Extreme Photoshopping

[Stan Rose]

OK--i'll take the hate mail since noone else seems to want it!

First off, I started in digital so i fully understand the temptations of it and have definitely been guilty
of overdoing at times. It's a constant struggle which requires a recognition of the problem and a conscious effort to limit it. What troubles me is the recognition is not there. This is not just limited to Stromtrack--it is the whole art/journalistic world where the digital revolution has come too fast for people to rationally process.

Example: Even in National Geographic i saw a photo recently with blue snow. Now, i know some snow looks blue in certain lighting. But, this was not one of those cases. It was FRIGGIN BLUE snow! very pure, unadulterated COBALT BLUE! Now, i ask myself: How does a photo of blue snow get into national geographic? Have i completely lost my mind so i am the only one who sees this as fake looking?
Another Example: An exhibit of Art Wolfe, where the images are hugely oversaturated. These images were shot in film mind you, but the end product (upon post-processing) is hugely oversaturated. To my tastes only? Perhaps--but every long-time photographer i've met who lugs tons of equipment and huge 4X5s into the field absolutely detests digital, because they see what it has done to people's tastes and perception.

Ansel Adams has been bounced about in this topic, so lets get real for one minute. Adams, EARNED the right to process in the darkroom. He was GOOD, for one thing, and he spent many HOURS, for another.
He did NOT run out and buy a digital megapixel camera, spend 10 minutes learning photoshop, and 10 seconds processing the image. To compare the two scenarios is ridiculous. These people are in denial.
Even the very best photographer here doesn't have the right to compare themself.

As far as im concerned, there is a difference between say, using a digital blend technique to arrive at a graduated-ND effect (perfectly legit) and boosting the saturation and contrast to the nth degree. The former arrives at an image that is natural, the latter unatural. If it's art, then SAY IT IS ART, and don't post in storm reports. Put it in an art website if need be. I just don't want to look at a photo of a storm and not know whether it looked like that or really did not. Don't dodge and burn some mammatus shot to death and claim that's the way it really appeared. It didn't--you are deluding yourself and everyone else!

It is true that this kind of debate will always go on with every new stylistic trend and new technology. Guess i'm just in the minority. sigh....well please be courteous in your hate mail anyhow. I didn't name names.

 

[Greg Campbell]

A small add-on to Stan's post. (No letterbomb enclosed!)

(Edit: Doh! Darren has already said much of this. Sry.)
Adams NEVER ran around grabbing roadkill shots, counting on darkroom technique to rescue him. He spent a great deal of of time and effort (pre)visualizing the scene, working out how he wanted to map the available luminance values onto the film, and how the resulting negative would be adjusted during printing. Post processing was an inherent part of his visualization process, not an ad-hoc attempt to tart up a 'crappy snapshot. His techniques still apply with digital, and I'd suggest that anyone serious about taking good pictures give his book, 'The Negative,' a read. ('The Camera,' another book in his trilogy, is also digital friendly. 'The Print' is less relevent today, but still informative.)

I see PS as an just another tool, one that is absolutely essential, given my 'workflow.' Scanning slides, I get all the shortcomings of film, AND scanner issues to overcome: Loss of shadow detail, wacky color balance, electronic noise, negative dust and scratches, film grain, etc. None of these are (usualy) desirable, and it takes me up to an hour to tweak an image to the point that it matches the film sitting on the light table. (And the negative itself is full of 'errors.') Without PS (and Neatimage) I'd have no way to alleviate the effects of my equipment's technical limitations. Am I a 'photoshopper?' Hell yes! Anyone who passively accepts the output (whatever the format) of their imaging equipment as 'real' is just fooling themself.

HDR is more of the same, and parallels early Zone technique. (See Ryan's verycool pics in the HDR thread.) It's all about overcoming the tehnical limits of whatever tools you have, and controlling how 'reality' is recorded.


-Greg

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

OK--i'll take the hate mail since noone else seems to want it! [/b]

Hopefully you won't get any, but hey, let's face it -- you're probably gonna mash a few toes with a post like this.

First off, I started in digital so i fully understand the temptations of it and have definitely been guilty
of overdoing at times. It's a constant struggle which requires a recognition of the problem and a conscious effort to limit it. What troubles me is the recognition is not there. This is not just limited to Stromtrack--it is the whole art/journalistic world where the digital revolution has come too fast for people to rationally process.[/b]

Well, I think it's good that you recognize that if digital post processing is a problem, then it's a problem that exists across the entire professional photographic community. The difficulty with your position is that it pits you against the entirety of professional journalists and those who publish the work of professional artistic photographers. This doesn't mean you are neccesarily wrong, only that if you are correct, then Time, Newsweek, the AP, Reuters, AFP, US News, National Geographic -- everyone in the entire news industry and everyone who shoots photographs professionally -- is wrong.

