Zo62018A8

I'm not even remotely close to a "Photographer" and I just take pictures with my iPhone to upload to Facebook, etc but I see so many people that use all kinds of filters/editors to change the way the image look. You can take any fat, ugly girl and have her look like a movie star with the right filters. So my point is if a picture is heavily edited like brightening the colors of a bird so make it look nicer is it still considered "Real"?

carlton_fritz

Seems most people think it's real photography. I personally do not like the overly done photos and don't consider a person to be a real photographer if they need software on a computer, like photoshop, to make the image good. I am ok with minor things like cropping or using raw files to bring out all the info in the image.

Zo62018A8

I know a girl in real life and is at best a 5 but if you look at her IG it looks like she should be a movie star.

BadUmp

kind of like women who wear too much make-up, they always keep me at bay because I was afraid to see them first thing in the morning without it . . .

Zo62018A8

I'll take my chances with just the makeup but some of the ways these filters can change a person's looks completely and make an overly obese girl look fit are nuts. That's why if I talk to someone on Plenty of Fish or Facebook dating I wanna meet up for just coffee or something before I waste my money taking them to a fancy place.

Mad*Max

all my pictures posted here are untouched, I do not like computerized enhancements personally, like everything else in life I always prefer "natural"

carlton_fritz

Kind of like going dancing with her and the makeup sweats off and you are left looking for the girl you were dancing with.

carlton_fritz

If mine get touched, it's usually just cropped. Sometimes you just cannot get close enough to the subject for proper framing.

Markm10431

I think it depends.

photoshop/lightroom can enhance a phot and make it speak. a couple of examples:

I think the locomotive looks better B&W than the original snapshot




Here I was going for the storm rolling off the beach




but going toward B&W and filtering everything but the red of the chair makes it more dramatic, IMO


and here just tweaking the exposure brought out more dramatic colors

Nitro-C5

This is a great topic and the the type of discussion that I really hope we would have on this particular section of the forum so thank you for posting!

Here is my take. First you have to really determine what level of modification we are really talking about (and yes some is subjective in nature). You also need to differentiate the terms DEVELOPING from EDITING...and also in what format you are shooting RAW vs. JPEG. What do we consider editing and manipulation of a photo anyway? Is it when you add an additional light (that is not already there), is cropping a form of editing, what about shooting in JPEG where the CAMERA does the developing? So when you start thinking about it there is always sometime of editing, developing, manipulating etc. going.

First of all (as I always) I'm going to tell the truth, though my hope is that people do not get offended by the truth. I hear people say in the Photography Portraiture world all of the time things like "I'm a Natural Light Shooter only, I don't believe in using flash/strobes/additional light etc..." well in 99.99% of the cases the person is saying that because they have no idea HOW to use additional light and make it look good/natural. In the same sense we hear things like "I never edit photos because I want a natural look the way photography used to be back in the day"...well if that is someones stance then they are in a for a big surprise if they do some research. Photo editing has been around since the birth of photography! In fact widely considered the greatest photographer of all time (Ansel Adams) did much more photo manipulation than what most people think. Almost every one of his photos he performed Dodging (lighting the image exposure) and Burning (darkening areas of the photo) and that was 100 years ago.

So what is my person take on this? I have almost exclusively shot RAW format since the digital age and because these images are basically digital negatives they will come out of the camera really flat. The all have to be developed, period. In fact the difference between RAW and JPEG is that in RAW format YOU are developing the image, while in JPEG you are telling the camera to develop them. There is nothing wrong with JPEG I just don't want to give up that creative control to a piece of equipment that has no vested interest in the final product. To this point I develop every photo I take.

Regarding image editing, this is where I think things get really interesting and I will put it in (3) really basic Categories with the understanding there even in among these category there is a lot of range. For me about ~ 50% have a photo journalistic look the other ~50% have enhanced editing (you have to when working with people) and almost never do anything really heavy editing.

1) Photo-journalistic - The goal of the photograph to represent exactly what is there meaning ZERO additional editing (again not talking about Developing). This would be images that we would consider NEWS or Photo journalistic Photos. Meaning you should not be adding or subtracting anything from the photos at all. It is supposed to be the most accurate representation of the scene.

