One of the local semi-pro photographers runs a seminar on creating what she refers to as 'painterly pictures of flowers', and she brags that the 'painterly' qualities are all performed in front of the lens. Always polite, I didn't immediately hop up in front of her audience and ask "who the hell cares if you manipulated the image in front of the lens, or behind it?" If it is meant to be reminiscent of a painting, its already a deliberate attempt to transcend the somewhat clinical characteristics of digital photography. I have no problem with that. My question is why it should make the slightest bit of difference to the viewer.

 

If somebody wants to take a picture through a piece of wavy glass, that is fine, but if I cannot tell the difference between a mechanical filter, and a digital one, as a viewer, does it make the slightest difference to me how the effect was obtained?

 

The idea that some sort of mechanical purity is intrinsic to the capture process is not something new in the digital realm. Photoshop and Topaz only exaggerate the significance of aesthetic arguments that have played out over a century and a half of reproductive technology. Grungy photo borders originally became a style when several photographers used a file to increase the size of their enlarger's negative carrier so the viewer could see that they had 'composed in camera' and had not cropped on the photographic easel.

 

Nobody questions the idea that the higher the quality of the capture, the higher the quality of the output. There's some deeper sort of religiosity at work here, that wants to elevate high touch over high tech. Any photographer is welcome to make their capture and processing as difficult as they choose, constraining themselves with as many self-imposed rules as they desire. But does the viewer care?

 

If you see an attractive, stimulating, emotion-generating, and memorable image, does its impact change, based upon your belief as to the form and level of effort required to create the image? Is there something inherently noble in buying a tilt and shift lens, and does software softening represent a loss of integrity?

Yes, some people care, both serious photographers or not. Some prefer the photographic output to be reality as is, or almost as is. It is possible to try to convince them but mostly these efforts will not bring the desired result.

 

There is also one slight aspect of serious Photoshop work: some filters and techniques are more recognizable than others and that might partially ruin the impression for knowledgeable viewers. If I see a frame simulation from Nik Silver Efex, yes, it does diminish my impression, along the "too easy" or "too mechanical" lines.

 

Generally, I don't mind "heavy Photoshop" though. What is expressed matters more.

 

Anna

I like your topic Jay very interesting.

 

I read it just as I finished listening to Roger Scrutons final talk on What is Art.

 

He chose three words that defined what he considered is art (and I realise and apologise for in some way turning your debate into a discussion on what is art) but I think this where it is going.

 

Scruton uses these three words; beauty form and redemption. But he finally says that true art comes from love and fake art comes from delusion.

 

In this sense then however you arrive at your final image it matters not how you got there with these sentiments in mind. In essence Scruton is asking us to step outside of our prejudices in order to appreciate works of "art". If we burden our idea of what is art based on the way it is created then we are missing the point. Though of course the shortcut may be obvious or cumbersome the in camera work more seamless and believable.

 

I think there is a great deal of artistic arrogance going on when it comes to peer group evaluation of photography. This is the barrier to accepting anything that is anyway a shortcut to achieving the same ends. I am guilty of this frequently. The plaintiff cry of "its nice but it was created in photoshop" is I think a regularly held view of traditionalists. HDR was and may still be irksome for some.

 

Recently I made a series of captures of winter fields that in reality looked wonderful but however I worked my machine they failed to recreate what I saw or what I wanted to show. But but combining purposely taken images in photoshop to combine texture with colour I ignited them into pieces that went some way to exciting that same feeling I got while seeing the reality. So what may just have languished on my hard drive came to life by my use of photoshop. That is not to say that as they stood others may not have found them full of beauty form and representing redemption they just grew in stature after my post processing.

 

But then that is photography there are very few images that come directly out of the camera and into print that do not have a degree of post production.

 

Am I missing your point?

I think what you said is completely consistent with my point.

 

There used to be a television advertisement for hair coloring with the tagline "only her hairdresser knows for sure". I enjoy sharing Photos that have spent time in Photomatix, but nobody knows it.

Jay, the add you are referring to is MIss Clairol and very appropriate !!

 

Agree what maters is the end result and not how you got there. It is best to start with the best quality file possible and go from there. Some people have the idea that anything can be fixed after the image is made.

 

Post processing techniques can be taught but not so talent/creativity !!!

