Opinions on post processing

ScabbyLeg

I'm not much of a photographer myself but really like looking at the photos that get posted up here in the hope that I can pick up some ideas for my own snaps.

What interests me reading through a lot of dialogue is the use of Photoshop, and I was wondering what the general opinion on this is? I've read that with digital cameras, much more post-processing is necessary than was the case with film photography, is this true, and how so?

In my own opinion I'd kind of prefer to leave the Photoshop / manipulation work to a minimum and leave the photograph speak for itself... I think that it's nice to look at a picture and know that this was close to what the photographer saw, and whether by fluke or by skill, got a great image from it.

I can see the argument that it's up to the photographer to control what the viewer sees in order to convey a message from his work, but some of it seems a bit extreme to me. ie. If there was a car in the scene, why burn it out? The photograph is no longer true to what was there in the first place.

So, what are your own limits on what you think is OK to be manipulated with the likes of Photoshop work?

joolsveer

I am happy to use software to manipulate the photo to bring out aspects of the subject which are closer to my opinion as to how the subject should look. I believe that post processing is part and parcel of the photographic process and it always has been. When I was taking black and white photos on film and then developing and printing I wanted the same thing. These photos below show the original scene and the manipulated result.

Dimy

You can't really ignore photo editing altogether, especially if you shoot in RAW, but I see it more as the "developing-phase" of a digital image. In many cases I will try to enhance the picture in photoshop but keep it realistic, but there's a few photo's where I like to create a surreal scene with odd/dramatized colors. But it depends on the picture really what I do with it in photoshop. Also I think it's ok to clone out small distractions in a picture, like antenna's, wiring or maybe birdpoo on a statue/building although I would never clone something into a picture that was never there in the first place, like a better looking sky for example if the original was a dull gray.

run_Forrest_run

I agree with U ScabbyLeg...a photographer takes pictures with a camera...a graphic designer uses software to make/enhance images...people need to decide which one they are. Photographers who use photoshop are cheating themselves IMHO. Take a picture with a camera and leave it at that. If you feel you need to touch up a picture then you have room to learn from what you did wrong and maybe try better next time via the camera...don't just boot up the PC and mask your errors...learn from them.

Alun

But the thing is, every single solitary photograph you take is 'post-processed' to a certain degree, either by the camera's software or, if you shoot in RAW, by some kind of software on the PC, be it Photoshop, RawShooter, Nikon Capture etc. Read up on digital camera sensors and the Bayer pattern, for example, if you don't believe me. There is no single 'correct' interpretation of the raw data that comes off the individual picture elements of a camera sensor, and no reason to necessarily accept the camera's interpretation as correct either. Tweaking colour balance, saturation, curves etc. is fair game, and isn't too different to what photographers have been doing for decades with film cameras.

As far as deliberately manipulating the content of the picture, that's a different thing altogether, and it's different to know where to draw the line. Personally, like Dimy, I don't have a problem with removing the odd power line, or a bird or two from an otherwise perfect bluw sky, but I'd never go as far as deliberately inserting something into a photograph that wasn't there in reality.

Dimy

run_Forrest_run wrote:

I agree with U ScabbyLeg...a photographer takes pictures with a camera...a graphic designer uses software to make/enhance images...people need to decide which one they are. Photographers who use photoshop are cheating themselves IMHO. Take a picture with a camera and leave it at that. If you feel you need to touch up a picture then you have room to learn from what you did wrong and maybe try better next time via the camera...don't just boot up the PC and mask your errors...learn from them.

Every serious photographer uses Photoshop... your statement is rediculous really. People with point-and-shoot camera's who just take snapshots probably woulnd't bother editing their pictures, but photographers do. And not to "mask errors" as you bluntly claim, but simply to enhance the picture. Sometimes the camera doesn't see colors the way the eye does (which is not a photographers error), which you can correct in photoshop and make the image look far more natural than if you wouldn't edit this.