2) Enhancement Editing - Not changing the structure of the image. Only removing items which do NOT change the meaning of the photo but doing so to clean it up. For example working on a Models skin by reducing/minimizing blemishes or maybe a bright orange garbage can that is in the back ground when taking photos of a historical monument...etc...

3) Heavy/Surrealistic Editing - You are changing many aspects of the image. Replacing entire background, doing head swaps, using heavy filters, adding in elements that are not even part of the image etc...

Edit: One other thing I forgot to add is HDR or Image Stacking. The problem with this type of photography is the 99% of the people that use it WAY overdo it and it looks very fake. Again this type of photography has been out a lot longer that people think, its not that new. The reasoning behind using it is that you are trying to actually get the photo to look like what you eye is actually seeing. So in some sense its actually the purest form of photography!!

Zo62018A8

That was very informative to someone who doesn't know anything about real photography. I remember when I was a kid my dad got this huge polaroid camera and it was so cool that the picture came out right then and there.

carlton_fritz

I totally agree. Minor HDR can replicate what the eye sees. This is my fav type of photography, even though I do not do much HDR. Usually I do not have the time to create the image on my computer. That and I am not very good at it yet.

carlton_fritz

The difference being in with film, you can use B&W film and digital just set the camera to B&W.

Pacha's Z06 RF

I'm very much old school, I try to frame what I want before I take the pic and do very little after to make any corrections.

BadUmp

Proper framing i.e. rule of 3rd's; ehhhhh, drives me bonkers when I see what probably would have been a great photo but the picture taker crowded the subject matter. I'll usually try to err to the opposite and crop as needed. Case in point, when I forget and leave the dang date stamp on, arghhhh . . .

99mallett

I think that many enhancements are from the eye of the photographer. I enhance some of my photos to tell the story, but I know that they can be changed to change the story. A quick example is a picture of this old, abandoned bridge that I snapped while we were riding the White Pass train in Alaska recently. The color one doesn't really say old and abandoned like the black & white one does. This adjustment took minutes and was just done in the windows picture viewing app. I could run it through Photoshop/Lightroom and really make it pop.

WICKEDFRC

savewave

For the most part, I consider the kind of photography I do as being documentary. I don't sandwich images together to create something that wasn't there to start with. I do process pictures to try and achieve what I saw when I shot the picture, knowing that the dynamic range of the eye is much greater than the range that might appear in a photograph. I used to "dodge" and "burn" when I was printing film images. Now, I can do that with software. It's easier and I don't smell like chemicals when I'm done.

But I'm not a purist. I know that I can create a starburst effect with lights if I set the camera for it and I do that sometimes. I know I can make photos crisper and improve shadow detail with a fill flash and I don't hesitate to do so. I also use depth of field to achieve effects and don't apologize for it. I use a tripod and long exposures when I shoot fireworks because I like the effect it creates. I like the "milky" effect I get on moving water when I use a ND filter, a tripod and a long exposure. So, yes, I'm not opposed to using equipment and technique to create the photo I want.

Nitro-C5

This is pretty much exactly where I stand on this subject, with a small exception. When shooting extremely high contract subjects (for example an old dark Cathedral with bright light coming through with windows) there is a huge advantage to doing multiple exposures and blending. Our eyes can pick up that dynamic range but even the very best camera sensors still cannot in one just one frame. When I process and image like that I look at it more as though I'm trying to create as my eyes saw the image rather than doing something fake.

There is NO substitution for knowledge and skill. NONE. No piece of fancy equipment is going to train you eye on composition or pick the "perfect" focal length or depth of field. I definitely believe in Tripods, ND Filters, CPL, reflectors, skrim, strobes etc... .... and to your point I'm also not a huge fan of massive image manipulation in post production. If it CAN be done in camera then you should do it in camera, making up for in in Post Production is almost always a mistake IMO.

savewave

I don't often do HDR images, but agree with your assessment that sometimes that is the only way to convey what your eyes see in a situation where there is a broad dynamic range on the light. The software is great on taking a raw image and allowing you to adjust the highlights, mid-tones, whites and blacks, but sometimes it takes multiple exposures that you can blend together to create a natural appearance.