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Post Processing
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Im fairly against heavy editing, the most i ever do is Levels and Desaturate. Maybe the contrast.
Even that can get you into serious hot water – take the case of OJ Simpson’s portrait being darkened on the cover of Time in order to make ‘a more compelling cover’, there was a field day with that one
A lot of it comes down to what the photographer’s/publishers intent is.
If the reason for the photo is to document something then I’d be against nearly all photoshop work, including anything like removing litter or zits but I’d also be against the over zealous use of dodging and burning. Once you add and remove things it’s no longer a truthful documentation, it’s an interpretation and truth has been compromised. I think Ciaran’s street portraits would be a good example of this, because of what he’s doing the images have to retain their integrity and as viewers trust is being given to the photographer that he’s not misleading us. Reuters recently got into shit for publishing a photo which had some of the most blatantly amateurish cloning I’ve ever seen which had been used to ‘enhance’ the results of an air-strike in Lebannon. Reuters reputation took a serious knocking and I guarantee any image from them will be held under even more scrutiny for some time.
If the intent is to create an idealised representation of something, either for personal or professional reasons, then certainly cleaning up zits, removing telephone wires and litter as well as enhancing products should be acceptable. Forget about the Grand Canyon, who’s ever bought a burger that looked as good in real life as the idealised product shot on display. Retouching photos existed long before photoshop, back as far as the american civil war certainly, with airbrush artists and darkroom gurus doing amazing work. I would expect stock photos, fashion photos, advertising photos, pr photos, commercial portraits, and all sorts of other catergories to fall under this banner and have been shopped to a greater or lesser extent; not to expect this kind of work to have been tarted up is just naive. If Giles’ example of a substantially enhanced Grand Canyon photo was used for any promotional work I wouldn’t have an issue, if it was being used as an editorial example of actuality I would – National Geographic famously retouched the pyramids in Egypt, by moving them closer togetrher, so that the image would fit on a vertical format magazine cover in the 80s…they got into shit over that too.
Then there’s artistic intent, pretty much anything goes as it’s a personal reinterpretation of the exposue/s. You either accept it as a valid branch of photography or not, but getting into an argument about it is futile; it’s a bit like arguing over the existence of God: non-believers mock believers, believers don’t care.
My two cents worth.
I recently switched from colour film to digital. My default position is to get the camera to do as much work as possible – this results in fewer botched photographs when you’re paying to get film developed. I can’t quite lose that mindset.
That being said, I recently started looking at various Photoshop techniques, and did a course on it. Someone, somewhere, once made the point that by and large, there wasn’t a huge difference in principle between a lot of those digital manipulation techniques and some of the development techniques done by some of the early greats of photography, eg Ansel Adams. Much of what he did lay in how he printed from the negative. In other words, he used the manipulation techniques available to him. That’s one argument against the new purist “as little processing as possible” point of view. Whether you agree with it or not is up to you. On the other hand, messing around with a computer is a bit easier than working on your shots in a darkroom. We have this feeling that art should be sort of hard, and frankly, where photography is concerned, computers make it sort of easy.
By and large, I’ve done some experimentation on a couple of photographs, but not a huge amount. My default is still to get as much of the work done at the camera level rather than processing pictures afterwards. But I appreciate the freedom to switch from colour to black and white, to crop, to work on contrasts and curves. Oh and to fix underexposed photographs but I do feel guilty about that last one. Underexposure is a photographer mess up.
I’ve mixed feelings about it, to be honest. Interestingly enough, someone told me one of my photographs looked as though it had been built in Photoshop during the week. As it happens, the picture had had some underexposure fixed in Photoshop, and I think I autocontrasted it as well. But that was all. I’m wondering if it’s a good thing if someone assumes that a photograph you took was created in Photoshop rather than a representation of something which actually was real. Somehow, I have my doubts.
Anyway, I’ve a couple of tricks that I use for various reasons, but after that, the photograph is less a photograph and usually a graphic. Not sure I’d call it an illustration but that’s probably because my mindset is unless a pencil or pen was involved, then it’s not an illustration either. But that’s just my prejudice.
I can’t see any problem with putting more than one image in a photoshop’d final, after all for the skillfull darkroom worker it was always possible by using multiple exposure, masks and dodge / burn.
I reckon it’s all part of where photography has gone over the past 150 years. The real problem i find with Photoshop is that it is such a powerful tool that it is easy to get lost and waste time.