Alfred I am not so sure you are right but neither I nor you could ever resolve our disagreement. Talent resides in our nature it is not an intellectual thing so in a sense yes you cannot teach talent we have it or we don't but I suspect most of us have talent we just don't know how to source it or there is too much stuff in the way of it surfacing. This stuff is the voices in our heads telling us we are no good that we are fake that we cannot do this or that. They can be bypassed and no not with a frontal lobotomy but through coaching. There is a interesting book titled Drawing With the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards it dispels the myth that talent does exist in almost all of us or that it can't be taught.

 

So from that creativity is also latent in most of us and I think can be taught. After all I see so many rules and guidelines in Art regarding the use of colour the tools the use of compositional structure etc etc... And creativity is after all the act of making somethin.

 

I was not picking a fight here Alfred just picking you up on a somewhat sweeping statement. But for sure there are some that will never learn.

 

I think you can train your left or right side of the brain, but I do think you are born with a dominant left or a dominant right side of the brain. There are people who think in words, there are people who think in images, and there are people who are doing both. I don't think creativity is latent in the most of us, our brains are not the same. If they were we would all have the same IQ for instance.

I mean it is maybe latent in most of us but not in the same amount.

i sense that we owe it to Jay to stay on topic otherwise I would reply to you Leomie. Maybe the topic of a separate Forum discussion.

I think it is a difference whether you apply vaseline or gossamer on a filter attached to the lens or you try to create a similar effect in postproduction. The outcome of the mechanical means is less predictable and cannot be engineered as in PP. Maybe for some who prefer handcraft the mechanical way is more fun. This implies no judgement on creativity or artistic value. Both methods have their merits to this provided your scenery or picture has the potential to be used for a particular effect at all.

Recently I followed a presentation by Eberhard Schuy http://schuyfotografie.de/fotograf, an advertising and industrial photographer who's principle is (very simplified) to do as much as possible in staging (lighting effects, textures) and avoiding the use of photoshop (except for colours, contrasts etc.). He states that in his field of photography the use of photoshop e.g. to combine elements, lights, filters etc. in a picture is often too obvious and would not accepted by clients.

For this kind of pictures the art is in having an idea how to implement the client's requirements, choosing the appropriate tools like glasses, liquids, wires etc and to make use of the laws of physics and mechanics to achieve the desired result.

Probably, the target audience (final viewer) does not care what means have been used for a picture provided that the picture is convincing per se.

As photographers, who is our target audience?

 

Is it each other, or is it non-photographers?

 

If we have clients, then it's our clients primarily. Otherwise, it's up to us to decide who is our target audience. Or we can show our work this or other way and let chips fall where they may and the audience materialize by itself (or not).

But isn't participation on a site like 1X specifically an attempt to share our work with photographers? I'm not sure how many non-photographers frequent the site, but aren't the 'rules' and conventions for 'merit' coming out of the photographic community? Its photographers trying to impress other photographers.

 

Yes I think photoshop changes a photograph. Maybe ruin is a strong word but as others already commented photoshop does diminish the realism of a photograph. Let me try to explain.

 

For many many years I have treasured this old photograph of my grandmother sitting on her porch on a sunny summer morning. The photograph was accidentally stained by soot some years ago and unfortunately this is the only surviving record of her so I approached some art restorers to get it repaired. Turns out that they mostly use digital techniques these days. What they do is scan the photo, retouch in photoshop and print it back on fresh paper. But it wouldn't be the same thing anymore was my immediate reaction. It was at that moment I realized how much more significant this photograph was than I ever thought and how irreplaceable it was.

 

The unique value of a photograph then is the illusion it provides of seeing into the past. When I look at the photograph of my grandmother the golden sunlight that reflected off her hair as she sat on her favorite chair that morning long ago still somehow seems to be captured in the paper. All it takes to replay the light is to take the photograph out and you are transported back to another moment. An essential ingredient of this effect is the 1:1 correspondence between the reality and what is recorded. Take that away and the experience is diminished. This is why there is value in capturing a photograph without any human hand exerting itself in between. Purely mechanical transformations to the image in this regard do not interfere as much. An unaltered photograph becomes a replica of reality making an impression on the viewer of what was in front of the lens just as convincingly as a reflection off a mirror or a shadow on the ground.

