Photo Contest: photoshopping images

[Gary_Yngve]

-No Photoshoped photos except for the Humor category.

 

Can you clarify this point? What are people's opinions in general?

 

Cropping an image? Rotating an image?

Tweaking contrast or saturation?

 

What about an image scanned from a slide?

The slide has much greater dynamic range than a digital image. To what extent can the digital image be enhanced to respect the original slide?

 

Is it ok to Photoshop out dust and scratches from a scanned image?

Is it ok to Photoshop out a powerline or tree branch for better composition?

 

What about photoshop tricks that are equivalent to film tricks using filters (ND filter or split filter) or to darkroom magic (dodge and burn)?

 

What about the old super-large moon double-exposure film trick? If I were to digitally and undetectably insert a moon into a shot?

 

I understand that there's much concern about journalistic integrity of an image. But a good photo is a work of art, and art has no rules.

[olyclimber]

my take: it is illegal if you can't get away with it. If you can trick everyone, then I guess it is permissible. I don't think its anything to get to anal over...it a CC.com photo contest, not the Miss America Pageant.

[Gary_Yngve]

Many of the pictures I have posted on this site went through Photoshop, most for cropping and saturation, but some more, such as a digital split filter. A few have had more significant alterations for composition or have been a montage of multiple images.

 

Is it ok to Photoshop out a powerline or tree branch for better composition?

 

As long as there's no journalistic integrity at stake (e.g. someone posting a de-powerlined image of climbing at The Bluffs and claiming that shot is in wilderness), I think it's ok.

 

What about photoshop tricks that are equivalent to film tricks using filters (ND filter or split filter) or to darkroom magic (dodge and burn)?

 

I think techniques to reproduce these effects are completely legit, and as a graphics researcher, I enjoy dabbling with them.

 

What about the old super-large moon double-exposure film trick? If I were to digitally and undetectably insert a moon into a shot?

 

For me, I relish the surpise of a well-placed moon. I clearly don't get that same experience when faking it. I wouldn't add it to one of my shots because it would conflict with my memory. The exception would be if I were whoring the shot for money.

[Gary_Yngve]

If you can trick everyone, then I guess it is permissible.

 

But should I feel dirty about it?

 

(I'm not sure if I'll enter anyway -- most of the images I'd contribute are already posted here, the prizes honestly aren't that enticing to me right now, and by not entering, I'll be able to say that my images could have won if they were entered )

[olyclimber]

do what ever floats your boat Gary

[knotzen]

If you can trick everyone, then I guess it is permissible.

 

But should I feel dirty about it?

 

We will respect you in the morning, don't worry.

[Winter]

Gary you're banned from the contest because you're a habitual photoshop addict. Move on.

[TrogdortheBurninator]

my take: it is illegal if you can't get away with it. If you can trick everyone, then I guess it is permissible. I don't think its anything to get to anal over...it a CC.com photo contest, not the Miss America Pageant.

 

Are suggesting a future Miss Cascade Climber Contest might be in the works? I cant wait.

[wfinley]

Glad someone started this thread - I was holding my tongue. I always shoot slides and then scan the slides. Colors, dust etc change the image so I fix it. Conventional wisdom calls this photoshopping.

 

When a person takes a digital image he/she can do anything to the raw image (have you seen Apple's latest toy "Apeture"?) -- yet since it's a raw image it's not considered photoshopping. Where's the line? If I take a color slide and it looks better B&W is it considered manipulation? How is that different from Joe Digital changing his images to sepia after he takes a few?

 

I think it's time we stopped looking at digital photo manipulation as a detriment to 'artistic' integrity. Photoshop and digital manipulation is here to stay and is no different than manipulatiing a negative in a darkroom (like, for example, the Cottingley Fairy photos).

 

</rant>

 

That said... I have some killer pics of me on a portaledge with Paris Hilton - however The Star has already agreed to buy them so I can't post em here.

[tomtom]

Paris Hilton? Ugh.

[jon]

What about the old super-large moon double-exposure film trick? If I were to digitally and undetectably insert a moon into a shot?

 

I think this is really what I intended by saying no photoshoping. Digital darkroom work is now the standard. I guess a lot of it depends on what photography is to you. There are artists and photographers that don't have a problem doing this kind of stuff. Personally I see photography as an interpretation (artistic or not) of what is there, not what isn't.

[BillA]

it a CC.com photo contest, not the Miss America Pageant.

 

I know for a fact most of those Miss America photos are airbrushed/photoshopped. Word.

[marylou]

Personally, I see a big difference between hopping up the contrast or saturation to replicate what you saw that day and removing objects or rearranging things.

 

Gary, let your conscience be your guide!

[Distel32]

word, brightness/contrast etc

 

but removing objects etc......?

 

Art Wolffe anyone?