Example: Even in National Geographic i saw a photo recently with blue snow. Now, i know some snow looks blue in certain lighting. But, this was not one of those cases. It was FRIGGIN BLUE snow! very pure, unadulterated COBALT BLUE! Now, i ask myself: How does a photo of blue snow get into national geographic? Have i completely lost my mind so i am the only one who sees this as fake looking? [/b]

I dunno -- since you don't have access to the original slides (Nat Geo shoots slides for the most part), you have no way of knowing how the snow came out on the slide itself. When you shoot film, it's very common to have a blue response curve in daylight shadows. Well exposed snow on a cloudless day will mimic this blue in shadows. (The sky is blue. Film picks this up in reflections and refractions. Our brains process this out. My guess is that, if anything, the Nat Geo photographer refused to desaturate the snow, which is what normally has to be done when snow is in shadow.) But I can't really know either, without looking at it. Personally, since Nat Geo has a very sterling reputation that spans more years than you've been alive and has housed more fameous photographers than you or I will ever meet, it's going to take a lot more than a 'that looks weird to me' to convince me that they're monkeying around too much with their photos.

Another Example: An exhibit of Art Wolfe, where the images are hugely oversaturated. These images were shot in film mind you, but the end product (upon post-processing) is hugely oversaturated. To my tastes only? Perhaps--but every long-time photographer i've met who lugs tons of equipment and huge 4X5s into the field absolutely detests digital, because they see what it has done to people's tastes and perception.[/b]

That's called the dinosaur syndrome. I'm guessing there was a similar outcry when color film became widespread. Art has never been a static target. How many years did it take to go from Impressionism to Cubism to whatever the hell it is people call today's stuff? Artists love to whine about how everyone today is doing it wrong.

Ansel Adams has been bounced about in this topic, so lets get real for one minute. Adams, EARNED the right to process in the darkroom. He was GOOD, for one thing, and he spent many HOURS, for another.
He did NOT run out and buy a digital megapixel camera, spend 10 minutes learning photoshop, and 10 seconds processing the image. To compare the two scenarios is ridiculous. These people are in denial.
Even the very best photographer here doesn't have the right to compare themself.[/b]

This is a bit of a silly argument; I've never been to a University where the darkroom had a big sign over it that said "ENTER THIS ROOM ONLY IF YOU ARE AS GOOD AS ANSEL ADAMS". People of all skill levels process images, just as people of all skill leves take photographs. Time is not a factor, either; if Ansel Adams had created his dodging and toning masterworks in five minutes, would it have diminished his final product any? Would he be any less fameous? You are similarly assuming that those who use Photoshop are unskilled and that the work they do is hamfisted, simple, and without nuance. I suspect that this is because you don't have much experience with digital post processing, at least not much professional experience, because this is not the sort of argument that an informed person would make. Most of the photographs that I tone for the newspaper that I work for end up having ten or twenty adjustment masks applied to them. I can do that in five or ten minutes, but only because I've processed between 75,000-100,000 images since I started working there a few years ago and have become proficient and fast. I spend significantly longer on my own photos, though I can still usually get it done in under 20 minutes per image. What I do with photoshop is just a different expression of what I do in a darkroom (though it's been years since I've masked off my bathroom and fired up the ol' Beseler). I understand both processes very well. Do you?

As far as im concerned, there is a difference between say, using a digital blend technique to arrive at a graduated-ND effect (perfectly legit) and boosting the saturation and contrast to the nth degree. [/b]

You are switching between attacking the methodology and the end product. To take stabs at the end product makes sense -- if a photo is 'overcooked', then it's overcooked, whether that's done in the darkroom or on the computer. The problem is that 'overcooked' is a subjective term. It involves your personal feelings; it's a bit like obscenity -- you know it when you see it. However, your idea of overcooked may not coincide with what others consider overcooked. Apparently your idea of overcooked does not coincide with what modern professional publications consider overcooked. To turn your own argument around on you, don't you think those people have 'earned' the right to make the distinction about how much is too much? National Geographic has been in print for more than a hundred years.

The former arrives at an image that is natural, the latter unatural. If it's art, then SAY IT IS ART, and don't post in storm reports. Put it in an art website if need be. I just don't want to look at a photo of a storm and not know whether it looked like that or really did not. Don't dodge and burn some mammatus shot to death and claim that's the way it really appeared. It didn't--you are deluding yourself and everyone else![/b]

I completely agree with you here -- I think it's important (at least for me) to let people know when what I'm displaying looks nothing like what I saw, at least in the context of something like Stormtrack. The problem is that most of the stuff you see posted to Stormtrack looks nothing like reality. Foregrounds aren't really black, lightning doesn't really strike five times a second across a blurry cloud, the sky isn't really a washed out, white feature. These unnrealities are caused by limitations of camera equipment or limitations in photographer's craft or, in the case of the lightning, a good photographer using artistic licence. But people accept these unrealities as being okay because, lets face it, in the age of the Win-Dixie processing labs and disposable cameras, the bar for amateur photography isn't that high anymore, and we're all used to seeing blown skies and dark grounds. When was the last time you saw a photographer here say "The forground in the photo I posted is dark and the clouds are overexposed; it wasn't the way in reality, I just don't own any gradiated filters or know how to bracket"?

