Why are photos doctored so much after they are taken?

Sir Run Run Shaw

Sir Run Run Shaw

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Phil
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Why are photos doctored so much after they are taken?

To a newbie like me, who knows jack, I find it amazing that everyone spends so much time playing in photoshop to get the image just right.

I would have thought that you lot would compose the image, and adjust the settings, get everything just right, then take some shots.

But it doesn't seem to work like that, huh? I'm not talking about simple tweaking for curiosity, like ooh I wonder how that would look in b/w, it's a lot of fault fixing. And surely, to some extent anyway, you can't improve upon what is already there.

Is this because everyone here is always learning?
 
From my own personal point of view it is because I am still learning and a bit of judicious editing can recover a shot that might only just have been OK. I suppose another way to look at editing images is that it is like car or computer "modding"...sometimes people just like to fiddle to make unique images?

I'm all for editing images, but sometimes some of the best ones are those that don't require any editing at all and do truly capture the moment?
 
A vast majority of us take our photos in the RAW format. This does not have any in-camera processing like jpgs or like you will see in point and shoot cameras you may have been used to.

This means that on transfer to the computer they need a boost in levels, saturation at least and definetely some sharpening.

All these are done in camera with jpgs.
 
I have just received a new DSLR, and can see both points of view. In the past with film I use to take a bit more care, with D I can just keep on going.

I haven't tried raw yet - not for beginners?

I find that "modding" pics takes so long....
 
Raw not necessarily for beginners. You have more information to make more subtle tweaks than in camera processing is able to do. You can get exactly the same effect by applying the "Auto" tweaks as in-camera processing would do.....but you can then disregard it and tweak it to suit yourself should you so desire. You are in control instead of letting the camera do what it thinks is right ( but may not necessarily be so).
 
For all the above reasons. It also adds to the creativity and artistry of photography. You need to remember film photographers used/use a lot of the techniques in the darkroom, which are available now in digital PP. It's always been done to a certain extent.

Far aboot in the toon are ye fae like?
 
I cant comment about RAW as i have yet to go down that avenue..........certain tweats......yes i think we all do once we have found them in photoshop...........but when does a good photograph become a digital image?

Im afraid i am very much of the old school thought that a good shot is better than a got at one.

I think it is very much down to personal preference!

p.s Happy new year everyone! (bit late but internets been down)
 
There arn't many pictures our of a dslr that doesnt need some tinkering :) Especialy a slight USM

You ask why, I ask why not?

I would have thought that you lot would compose the image, and adjust the settings, get everything just right, then take some shots.
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I do sports. I shoot Manual. on a cloudy day when the sun suddenly dissapears or appears for a few seconds it isn't always easy to get the settings perfect for the lighting..and capture the moment :) let alone framing/cropping.

If your taking a picture of a plant pot then maybe your right.

I have never used film but I have seen it argued that a lot of the stuff done in photoshop is what film users could do in the dark room.
 
It is a personnel preference, in my case I only edit the photos I feel need editing, (which in my case is most of the photos I take). General editing for me would generally consist of a levels, saturation and contrast adjust and maybe a sharpen. (photoshop skills are a little on the weak side)

Sir Run Run Shaw said:
And surely, to some extent anyway, you can't improve upon what is already there.
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This statement is partially true. If an exposure its wrong, theres no 2 ways about it, and u would struggle to get a good image in pp. But you can recover a photo is the exposure is not quite correct. So if you can improve the photo, then why not.
 
Just to reiterate what has already been said, the following statment taken from wickipedia

'All photographs benefit from being developed. With film this could be done at the print lab, or an inexpensive home darkroom. With digital, many cameras are set up to do basic photo enhancement (contrast, color saturation) immediately after a picture is exposed, and to deliver a finished product. Higher end cameras, however, tend to give a flatter, more neutral image that has more data but less "pop," and needs to be developed in the digital darkroom.'

Wayne
 
Don't know what you're all talking about - mine are perfect straight from the camera :lol::lol::lol::lol: I wish!!