[olyclimber]

word, brightness/contrast etc

 

but removing objects etc......?

 

Art Wolffe anyone?

 

 

what about adding objects?

 

[Distel32]

solid gold

[Gary_Yngve]

word, brightness/contrast etc

 

but removing objects etc......?

 

 

You take a pic of a group of friends, and darn it, one of them has their eyes closed. You take another pic and someone else has their eyes closed instead. You merge the pics so everyone has their eyes open.

 

You take a pic, except darn it, a bug flew in front of the camera. You remove the bug.

 

You take a pic of a reflecting pond, except there is a small branch in the middle that distract from the composition. Do you wade into the middle, remove the offending object, and wait for the water to settle, or digitally alter it later?

 

You take a picture with some birds flying in the air. You take two pictures in rapid succession, but it turns out the picture you really wanted for best composition was one timed in the middle. You digitally alter the image to reproduce that timing.

 

Which of these do you disagree with?

 

None of them violate my notion of interpreting the scene I was experiencing. But I also don't sell my photos for money.

[Distel32]

all of them

 

except remove the twig, then take the picture.

 

but it is only my opinion, and if people do it and can say they still took that exact picture, then that is their problem.

[griz]

there is nothing wrong with doing any of that "in the name of art".

 

However, when you do that then ALL of your images lack any kind of credibilty. In my view, the great challenge and art to photography is capturing a great moment that actually happened. there is no real talent or skill involved by going back in and combining images to make the one you did not have the ability to capture when it counted. gross photo manipulation is a real plague and it sadly throws doubt on all photographs taken these days. A photographer's ethics is all we have left this day and age when looking at images since manipulation is so easy.

 

If you miss "the shot" then you missed it. Life's a bitch and learn from it. Having integrity in your photographs is far more important in the long run than a missed/blown shot here and there.

 

 

 

Edited December 1, 2005 by griz

[Distel32]

werd to griz, well put

 

especially when it comes to nature/animals pictures. skill and luck. not picture and "re-picture"

[chris_w]

I think that any adjustments that you can do with film and a darkroom would be ok. Contrast, black and white and cropping. If you are adding or removing anything (except cropping) then you are altering the image. Then it is not the same picture you took. Part of photography is timing and waiting for that shot.

 

The one I have not made a decision is merging shots together into a panorama type picture. I have a couple of shots from alaska that would make good scenery shots.

[knelson]

there is nothing wrong with doing any of that "in the name of art".

 

However, when you do that then ALL of your images lack any kind of credibilty. In my view, the great challenge and art to photography is capturing a great moment that actually happened. there is no real talent or skill involved by going back in and combining images to make the one you did not have the ability to capture when it counted. gross photo manipulation is a real plague and it sadly throws doubt on all photographs taken these days. A photographer's ethics is all we have left this day and age when looking at images since manipulation is so easy.

 

If you miss "the shot" then you missed it. Life's a bitch and learn from it. Having integrity in your photographs is far more important in the long run than a missed/blown shot here and there.

 

 

 

Very well put. Timing, timing, timing.

 

Regarding Chris' comment about merging panoramas, my take on it is, for what it's worth, is that's an OK use of digital manipulation. As long as you don't alter what was there, or stretch/resize the shot so that your merge lines merge better. It's nothing you can't do with a straight edge and a sharp exacto in real life, so what's the difference?

 

-kurt

[Gary_Yngve]

The one I have not made a decision is merging shots together into a panorama type picture. I have a couple of shots from alaska that would make good scenery shots.

 

Or you could have carried a high-quality wide-angle/fisheye lense. What's the difference?

[Gary_Yngve]

werd to griz, well put

 

especially when it comes to nature/animals pictures. skill and luck. not picture and "re-picture"

 

And money/equipment.

 

The example I gave was you had a before shot and an after shot, but you really wanted the middle shot (which DID exist). Unfortunately, you dodn't have a powerful camera capable of shooting a burst of 10 frames a second. So you reconstruct the middle shot from the before and after.

[Gary_Yngve]

I find that attitudes of people here inetresting. I wonder how much of it is brainwashing from skilled photographers who are trying to preserve their jobs. I'm getting a definite vibe that digital manipulation is "unfair," just as using pitons once was and using bolts and rock shoes and cams.

 

FOr me, I envision the ultimate camera as the Holodeck. It is capable of capturing a scene in 3D over a period of time. It is still up to the artist to figure out how to project that data into something aesthetic and powerful.

 

The tools at the photographer's disposal now are incredible. Lenses have mathematical models. Want to change the barrel distortion or vignetting? No problem. Motion blur is an accepted film technique (the flowing waterfall shots). How is that different from a multi-perspective photo or a photo compositing multiple points in time (provided they are still representing the photographer's perception of the scene)?