Enygma

But when you use a digital camera and you're shooting JPEG you're basically just accepting the default "touch-ups" that the manufacturer has loaded into the processor on the camera.

All digital sensors really do is measure light, it's the processor on board that decides what the picture should look like. It decides how green the greens should be and how red the reds should be etc etc. On advanced cameras you can set the level of saturation, contrast, sharpness etc. in the camera but it basically just passes those values into a function in the processor and applies the usual defaults.

When you shoot RAW on a digital it does the same thing but you tell the onboard processor to just give you the raw data before it goes and applies any defaults to it. In effect what you're saying to the processor is "Let me decide what values I want to apply to my image". You could even argue that if you don't post process the image from a digital camera then you're not really doing a proper job, you're just accepting the defaults that the manufacturer decided your images should exhibit.

It's somewhat analogous to being able to switch film types in a film camera.

Of course, removing cars, cloning in skies etc. I wouldn't consider that photography at all.

run_Forrest_run

fair enough, put it this way; if you say serious photographers use photoshop then what are the common rules for entering a photography competition in relation to post processing and 'enhancing' a picture?

Dimy

run_Forrest_run wrote:

fair enough, put it this way; if you say serious photographers use photoshop then what are the common rules for entering a photography competition in relation to post processing and 'enhancing' a picture?

Most competitions have specific rules about what is allowed and what's not. Check out www.dpchallenge.com for example. They have two sets of rules, 1 for "basic editing" and 1 for "advanced editing", depending on which one applies to a specific "challenge" you sometimes can remove birdpoo from a statue or can't. Either way, I think editing pictures is acceptable considering you keep a realistic picture and don't edit the bejesus out of an image. I usually take 2 or 3 minutes max per image to convert from RAW to JPEG and minor tweaks in photoshop.

Fajitas!

I learnt everything I know from film. Taking photos and darkroom skills. If film were economical enough to buy and process I still would use them, but it's not. In PS, I only do what I could do in a darkroom. I don't clone etc, usually just adjust contrast, desaturate and burn. Sometimes add tones such as sepia and red, but that's just as easily done with a film print too. If I want effects, I use the camera, filters and lenses.

I don't see anything wrong with that, but what I do see something wrong with is when people do a LOT of image manipulation and call it a photograph. I would call that a digital image preferably. One of my pet hates is to see something that has been totally digitally enhanced, and is being called a photograph.

dalk

I do not think using post processing is "cheating", whether you are using photoshop or more traditional darkroom techniques. Its always been part of photography and always will be. Like others, personally, i don't like adding anything to my pictures that was not there already, but i have no qualms about removing something, applying selective contrast, cropping, tweaking colour, etc. (All of which could be done pre-photoshop).

People who do no post-processing on their photographs are in my opinion doing a disservice to at least some of their work.

Just think of all the famous photographs. You think the photographer just dropped the negs/jpegs into his local chemist and let them print it?

Fajitas!

dalk wrote:

Just think of all the famous photographs. You think the photographer just dropped the negs/jpegs into his local chemist and let them print it?

Exactly, some photographers spent days if not weeks in a darkroom, fixing up images. Take a look at Ansel Adams work for example. Or Helmut Newtons colour works.

Shrimp

Post processing is without doubt one of the best things to have happened photography in recent times. However, when used incorrectly it can be hideous.

Fajitas!

Actually, this debate goes back to the rise of photography.

There has always been arguments between the straight photographers, who think everything should be done by the photographer and the lens at the time, and the pictorialists, who believed that lenses, filters, expired film, darkroom skills etc etc etc should be used to create the image, and there were those in between, who used filters and called themselves straight photographers, and some who used elements of both...

Lol, so in theory, this is nothing new!

Shrimp

Well of course it's nothing new, the process of developing is essentially post processing. OK, well seeing as we are on the topic of "capturing the moment" and not editing, so many photos have been posed, and reposed just to get the feeling or mood of the moment. Such as the raising of the American flag.

