said- ''it's like cheating- makes it a grade easier''. My response was- ''oh well, 7c for you then- I'm still the only 8a climber here''. He didn't see the funny side but I enjoyed labouring the point:lol:

A great photo is always a great photo- PP merely enhances it. If you look at a poor photo with masses of PP, there's always something that's not quite there and it will never be truly great.
The other thing people seem to forget is that 'good' PP is not unskilled;). At the end of the day, photography is an expressive art as is PP.
 
I think it's the other way around! Not editing is cheating! It's like shooting on film and getting someone else to process your spool instead of doing it yourself in the darkroom to get the look you wanted (just shoot in jpg and let the camera do it).

Not editing is best left to the amateurs and sport shooters or people on a really tight deadline. If you have the time and means for it, then you are lazy not to do it imo.
 
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