I have to do some post processing with my rugby shots, mostly straightening cos mine always seem to be on a slope when there isn't one, some need straightening, a lot need cropping as there's a lot of unused space etc etc

It's not just creativity, it's presenting your shots in the optimum way :D
 
Cameras TAKE pictures processing MAKES pictures!
 
That's not entirely true, though it can help. :)

I just use PS to fix things like exposure, sharpening and the colour correction if need be. I try to get as much done in-camera though, but you do make mistakes!
 
The other point that no one has made is the fact that anyone who used to shot film or still does and prints their own will normally tweek the image with the developing and printing of the film, Just look at Ansell Adams. (Extreme case I know) Most people will choose what grade paper to print on (in B&W) bit of dodging and burning toning etc etc. J
 
It's definetely about 'developing' a photograph that you have taken. If I take a photo on my digital camera that I think would look good as a black and white image, I will 'develop' it from RAW in photoshop. Colour photos will also be tweaked, much as traditional film negatives would have been in a darkroom.

The other thing you have to remember is that most photo's these days are viewed on computer and for that you need to make some extra adjustments, contrast, saturation and sharpening to give examples. A photo printed will look different from the same picture viewed online.
 
I always liked to think that good photos need no processing, but at the end of the day it all about the end result so whatever you want in the end is the important thing. It's an art form either way and seeing as it's all subjective there is no right or wrong. Just enjoy it and get the message you want conveyed as best you can :)
 
Sir Run Run Shaw said:
Why are photos doctored so much after they are taken?

To a newbie like me, who knows jack, I find it amazing that everyone spends so much time playing in photoshop to get the image just right.

I would have thought that you lot would compose the image, and adjust the settings, get everything just right, then take some shots.

But it doesn't seem to work like that, huh? I'm not talking about simple tweaking for curiosity, like ooh I wonder how that would look in b/w, it's a lot of fault fixing. And surely, to some extent anyway, you can't improve upon what is already there.
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This type of question usually comes from people who have in the past used film, sent their shots off for processing and been content with the prints they've got back, having nothing to do with the processing. Because of this they've attributed an integrity to film which it never really had, and it's understandable.

The fact is that developing time and temperature, even the chemicals used, can all produce a different processed negative. Next comes the printing stage where the grade and hardness of paper can be chosen for a specific result. The words 'dodging' and burning' which we still use, came from manipulating the light on the printing paper to give extra or less exposure to problem areas or to produce a particular effect. Then comes the print developing stage where again, different chemicals will produce a different looking print with solution temperature and developing time all producing potentially different results.

If you doubt this, try taking some negatives to different processors, particularly at the cheap High St end, and you'll be amazed at the difference in colour, saturation, and brightness levels that you'll get back in your prints. Good processing houses being asked for a reprint of a shot will often ask for the original print to aid in matching the colour.

Negatives were only ever the starting point for the final print.

It's difficult to explain to newcomers that the image from a digital camera is also only a starting point and digital processing is needed - the image straight from the camera isn't necessarily a done deal, and doesn't lose any integrity because it is digitally processed.

There's a limit to what we should do to images obviously, but digital processing gives the most control over your final result which has ever been possible before. We should be grateful for that, but know where to draw the line. Certainly we should never deny an image has been manipulated when it has.... e.g. denying a background change or something equally major.
 
I just consider it developing the shot. I shoot raw which gives me a digital negative I then tweak that to create the final print.

With film I would shoot the negatives/slides then develop these and create prints which have been adjusted to have correct colour, proper exposure, proper contrast.

If you shot film and got it developed all the image tweaks would of been done by the person/machine developing and printing.

Its always been done, just not everybody realises what exactly used to be done to their films. As always you need a good/near perfect shot, if you botch the exposure up then you'll have the suffer with clipped highlights or grainy shadows. You cant polish a turd.

As a further note, you could probably get a better print from a very badly exposed negative than a very badly exposed RAW.
 