 

Ultimately the question here is - Is the viewer interested in a photograph as a record of reality or is it only the pixels that matter? Is a photograph purely about what is contained within the frame? Or is there a larger frame of reference and meaning within which the photograph exists?

Another example to reflect on is photograms.

 

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photogram

 

A photogram effect could easily be replicated in photoshop. However is it the same as a real photogram? Visually the digital creation may appear to be indistinguishable but a photogram embodies something more than could be achieved using photoshop. Is that "something" of any value? It depends.

If the amount of time an image spent in Photoshop is impossible to determine by looking at an image, then does it make any difference?

 

Does full appreciation of a photographic work require a technical explanation of how it was created?

 

But isn't it possible to get a record of reality as close as possible by using photoshop? I'm currently working on an image of a horse, the image is from an old newspaper. There are stains in it caused by water, and it's torn, there is a hole in it in one of the corners. But it's the only image they have from their horse, they don't have photographs of her. I'm restoring it now as good as possible so they can have a real photograph, it's for saving the only image they have.

 

To some extent, yes, of course. But a lot of serious photographers just submit not caring about rules, conventions or even reading this forum. And most ace photographers on 1X have their photo life elsewhere too and 1X is just one of many sites they are on, not to mention real life engagements, international competitions and what not.

 

For me the answer depends on the genre. Realistically looking landscapes and animals better be real for me. I'd rather not to have a photoshopped lake or blue Canadian geese in realistic settings, both real life examples. Here photography as a record of reality is very important for me. It can be adjusted in Photoshop, sure, even HDR'd, but it still should be a faithful record in its essence, real colors, real objects, real circumstances. At the same time, if a portrait does not look realistic - I don't care, provided people don't try to pass it as reality to police or mass media for defamatory purposes. Even unreal landscapes are fine with me, unless they start looking realistic...

Between 2009 and 2012 I have been digitalising thousands of my slides taken mostly when travelling during the late 1970s to the early 1990s. Any scanning software requires the use of more or less algorithms and filters in order to get a viewable image. In the beginning, I tried to recall how the pictures had looked like when taken, an impossible task of course. One the one hand, colours are often remembered stronger than they actually were, on the other hand, also slides are alterations of reality depending on the chemical composition of film material and lighting conditions under which they are displayed.

So I gave up on the illusion to recreate the past moment when I pressed the shutter. Instead I was taking and processing the scans in the same way as I do with my RAW files today. The scanning and editing softwares (PS or any other) are the tools to produce digital files from slides that have lost their usage over time, no more no less.

 

Khris my answer may surprise you.

 

I would say yes the Photogram as a diffferent value to offer (though maybe not what you had in mind) and I will give one specific example.

 

Years ago when I was doing darkroom work (elementary level b/w) I had photography paper available in the house. I was a working at the time with Developmentally Delayed Adults. The challenges they had to deal with went from from profound to quite moderate skills/abilities they did not possess. Many could not speak or walk...yet all of them were able to do a Photogram.

We gathered leaves and other readily available objects. I had a finished one and could explain what was going to happen. They all uunderstood at different levels.

 

They all arranged their objects on the paper in different ways and they were put on a window ledge facing the sun.....I will never forget their faces when they saw the outcome....for most it was like seeing magic happen.

This group of individuals would not have been able to create those photos in Photoshop - for many reasons.

 

So yes, one of the things a Photogram embodies is that it offers those who can do tasks like pick up and place an object the ability to make their very own photograph.

 

I think all of us have had different life experiences that would alter our perception about your question....or even the general question about Photoshop.....because to one degree or another we rarely take an aerial view to understand our circumstances, and that of others.

 

I don't find fault with this - I just believe it to be part of the human experience.

 

 

I think I would agree in part.

And I agree with Gerry that talent does exist in all of us.

Gerry has talent in the area of painting....btw....I vouch for that.

 

My husband can sit with an empty piece of paper in front of him, get an idea and then put that idea into form using lets say colored watercolor pencils. Much of the end product is original in some way because it came out of this head. He is good at copying also..but that is a different talent.

 

Okay I have talents also, but they are in differrent areas having noting to do with the Arts...Also, yes I often have creative ideas but find it diffficult to put them into practice because I lack the talent. So Photoshop is a blessing for me....because it has the talent to create for me what my mind and soul want to express.