So whether it's editing or posing, where do you draw the line to say that this isn't how it was?

Valentia

If someone makes a double exposure in camera is that cheating? Every photographer that cares about what they do will post process digital photographs. In the old days there was pre processing as well as the darkroom. Photographers made a decision on the film that they used: Fuji, Kodak, Velvia, Ektachrome, Kodacrome, Provia, TMax etc etc. A lot of good post processing in PS actually recreates this process. Take for example a Velvia Action which will go some way towards creating an image that looks like it was taken with Velvia transparency film.

I'm not against a small bit of cloning or noise reduction.

As for entering a competition with a shot that was not cleaned up and sharpened in some way, well you are doing yourself a disservice if you enter it and the judges will make no allowances for your laziness. Just as they wouldn't if you didn't bother properly processing an entry in the darkroom.

Most one hour houses will make ****e of your work anyway if you use film. A lot of people blame themselves when they get stuff back from the lab but it is often not their fault. How many times have you seen stuff coming back with a colour cast?

So the arguement that taking the photograph is the art is not the full story. Bad composition is, of course, something that you can't blame the lab for!

pokypoky

run_Forrest_run wrote:

Photographers who use photoshop are cheating themselves IMHO. Take a picture with a camera and leave it at that.

How can you say that? In digital photography photoshop is essential. What about removing casts and adjusting levels? Photoshop is to digital photography as what the darkroom is to film and is nothing less than essential. Manipulating photographs is part and parcel of the artistic license of the photographer. I think this comment is symptomatic of a refusal to change with evolving technologies.

Alun

pokypoky wrote:

I think this comment is symptomatic of a refusal to change with evolving technologies.

I think it's more likely to be ignorance of the whole photographic process from start to end. Anyone who has ever worked in a darkroom and done their own film processing, enlarging and printing wouldn't say something like that.

Valentia

Anyone who has ever worked in a darkroom and done their own film processing, enlarging and printing wouldn't say something like that.

Exactly the point I made on the Connemara Moon thread.

edunon

Correcting brightness, contrast, hue, saturation and mixing two or more different shots of the same photo at different exposures in photoshop is exactly what we used to do in a darkroom.
The differences between a photo somebody has processed in photoshop to a photo that hasn't are pretty much the same than those developed in a darkroom and the same developed by Boots for example.

ScabbyLeg

There's some really interesting stuff being discussed here . In particular your comments over on the Moon thread, Valentia are something I never thought about before regarding processing the negative.
I'l still interested to find out why a lot of people think photos from a digital camera require more work after the event, in comparison to film cameras... or is it just the fact that it's much much easier to do so these days?
Am I right in thinking that most people don't like interfering with the photo in any way they wouldn't have been able to do in a negative/darkroom situation?

Shrimp

I think, edit a photo however you like, do what ever you like to it, but make sure you do it for a reason, and that it's not just mindless editing. Think about every edit before doing it.

Valentia

Shrimp, I agree.

Valentia

ScabbyLeg
Photos have always required that work. A lot of yongsters only know digital so I can undwestand their arguement. Photography goes beyond pressing the button and always has.

Flipflip

Shrimp wrote:

I think, edit a photo however you like, do what ever you like to it, but make sure you do it for a reason, and that it's not just mindless editing. Thank about every edit before doing it.

Id agree to an extent but I think you need to know when tos top calling it a photo and when to start calling it a digital image.

And you should also state what post processing took place along with your EXIF data if you give it.

I myself try to avoid PS as much as I can, Ill try different techniques when taking the shot rather than take one and photoshop the **** out of it until its a good photo, thats not photography.

Each to their own I guess, but in my opinion, it takes more skill to get the photo you want with ur camera rather than manipulating it in Photoshop until it looks how oyu want it.

dalk

Not much to add to this that has not been already said.