Sir Run Run Shaw said:
Why are photos doctored so much after they are taken?

[..]
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Are they?

RAW images need *developing* and some pictures need cropping, spotting, etc. before publishing. Nothing new really, just the darkroom is inside the PC/Mac now.

Doctoring is not new either, but is not, I think, what you were referring to in your post.

Anthony.
 
CT said:
This type of question usually comes from people who have in the past used film, sent their shots of for processing and been content with the prints they've got back, having nothing to do with the processing. Because of this they've attributed an integrity to film which it never really had, and it's understandable.

The fact is that developing time and temperature, even the chemicals used, can all produce a different processed negative. Next comes the printing stage where the grade and hardness of paper can be chosen for a specific result. The words 'dodging' and burning' which we still use, came from manipulating the light on the printing paper to give extra or less exposure to problem areas or to produce a particular effect. Then comes the print developing stage where again, different chemicals will produce a different looking print with solution temperature and developing time all producing potentially different results.

If you doubt this, try taking some negatives to different processors, particularly at the cheap High St end, and you'll be amazed at the difference in colour, saturation, and brightness levels that you'll get back in your prints. Good processing houses being asked for a reprint of a shot will often ask for the original print to aid in matching the colour.

Negatives were only ever the starting point for the final print.

It's difficult to explain to newcomers that the image from a digital camera is also only a starting point and digital processing is needed - the image straight from the camera isn't necessarily a done deal, and doesn't lose any integrity because it is digitally processed.

There's a limit to what we should do to images obviously, but digital processing gives the most control over your final result which has ever been possible before. We should be grateful for that, but know where to draw the line. Certainly we should never deny an image has been manipulated when it has.... e.g. denying a background change or something equally major.
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I think that sums it up brilliantly. My sister, who learnt the "tradition" dark room skills, was horrified to find the amount of photoshopping that is part of my C&G photography course.

It can also be argued that a very photoshopped picture becomes an art form in itself.
 
Most people quite rightly revere Ansel Adams as a landscape photographer. He probably spent more time on the theory of perfect exposure in the camera than any person ever did. He finally devised his Zone Metering System. Don't confuse it with later systems bearing the tag. He devised it purely for black and white photography and it involved looking at the scene and envisaging any one of a number of tones in the scene and assessing accurately the shade it would be in a black and white print. His argument was that if you could correctly identify any one of these tones and accurately expose for it, all the other tones would fall into place and be properly exposed and you had the most perfect negative you were likely to get. Extremely difficult and needing great judgement and experience. Don't forget either that he woud wait for weeks for the light to be right before he took the shot where necessary.

Despite all this Adams would spend days and weeks in the darkroom before he was satisfied with a print - dodging burning, using different grades of paper and chemicals consigning many, many prints to the bin before was satisfied with his result.

Apart from being a great photographer, Adams was an expert darkroom technician. ;)
 
you make a good point, without wanting to insulti anyone on here, but when i read amatuer photography magazines and look at some forums they are obsessed with rules and foreground interest etc, photography is not about that,OK photography is spaced out into genres, and amatuer photography has created its own genre, which i find very sad because i see some amatuer photographers who have the makings of wonderful image makers. i am studying for my HND photography at the moment, and i look at photographers work like martin parr who if he posted on here it would be slagged off, but this mans eye is amazing, his images represent a generation of people that until he recorded them, they were simply passed off as uninteresting, and not worthy of being included in an art form. as photographers we enclode images, and as the viewer we decode, so an image must be considered before its taken, we all like pretty picrures, me included, but a nice image aint always a great image.
 
I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make, but Martin Parr was a member of Magnum. Earlier members included the likes of Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa and other pretty legendary photographers. You don't get into Magnum by being thought of as a crappy photographer. Parr's work is well known and I can't see him being slagged off too much by anyone, although obviously personal opinions of what is and isn't good varies.