 

Al, the one way those terrible photos can become amazing pieces of art is through the use of composites....and of course now I am talking about photoshop making them come to life not as they were intended.but in a different way. Of course this does not negate your point about a good photography in camera.

 

The extent of what I can do with a pen are doodles. Some are pretty good. :))

 

 

Thomas,

Of all the statements made in this thread - nothing has resonated more fully for me that the one I just paste from your statement.

 

It is not bad or better or worse...it is different....

 

For years now I have been playing with Camera movments of all kinds..and I have never gotten the exact same results twice. I love this as it is like magic. And I can take twenty photos of the same leaf in five mintures and each will be different from the one before...especially blurs...I have not found anything in Photoshop that can create this same experience.

 

Light matters. It changes in seconds...and even on a tripod with exact measurements I cannot get the same photo.

 

This has not changed my love of using Photoshop - but it has given me the first hand experiences of seeing the differences and the benefits of each.

 

The end result remains for me the most important factor no matter how I get there. However, each path has different treasures to offer.

 

Phyllis

15 years experimental darkroom, with all techniques, experimental use of all Cokin filter and others...

Then +-25 years Photoshop, from the first version.

I will never go back to the old techniques, because a lot more possibilities

to obtain the result I want.

There's is none of mine photo who isn't treated with PS, because I'm addicted to PS which make the photo better IMO.

 

The camera can do a lot, so can Photoshop and the 2 combined for a better result, why not?

 

Best, Ben

 

 

Yes, me too Ben terribly addicted; and fortunately it is not harmful to our health. :)

 

Happy Holiday to you,

Phyllis

I have chimed in before on topics related to this one, so no one has to wonder where I stand on things...my work is deliberately shot and assembled in Photoshop. I actually seek to avoid reality or alter it. That is genre specific though. As others have stated here, I think it depends on genre. Landscapes...I appreciate a light touch of post and more "reality" in them. On a side note, and this is probably not a surprise to anyone, I recently got a full time job editing photos for an online home goods site, and the amount of things I have to "fix" in these photos of products, well, I am more convinced that nothing out there is real anymore LOL

what an interesting tread with so many views :-)

 

i once sat down at an exhibition where some of my photos printed on canvas where on display along with many other prints on various format. It was interesting just listening to the various group coming through the exhibit. what fascinated me the most were the type of viewers,

 

From people who had no experience taking photos it was either I like it or I don't like it, it was more a personal feeling i.e. wow moment that influence them or fascination on how it was achieved.

 

From the photographers you got, oh that's photoshop, when in actual fact it was not (the photo being commented on was by a friend of mine where I was present when it was taken) or vice versa they would say it was a real photo but it had been digitally altered by an expert to the point where I even had difficulty in saying where it was altered.

 

Modern technology in the digital realm has blurred the line between what is original and altered. The purist who use to say (and some still do) Digital will never replace film, or inkjet printing will never replace darkroom print are at a point where they may rethink their opinion or continue to believe their version of reality.

 

Whether the photo was achieve with gels, wavy glass, pinhole or Photoshop, who is to be the judge? as the final print result should be what you want it to represent, what you felt at the time of taking the photos to share with he world or your family.

 

To me it matters not how you get to the final print, make it your own and be true to what you want it to represent and convey. this is what make photo's into art as it become an emotion conveying feeling.

 

If you tie yourself to create solely out of the camera, so be it, but in my view the camera is just a part of the equation as it was in the past, the second part was the darkroom which has now been replaced by softwares (LR, PS ...) which in turn makes the processed of past years achievable in matter of minutes, I would have loved to see Ansel Adams views on PS as some of his technical process in the darkroom will drive you mad in trying to duplicate it.

Photographers do approach their viewing differently than non-photographers, just as ceramicists must when they look at someone else's artisanal vases.

 

I went to a Mike Moats seminar a couple years ago, and he showed a series of ethereal looking, abstracted, florals, explaining how these were some of his favorites. Everybody in the room was thinking that these were simple, and elegant images, and would have been happy to make a few like this ourselves. And then he says "this is what sells" and he shows an entirely different portfolio of things he makes, in order to make money. I won't ruin his business by listing the entire set of characteristics he's identified as commercial success factors, but sharpness was at the top of the list. Everybody in the audience understood the point, that for whatever reason, we as photographers had developed a different set of aesthetic tastes than did non photographers.