Flipflip wrote:

photoshop the **** out of it until its a good photo, thats not photography.

There seems to be this erroneous notion that photoshop can make a bad picture into a good picture. This might be true if your criteria for judging a photo is on its technical merits alone (which some photographers are obsessed with).

Flipflip wrote:

it takes more skill to get the photo you want with ur camera rather than manipulating it in Photoshop until it looks how oyu want it.

When i take a picture i try to have an idea/vision of what i want the finished print to look like. The camera being first stage, i go about framing, choosing exposure and dof to suit the vision i have, which i do to the best of my abilities. (All of these things distort reality as we see it. Isn't that fake too?)

So you see, you start manipulating the scene until it "looks how oyu want it" from the very start of the process.

Post processing is the procedure of bringing out the best from that negative/positive. Simple as that.

Shrimp

Flipflip wrote:

stop calling it a photo and when to start calling it a digital image.

I'm not sure if you understand the meaning of a the words photograph and digital image.

A photograph is the actual image when printed, a digital image is when it is on the PC/mac.

However that's just be me being pedantic.

There are no rules in art, photography is art, therefore there are no rules in photography. There shouldn't be anyway.. with rules one is confined to a limit. When a limit is enforced then you are automatically destroying any potential, without potential then there's no point. If something doesn't have potential, and you know the limit then surely it renders exploring the medium irrelevant. Maybe thats just me being romantic, but photography is like a medium, use it how you will until you get a picture you are content with.

Think about it this way, before the Surrealism movement (Ca 500 years ago) you had the Renaissance. People were shocked to see artists using oils in such an abstract manner, especially juxtapose to how they would have been used in the Renaissance. If people were to set rules and say that you may only paint in a certain way, and if you don't then it's not a painting. It would inevitably transform art into a monotonous procedure. Art is unpredictable, thats what makes it different, thats what artists like, the fact that one can never make two pieces that are the same. If you take that away then art isn't really art?

When I use the word photography I am referring to the process of taking the photo, and post processing!

Flipflip

Shrimp wrote:

A photograph is the actual image when printed, a digital image is when it is on the PC/mac.

You know what I mean.

I think you were the one who loves to differentiate between a picture and photograph?

Maybe im wrong.

Well its the same logic.

mloc

ScabbyLeg wrote:

I'l still interested to find out why a lot of people think photos from a digital camera require more work after the event, in comparison to film cameras...

It's quite simple to explain really. If you think about what happens when you take a photo with a film camera... you expose the film, develop it and then presumably, print it. These are three distinct steps each with thier own variables. 99% of people who take a photo are more or less totally unaware of the importance of the last two steps.

The equivelent for a digital camera, is taking the photo, processing the RAW file, and then printing it. In point and shoot cameras the second step is done automatically, but, however, it is done by a computer chip without much user intervention and therefore Photoshop is basically the digital equivelent of self-developing. Many other comparisons can be made, such as film type (Kodak, Fuji etc) choice affects the output, just like certain photoshop settings can.

These changes, in both film and digital, only affect the colour, brightness, contrast etc of the image and not the actual composition of the image. The skill of the photographer lies in this composition step, developing an eye for what makes an image look good.

For professional magazines, in which over 95% of photos have been through photoshop at some stage in production, tools such as clone and heal are invariably used as a new age "airbrushing" technique to reduce imperfections in models etc. In other forms of print, images are often given dramatic lighting and colouring effects, although these were performed also in the past with glass graduated filters etc. Many techniques that were performed with accesories and unusual exposures are now performed in Photoshop.

Alterations in Photoshop that effect image composition are a different matter. Their degree of their use depends, in my belief, on what the desired image will be. Serious, complex photoshop treatment such as total removal of objects, inclusion of items that weren't there in the first place, complex distortions or whatever are changing into the realm of digital art which is a very interesting field in itself, and offers infinite possibilites for expression, but it is not really photography, in the strictest sense.

