Photography or image manipulation?

[willman 10]

 

This is the sort of daft thing usually said by people who aren't very good at post processing.

Now seeing as I shoot RAW, the images that come out of camera look awful. So should I not do anything with them to show how good a photographer I am?

 

 

 

That's not true at all. I know several professional photographers who teach Photoshop. Yet they all run "real" photography courses where no manipulation is neededor accepted.

 

People are entitled to an opinion it doesn't mean thay are less able than you.

 

I can't post process for toffee - but there's a reason I don't want to try and have resisted it since getting a decent digital SLR.

[willman 10]

I once saw a fantastic "montage" of Machu Pichu in a photo magazine which inspiresd me to try to take better shots and try to visit Machu. Imagine my annoyance when i read the script to find that the picture comprised 3 seperate photos, taken throughout the day and then blended together.

In other words the scene i was seeing never existed.

[willman 10]

A fellow forummer once related a story to me regarding a wedding he was covering. In the church doorway was a static fire extinguisher.

After the wedding he and his partner worked on the "post production", his partner spent some considerable length of time editing and manipulating out the fire extinguisher.When questioned about the extinguisher,he remarked he had simply moved a couple of feet to one side and composed a shot excluding the extinguisher.

 

So who is the better photographer?

[ImpInaBox 10]

IMHO making a crap photograph look better isn't what photographic skill i sall about. It is a skill in it's own right.It's almost like editing a movie, the whole thing may be rubbish but by manipulating it the result is better than the original.

 

In that case it's a skill that all serious photographers need. Sometimes it's only possible to get a crap photograph but you need to have a good finished image. Wedding photography is a case in point where sometimes you just have to grab a shot in the heat of the moment and work it up later - maybe compensate for poor framing or poor exposure, or remove some background distraction that just couldn't be avoided. There's a pic of a welder on my website that just couldn't have been produced without some fairly heavy manipulation of an original raw image. Regardless of whether you like it or how ham-fisted the manipulation was you can't deny it's a photograph and it was one worth going for.

[willman 10]

I'm obviously not a professional - but as an amateur if the picture is not framed or composed to "my" liking or exposed correctly, i just bin it.

Manipulation is not the recreation of the image you saw, it's the creation of the image you want.

 

There's nothing wrong with it, and some people produce exceptional images. It's just not my cup of tea.

[mattsando 10]

I'm a firm believer in 'getting it right in-camera' makes a big difference, but PP is a very large part of being a 'photographer' - those without PP skills are bound to suffer. Just ask a Bride with slightly scarred or dimpled skin if she prefers to have the scarring removed, or left in because PP is cheating...

 

Photography literally means drawing with light.

So any image made by an illuminated light source is photography

 

 

So don't you think photographs are art then?

 

 

With that daft logic, Ansel Adms was not a photographer, but an image manipulator.

 

 

So only Polaroid cameras allowed then?

 

 

This is the sort of daft thing usually said by people who aren't very good at post processing.

Now seeing as I shoot RAW, the images that come out of camera look awful. So should I not do anything with them to show how good a photographer I am?

 

 

Printing/developing/processing the image is as much a part of photography as pressing the shutter. I think it's simply naive to think otherwise.

The only thing that digital has changed is the ease with which one can develop and tweak one's images. 99% of what I do in PS/LR is the same as I did with film/in the darkroom or with slide, only less smelly and to be honest, a heck of lot more complicated and technical in many ways.

 

I agree 100% with all these comments.

 

Ps and Lr have just replaced what was done in the Darkroom by very skilled craftsmen, and made it easier for average-Joe like me!

 

EDIT: Willman, I notice you shoot RAW? Can I ask why?

[waldershelf 10]

I think there are two ways of producing digital photos that sort of compare to the way we used to shoot film. The straight out of camera jpg is like shooting slide film you need to get everything right at the time of pressing the shutter release, composition, exposure etc. That produces an accurate record of the scene.

In contrast shooting raw and creatively post processing produces an image comparable to the hours spent in the dark room making a print that looks like the photographer wants it to look which is not the same as saying it looks like the scene he originally photographed.

I do both, just as I used to when I shot film, there is surely a place for both?

[astraman 10]

My my. What a hornet's nest this has stirred up!

 

Firstly, I merely posed the question in order to create some debate.

 

At no point did I say that post processing was a bad thing, I just stated my own preference.

 

I prefer to get my shots as good as possible straight from the camera simply because I am new to photography and I am learning how to take a good shot.

On a personal level, I feel that relying too heavily on post processing will make me lazy in my attempts to learn about photography.

 

I firmly agree that there is a place for both methods and the two actually go hand in hand.

 

I think one's viewpoint on this subject depends entirely on whether photography is seen as a means of recording events/places/people etc, or as an art form.

Personally, I believe it can be both.

[willman 10]

I'm a firm believer in 'getting it right in-camera' makes a big difference, but PP is a very large part of being a 'photographer' - those without PP skills are bound to suffer. Just ask a Bride with slightly scarred or dimpled skin if she prefers to have the scarring removed, or left in because PP is cheating...

 

 

 

I agree 100% with all these comments.

 

Ps and Lr have just replaced what was done in the Darkroom by very skilled craftsmen, and made it easier for average-Joe like me!

 

EDIT: Willman, I notice you shoot RAW? Can I ask why?

 

 

I tried RAW 'cos the book said to try it.

I didn't see any significant improvement in the images and reverted to L format jpegs.

[jezzyjj 10]

I'm a staunch believer in producing a picture of what you see, not what you want to see.

So no black and photography then?

So do you only use the 50mm lens too [or equivalent] as any other focal length as that is the only one that reproduces what you see.

And only HDR imaging is allowed as only that can capture the dynamic range of what we can see in most scenes.

 

Apart from cropping a few pictures, the most i've done is remove red eye once.

I've never had to remove redeye as I find it best avoided in first place and how is removing that acceptable, as redeye makes an image lookcrap and as you say.

IMHO making a crap photograph look better isn't what photographic skill i sall about. It is a skill in it's own right.It's almost like editing a movie, the whole thing may be rubbish but by manipulating it the result is better than the original.

Oh and editing is how you make a movie, whether editing in the script stages, editing by altering framing, editing by changing planned shots all before you get to the editing studio.

Lots of great photos look crap before editing, very obviously as all RAW shots as they tend to be soft, lacking in colour and contrast, by their very nature. Not to mention that many pictures are shot with post processing involved, so look weak until that is done.

[jezzyjj 10]

That's not true at all. I know several professional photographers who teach Photoshop. Yet they all run "real" photography courses where no manipulation is neededor accepted.

And your point is as it doesn't have anything to do with what I actually said?

 

People are entitled to an opinion it doesn't mean thay are less able than you.

 

I can't post process for toffee - but there's a reason I don't want to try and have resisted it since getting a decent digital SLR.

As I said, people who cannot post process are the ones who complain most about it. So what I said was indeed true about yourself and in fact has been with every other person I've come across who peddles this naive mantra.

[willman 10]

Now you're just being argumentative and pedantic. I can have my opinion, I haven't asked you to justify why you feel the need to edit bad photographs.

 

I actually used redeye to remove it on some old photos of my deceased dog that were taken on a compact if you must know.

The "skill" of photography TO ME is to use the equipment you have to achieve the best image you can.

 

I never said YOU had to agree.