 

Mike was apparently instrumental in the creation of Topaz' new Glow filter. I've already seen at least 3 photos on 1x that used it. Its kinda neat, I bought it, its fun, but it feels like a gimmick to me--more of a toy, than a tool. But Moats' blog is filled with a lot of nice stuff that I enjoy looking at, created after he spent a lot of time practicing how best to use this extreme tool.

 

I grew up in the darkroom, and take burning, dodging, and contrast control for granted. It makes no sense to not use software--better you than the camera. I've got several favorite images that each took a couple hours in Photoshop, healing out metallic glare, improving perspective on shots taken from impossible positions, and of course, removing unnecessary elements. I don't know that I deliberately set out to do it, but I've got straight shots that look HDRish, and I've got a lot of shots that spent time in Photomatix but most people have t figured it out.

For me, Katrin Eismann is the gold standard for Photoshop enhancement of natural looking photos. Anybody who fails to take advantage of software in the way carefully described in her book is deliberately inhibiting their own creative potential. I recognize that some people don't like computers--that is a really difficult starting point for success at digital photography. http://www.creativedigitaldarkroom.com

 

There is art for uninitiated and there is art for those who've seen it all... Applies more to modern art though

 

Realism and techniques:

 

1. Realism is just one type or genre of photography, as many pointed out.

 

2. Realism is not guaranteed by pure camera work without PS. When taking a picture, selecting untypical scene, staging, and some other manipulations can distort reality easily, consciously or unconsciously. In PS, further cropping, removing some accidental items, expanding dynamic ranges, and even combining elements, can help capture or represent reality in a more convincing manner. It is not the methods we use, but how we use them, or rather how we understand reality, that makes a picture realistic or not.

 

Art and photography:

 

1. To imitate another form of art is not highly artistic. Some people are proud of creating "painterly" quality in photography (as Jay mentioned in the initial post). It can be fun, it can be a technical exercise, but it will not make photography more artistic by itself. Each form of art has its own characteristics and strengths. To imitate others are somewhat silly, especially in the eyes of a painter. Photography has its own merits that painting can never compete, therefore to aim for painterly quality in photography is not something intelligent and admirable.

 

2. When people are against PS, the most valid part behind it is their worry about fake or unnatural results. Some of them have forgotten this valid reason and just gone too far as to blindly reject PS. But for both field work and PS, we should have the same concern: Are we creating something artificial? In PS, we can easily overdo things, but this is not a problem to PS alone. Purely using cameras and lenses can produce unnatural images as well. It is our sense, our taste, and the way we control our tools, that makes our photographic works look natural or not.

 

3. There is also a matter of what we are used to. The Eiffel Tower was considered ugly in the beginning but beautiful today. In photography, let me just mention one example: The perspective lines produced by wider lenses are not natural, but we have accepted them or even started to appreciate them, although some may still look uncomfortable. The same change may happen to certain PS effects.

Objecting to “Photoshop” as degrading “photography” means different things to different people. For some, the objection is mostly about compositing. For others, the objection aims at other graphic arts manipulations. Still others object to various imaging processing that results in images outside of their various comfort zones, often more subjective than we might think. The discussion in this thread so far seems to focus on more than compositing but it is challenging to be specific about just what else might be objectionable. 1X seems to host quite a wide range of photographic images, ranging from those captured with great skill in camera, composition and lighting with limited post processing to those that challenge the edge between photography and other visual art forms.

 

It might help us to ask whether the idea that photographic images might be representational of unaltered reality if not processed with Photoshop might be a false premise. Making a photographic image, film or digital, intrinsically involves abstraction from reality, and the process of making such images provides the opportunity for many artistic decisions and for using many artistic techniques.

• Really, there is no such thing as an unprocessed photographic image. Photons hitting film make chemical changes corresponding to areas of light/dark/color, but you usually can’t see a picture by pulling the undeveloped film out of the camera and looking. Seeing the image typically requires processing the film to a negative and the negative to a positive. Many artistic options during that processing. Photons hitting digital sensors result in electrical impulses that get converted to strings of ones and zeros. Seeing the associated image requires processing the digital data into an image format that can be displayed. Raw files are made visible with embedded jpg images generated using the camera manufacturer’s default settings (users can change some of these). These often look quite different than “reality.” (Take a peek after setting the wrong color temperature, for example). Rather than accept the default decisions of camera makers, many digital photographers generate images from raw source files using the computer as a digital darkroom (Photoshop and other software). Many artistic decisions are possible during such processing. We are comfortable that source files need conversion to images, and we can easily forget this part of the process can involve decisions and abstractions. But some people object to particular types of processing along the way.