Mark wrote:
Now this is something I object to and its was the Irish Photographer winner of the Open Category in 2005
The crows were added, the scarecrows were added as was the photographers face to the photograph.
This is not in my opinion photography a 12yo kid could combine this element together.
That is some lousy Photoshop work can?t believe that one even won a disposable camera for the “Specially Gifted Category?
I think if you can use PS and use it well, for some that means 2-4 years learning before reaching a decent skill level, but if your like the above and cant even get close to hiding the fact that your image has been through PS then its time to start putting in some serious work, another thing which I have noticed is that some people rely to heavily on PS when taking an image, instead of getting everything right before the shutter trips they end doing PS work which could easily have been avoided
gavin wrote:
…another thing which I have noticed is that some people rely to heavily on PS when taking an image, instead of getting everything right before the shutter trips they end doing PS work which could easily have been avoided
Ne’er a truer word said. I couldn’t agree more with this statement. And it’s for this reason that I have often said that the introduction of digital photography has resulted in a serious drop in the standard of photography in general. Too many people think they can just take any old image at all and ‘shop it and think they’ll end up with a work of art. But, just like anything that goes through a computer, it’s a case of rubbish in = rubbish out. The fundamentals still have to be there and unless you have an image that can stand on it’s own as it is, no amount of ‘shopping will make it any better.
Then you’ve got so-called PS Experts – these are a bit like designers or web designers that are wonderfully creative and love showing off their work and end up going over the top (hands up who hasn’t come across a Flash website that they’ve abandoned because it’s too graphics intensive that it won’t load quickly enough!?) The true PS experts in my opinion, are people that appreciate the power of PS and know when to stop and don’t end up doing something with PS simply because they can.
What is wrong with a PS expert learning to use the tool to the best of your ability and the apps, is not going to make you go overboard it allows you do less editing with less options within the app which in turn makes the changes more subtle. PS has a lot options and tools which really don?t need to be used in relation to photography, nearly all the tools you will need are under the Image/Adjustments menu, the more knowledge you have an app the less likely you to over do its use and go blundering around using other effects such as the dreaded filter menu..
I think we’re saying the same thing, but in different ways – hence my distinction between “so-called PS experts” and “true PS experts” :wink:
I’d prefer to have excellent photography skills and techniques rather than have PS skills/techniques.
Mark wrote:
I’d prefer to have excellent photography skills and techniques rather than have PS skills/techniques.
Agreed, but in the digital age, you can’t have an excellent photograph without excellent PS skills. It’s unfortunate, but it’s the truth!
In some cases you may be able to program your camera (sharpness, contrast, colour mode etc) to dump out the finished jpg at the end, but it’s rare, so unfortunately we need to learn the evils of PS. For me, the experiment in film was a real eye opener and a test. I wanted to prove to myself that I can take images without the wonderful drug that is Photoshop.
I heard a great phrase the other day… “Falling in love with PhotoShop is sort of like falling in love with Pamela Anderson–in the end nothing seems real.”
I think you’ve got a point there Ciaran, PS skills are a requirement. I need to get up to speed on the PS side of it…
Mark
“Agreed, but in the digital age, you can’t have an excellent photograph without excellent PS skill”
I wouldn?t agree with that if your relying on PS to give you good quality photos your of to a bad start 70% of the work should be done when the shutter sound clicks.
gavin wrote:
I wouldn?t agree with that if your relying on PS to give you good quality photos your of to a bad start 70% of the work should be done when the shutter sound clicks.
I agree completely (I’d put it closer to 90 though), but if you suck at the other 30% then you’re on to a loser!
It’s a simple fact – if you shoot RAW, you need to sharpen the image, apply contrast adjustments, saturation adjustment etc (or some combination of the above). If you shoot JPG you program your camera to do these – same difference really!
ciaran wrote:
I heard a great phrase the other day… “Falling in love with PhotoShop is sort of like falling in love with Pamela Anderson–in the end nothing seems real.”
Great quote. I must file it away.
I’d venture to say however that it is still possible to take a great picture without being a Photoshop expert, but being a Photoshop expert enables you to make a good photograph great, in some cases. I prefer to get the camera to do as much of the work as possible myself though.
Obviously shooting in raw requires some level of PP.
The main problem I have is that people try to pawn of digital images as proper photographs, when realisitcally theyre so heavily edited that they bear no resemblance to the original.
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