Flipflip wrote:

stop calling it a photo and when to start calling it a digital image.

Like I said above, I think the correct term would be "digital art" as opposed to a "digital image". But I know what you meant!

melekalikimaka

good post mloc, raised some good points, i agree that photoshop is a 'darkroom' for digital cameras. Its part of photography now, i think if it couldnt be done in the dark room, it should be avoided in photoshop

leinsterman

Shrimp wrote:

I'm not sure if you understand the meaning of a the words photograph and digital image.

A photograph is the actual image when printed, a digital image is when it is on the PC/mac.

However that's just be me being pedantic.

There are no rules in art, photography is art, therefore there are no rules in photography. There shouldn't be anyway.. with rules one is confined to a limit. When a limit is enforced then you are automatically destroying any potential, without potential then there's no point. If something doesn't have potential, and you know the limit then surely it renders exploring the medium irrelevant. Maybe thats just me being romantic, but photography is like a medium, use it how you will until you get a picture you are content with.

Think about it this way, before the Surrealism movement (Ca 500 years ago) you had the Renaissance. People were shocked to see artists using oils in such an abstract manner, especially juxtapose to how they would have been used in the Renaissance. If people were to set rules and say that you may only paint in a certain way, and if you don't then it's not a painting. It would inevitably transform art into a monotonous procedure. Art is unpredictable, thats what makes it different, thats what artists like, the fact that one can never make two pieces that are the same. If you take that away then art isn't really art?

When I use the word photography I am referring to the process of taking the photo, and post processing!

Thanks for this post ... it is for me the best point in the whole debate so far. And a great debate is has been too !!

You cannot place boundaries on any art form ... in many way surrealism and even impressionism may have been partially in response to the emergence of photography in the first place ... if you can faithfully recreate a scene in a photo then why try to do the same in a painting when you can capture its essence and mood much better by applying your own interpretation altogether.

Sure, there is always room for realism ... indeed for me mother nature is the greatest artist of the them all ... it is a great skill and art form in its own right to capture her essence on film or digital media in a true reproduction ... but there should also be room for other forms of expression within the art form. Digital photography represents a quantum change in the possibilities for photographers.

Change is very often seen as a threat by some and embrached by others... hence debates such as this thread.

Digital photography and in particular post processing takes the gloves off for creative expression in the art form ... we now have greater freedom to explore the art the same way painters did with different movements and styles from Baroque, Classical, Ranaissance, Romanticism through impressionism, neo impressionism, surrealism, dada, cubism, art deco, pop art, post modernism and beyond ... competition rules for photographers should be set around the movements, media and styles not rigidly kept to the confines set by film. This is outmoded thinking, applying rules where none exist. One persons work of art is another's piece of junk ... this is the way of it... just accept it and develop your own style but at least be open mided to accept others who chose to explore the art form in a different manner!

Even with film there are parameters which can be affected in the post processing phase to acheive different desired creative results. Is this any different to using photoshop ? You are kidding yourself if you think pro photgraphers are not already well into using digital post processing techniques ... it used to be an air brush but it is now it is the clone stamp.

Skills like composition, use of light, exposure, dept of field, focus still apply to all of us ... but now we also have colour temperature, cloning, dodging, burning, painting, posterising, enhancing, drawing and much more ...

Digital removes many of the boundaries and opens us up to new creative possibilities ... only the narrow minded will attempt to put boundaries on it.

leinsterman

melekalikimaka wrote:

good post mloc, raised some good points, i agree that photoshop is a 'darkroom' for digital cameras. Its part of photography now, i think if it couldnt be done in the dark room, it should be avoided in photoshop

Of course if this is how you believe things should be done then it is right for you ... and I'm sure you will achieve great results in this manner ... but I hope you are not trying suggest this should be applied to the art form that is digital photography. If you are then -

This is the kind of thinking that, if we applied across everything, we would still be living in caves or burning witches at the stake.

Not for me !!