 

• The film or digital sensor can only capture part of the scene. The photographer selects the framing to include some things and exclude other things. Reality has more to see above, below, and to each side of the image edges. Selectivity about what to include often requires artistic decisions, and this selectivity is already a type of abstraction. We are comfortable with abstraction to a framed image, which makes it easy to forget that the result is already quite different than “reality.”

 

• “Reality” has three special dimensions plus time, photographic images are two dimensional and static. That requires another level of abstraction. We have many artistic techniques to give an impression of three dimensionality or to give the impression of passing time. We are comfortable with abstraction to a two dimensional image, which makes it easy to forget this is different than “reality.”

 

• “Reality” often has a wider range of brightness than can be captured on a frame of film or in one digital sensor exposure. Conversion to an image requires compromises such as letting shadows go darker or highlights go lighter than in reality, or using HDR and other techniques to compress tones in various parts of the range of brightness. We are comfortable with some of the conventions, but when processing results in appearances different from what we often see with our eyes (harsh HDR, for example), complaints about “Photoshop” begin to arise.

 

• “Reality” often has color, sometimes exceeding what film or digital sensors can capture in one exposure. Photographers perform quite a few manipulations to get the desired result. Filters in front of the lens, adding or removing kinds of light, selecting color space, calibrating against known standards, adjusting color for artistic effect regardless of appearance at time of capture, using specific types of film, adjusting darkroom chemicals, adjusting digital color translations.

 

• Oddly, sharply detailed black and white landscape photographs are often accepted as representative of photography without objectionable “processing,” whether the conversion was done in Photoshop, a wet darkroom, or by other means. But black and white represent another abstraction and is not how most of “reality” looks.

 

Although these points may seem trivial to some, I do think there is some value in examining assumptions and thinking about the fundamentals. My own conclusion is that making photographic images can involve a great many artistic decisions and that some use of post capture processing happens essentially universally (ranging from little to much, and perhaps sometimes "too much" once beyond some subjective threshold).

 

I enjoy a wide range of images produced by a wide range of software techniques. Some go far beyond what I produce (or want to produce) myself. 1x provides many images to appreciate and enjoy, as well as some that I might want to pay less attention to when they are outside of my current comfort/taste zone. But I also recognize that sometimes I learn about photography, art, or myself by paying attention to things outside of my current comfort/taste zone, so no need for me to object to such things being here.

 

Hi!

 

To me photography is an art form in and of itself - the art of taking as perfect a photo in camera as one can get is like painting a master piece on a canvas, if done well it needs no added extras to make it perfect as it is perfect in it's imperfections (one of the first things you learn in art). Like art photography is an imperfect art form, mistakes in lighting and exposure is like that one eyeball you just can't get the same size as the other one you did. It happens and most of the time it does not matter as that is not what is important - what is important is the story, the subject .

 

Getting a great photo requires a very specific set of skills and these are very different from the skills you use in photo shop which are far more like the skill set of a digital artist and while the blending of the two can create picture perfect images they are now a created image of what you saw - it is a work of art. You have chosen the colours and altered the light taken out what you don't think it necessary for the telling of the story you are trying to tell, you have taken the idea that you had in your head of what ought to be and made it real.

 

This more closely resembles more traditional forms of art. A bit like Impressionism, those paintings were the artists impression of a place or a thing rather that an 'exact' painting of it. When you PS a photo to the extent that most do you are not putting a photo out into the world you are putting an digital artwork out into the world. It may have once been a photo but it is no longer that photo the you took, it's essence has changed, the story that it tells has changed.

 

This also apply's to the processing or printing of a film negative - there is simply the process that you has to go through in order to get a print ( a near perfect replica of your negative) and all those things you can do to get an image that better reflects your idea of the reality of the photo.

 

Any-Hoo that is my take on the whole PS thing.