No-one is saying a good shot has to be pretty, in fact Capa's work was in war zones where he eventually died - he took some great shots, but many of them would have needed some pretty extensive dark room rescuing given the conditions they were taken under. ;)
 
martin parr is still a member of magnum, and the point is if i posted an image from parrs new brighton series or indeed the empty car park series that he did, there is no way that they would be recognised on a forum for the artistic merit, they would simply be picked up on on there techinical points. by the way it sounded like you had downloaded your post, sorry it sounded a little text book
 
lifethrualens said:
by the way it sounded like you had downloaded your post, sorry it sounded a little text book
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Why on earth would you think that?... I was reading about Magnum 50 years ago. Use your Google woo and find me my 'downloaded' text and you can have your pick of any piece of my kit.
 
no need to get upset i was only saying that it sounded a little text book, thats all. by the way capa was a great war photographer, but my personal fav was philip jones griffiths,different war i know, i had the pleasure of meeting him recently, very inspirational
 
Who's getting upset? :shrug:

If I sound text book I suppose it's cos I've read some. ;)

War photographers are a species I bow down to any day, simply for the fact that they get out there and put themselves in harms way.. all of 'em. Capa paid the price eventually for what he always tried to do - get closer... and he stepped on a land mine.
 
LOL I'm supposed to be a mod on here, if someone wants to wander aimlessly back on topic it would be kinda cool. :D
 
Davec223 said:
The other point that no one has made is the fact that anyone who used to shot film or still does and prints their own will normally tweek the image with the developing and printing of the film, Just look at Ansell Adams. (Extreme case I know) Most people will choose what grade paper to print on (in B&W) bit of dodging and burning toning etc etc. J
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Hmmmmmmmm, thought I made that point earlier??
 
I believe the original poster already conceded that tweaks are necessary. The question was, as I interpret it, how much digital modification should it take to get a great shot? And I find myself agreeing, which may make me unpopular here.

Contrast, color, dodging and burning are all fairly standard tweaks. I do, however, get a bit cynical when I see head swaps, massive cloning out of backgrounds, digitally added fill flash and the like. I find it incredibly refreshing to see shots done well out of camera (processing tweaks allowed) that work without major photoshop rescuing.

That said, I agree that photoshopping (of the major sort) is an art form unto itself, and I have a lot of respect for those who do it well. it is a great artistic tool, but I'm disappointed when I see it regularly employed as a rescue. I think the craft of photography is getting a bit lost in the range of post processing options.

CJ
 
I feel a lot depends on what we want to be:

1. A photographer who develops their pictures in their computer (a little sharpening, colour saturation etc) and will take the time to learn exactly what their camera can do and how it works in varying situations and get as much right "in camera" as possible.

2. A digital artist who is not overly bothered about the perfection of the original photographs because they know they can/will be able to do a lot with it on the computer however it looks.

There are of course people who can do both and do them well, but I think that most people lean to one or the other
 
I agree. Its important to know how to use the tools that allow you to make the photographs... like most transferences (in this case light info) getting as much quality into the info at first stage can only aid you at the second stage.


To me, the captured image its not a photograph until its finished, how thats done is irrelevant, as long as its within the boundaries of the original image.
 
i love editing pictures, it allows you to put even more personal touch to an image, and in the digital world there seems to be no limits of how far you can go. A truely wonderful time to be taking pictures, the purist way seems a very outdated view.. look at any magazine and most pictures will have been edited.
 
I love how tempers fray at the very mention of "processing" a digital image.

I worked with film before and although loved B&W I hated the time it took in the darkroom to get the result I "saw" at the point of capture. I hated even more that I could not process as good as I saw elsewhere or other could do with my negs! :lol:

As CT and others point out, the capture is only a (very important) part of the process and much can be done afterwards to complete the image.

Processing is part of a digital photographers work flow, as is metadata, keywording, etc. Some may need not do this but as a forum we should revert to what is technically best practice (or a individual's preference with reasons given) when giving advice to those entering the activity and asking the question.
 
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