Will You Share POTY, OPOTY, LPOTY Before And After?

[YoshiK1]

Hello!

I've never entered any of the above mentioned competitions or others for that matter however I've read the rules and I'm always intrigued about how much processing is actually done on the photos that is ACCEPTABLE for the competitions. If anyone has entered any of these or perhaps have links to such a topic on the interweb would you be willing to share the before & after photos and/or links to the topic described?

Cheers

 

[chris malcolm]

How do you measure the amount of processing? I can process a photo for hours and end up with an image a bit sharper and cleaner than the out-of-camera JPEG. I can take an almost black severely underexposed low contrast image and press the "fix this photo" button and get such a startling transformation in one second it's hard to believe it's the same image.

There is often a line which must not be crossed in image processing, which is the adding of things, people, etc., to the image which weren't there at the time of the original hot. Another less important line is whether you're allowed to remove obstructive objects, such as telephone wires.

 

[YoshiK1]

I've never entered so I don't know. I remember one of the rules for one or the competitions being that you had to provide the original unedited file as well as the final image of you were selected to win so they compare the images that way. This is why I'd like to know how much people are changing their images to see if they're getting away with a lot of colours, sharpening etc or just minor edits.

I understand composites etc might not be allowed or adding and removing things that weren't in the original image.

 

[Rowee]

I'll have a go at answering this.
I think it really depends on the judges opinion in the end. I try and keep images within the boundaries of either realistic and/or 'the image I wanted to portray' / what I imagined the shot looking like before I took it.

However, I throw rules out the window a little when it comes to the creative category.

For example, this wasn't an actual entry, just part of my 52 (that I never finished), but I don't think it's over processed for a creative category (The theme was Old)


The original looked like this:


This is obviously not following any rules at all...

A Small World by rowee2, on Flickr

Now if you did something similar in the Landscape category, it may well be a going too far. But actually the picture is very similar, just distressed (The Nintendo shot)

For realism, I like to try and keep my processing to simply enhancing the original image, or trying to make it more like how it looked to me at the time if the camera hasn't coped with the light. I say try because sometimes, heavier editing just makes the result much better (Or you just got it all wrong in camera).

The picture below was from a couple of years ago, I think the processing is minimal but necessary:

original by rowee2, on Flickr

edit by rowee2, on Flickr

Ideally, if I could have lightened the dark tree in the background, I would have, but the information just wan't there unfortunately.

Often a competition will have rules or guidelines regarding processing, obviously if that's the case, you'd do well to follow them. If not, I guess it's down to your best judgment. Personally, glaring and unrealistically vibrant colours in an image is a turn off, but for others it may be a winner.

As for adding and removing, I think adding is a step too far (just my opinion), but if you have a beautiful landscape, and in processing you notice a Coke can (other soft drinks are available) that's been chucked on the floor, then removing it from the image is absolutely fine in my book, and I'd be surprised if anyone had a problem with that sort of thing.

And actually, while typing this I just thought of another picture I took recently that has had things 'removed'. Again not a competition shot, more of a holiday snap, and the cloning isn't amazing either but I think this would be acceptable editing of an image...?

original by rowee2, on Flickr

61 by rowee2, on Flickr

Not a pro, and don't enter competitions all that often, but that's kinda how I see things.