What it boils down to is that a lot of what some would consider to be overprocessed here is actually going places and doing things and winding up in some fairly large publications that most photographers would murder to be in, whereas the demand for photos of the white skies with the grey clouds and the hazy, underexposed forgrounds is far less. As an artist, I suppose I could go 'purist' and then sit around griping that nobody understands the moral and ethical rammifactions of the limitations that I place on my work... or I could do what I know is right in my heart and wind up with images that reflect what I want them to reflect and actually look pretty good, to boot. It's not a tough choice for me, and honestly, I have a feeling that those who disagree are in the processes of making themselves irrelevant to the craft, anyway.

It is true that this kind of debate will always go on with every new stylistic trend and new technology. Guess i'm just in the minority. sigh....well please be courteous in your hate mail anyhow. I didn't name names.
[/b]

Hey, no hurt feelings here!

 

[Mike Peregrine]

At what point did Stormtrack report threads incorporate rules that govern the tastes of those posting photos? Maybe we should have two report threads ... one for "realism" only and one for everyone else. While we're at it we should ban vidcaps, and anything that is out-of-focus or poorly exposed because I find nothing about any of these that have any basis in reality whatsoever. Exactly what is supposed to constitute reality here anyway? Which film best defines it? Print or slide? Which developer processes reality? How do they do it? Which darkroom techniques are allowed within the limits of realistic imagery and which ones should be thrown out? Which lenses best encompass the reality of the scene? Are panoramas acceptable? Or should we stick with 50mm? At what point does it become unacceptable to allow technology to help the photographer define their view? Is it at the transition that was made from Kodachrome to Ektachrome? From B&W to color? Where should we draw the lines that everyone will be most satisfied with?

 

[Greg Campbell]

At what point did Stormtrack report threads incorporate rules that govern the tastes of those posting photos? Maybe we should have two report threads ... one for realism only and one for the art of photography. While we're at it we should ban vidcaps, and anything that is out-of-focus or poorly exposed because I find nothing about any of these that have any basis in reality whatsoever.
[/b]

Where did this come from??? :mellow:

Exactly what is supposed to constitute reality here anyway?[/b]

'What's "Reality"?'
LOL! Better ask your local deity, guru, philospoher, god, wise master, Yoda, whoever....
You sure won't find the answer on a weather weenie forum!

- He who knows that he doesn't know, but doesn't know what he doesn't know.

 

[Stan Rose]

Apparently your idea of overcooked does not coincide with what modern professional publications consider overcooked.[/b]

Exactly, that is all that i'm saying! And thanks for your response, i appreciate hearing an opposing view.
I simply think the photographic world is in denial over what it is they are putting out. They are blinded by the desire to feed the ever-growing lust for more 'powerful' 'dramatic' shots. This is an exponentially growing phenomena, analogous in some respects to the ever-growing desire to be the closest to the big tornado and capture the most dramatic video. Digital has made this possible in all the artistic fields. Take music--the explosion of home recording and independent releases allows for unlimited music avaliable to everyone. There are certainly good consequences of this, since noone is left out. But there's no longer a means to weed out the good from the bad. And it's hard to 'compare notes' since everyone has their own personalized individualistic art/music to indulge in. Apparently the market doesn't have a problem with this. I do.

 

[Evan Stubbart]

Jeff,

I'm still laughing at your post... I have photoshop and use it a bit. I wish I knew how to use it better though, like some of you all. Sometimes what you see and what you get out of your camera aren't even close, and that's when I'd love to know how to use photoshop... To each their own... I'm still laughing... :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[MatthewCarman]

I mean no offence to anyone in my post. I understand some photo-proccessing may be required but to change a picture like adding differint things or removing things or changing the colors I think is wrong.

I have to agree with susan strom here. I would never change any of my pictures. My reason is this if I alterd or changed a picture it would not be my picture anymore. The picture I took has been alterd and is not the same. To me it would seem fake. If I spend hours getting pictures with my camera then I would not feel right altering them when I know this is not the pictures I took. These may look better but I realy dont care if my pictures look asome or bad as long as they remind me of the day/chase and I know I have something to show for it. Also susan Strom has some beutifull pictures that are probibly better then a photo-proccessed one (Any photo-proccessed picture) and real. I understand if the picture is not how you saw it in real life (The colors of a storm differint etc) but we will never actually beable to show what we saw in real life on a picture. Example I may show a picture of a tornado but it would not be the same looking at it in a photograph as it would in real life. I see the badlands on tv and it is not the same as when I went to SD and saw them with my own eyes. Also on tv it does not look as real as it did with my own eyes and nethier would a picture. (A Picture may come close)We will never beable to get a picture perfect or how we saw it in real life so trying to do so is a waste of time in my eyes. If you spend the time that you would use to photo-proccess to go out and instead take more pictures like a tree or the sun or a flower etc you would know you worked hard for the picture and earned. It is beutifful because you took it and saw it with your own eyes not because you photo-proccessed it. I am not to good with words but I wanted to add my point of view. -MatthewCarman.

PS. Nick please calm down this thread is not worth getting upset over.

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

I mean no offence to anyone in my post. I understand some photo-proccessing may be required but to change a picture like adding differint things or removing things or changing the colors I think is wrong. [/b]

Hi, Matt! I have no problem with this position, but then your third suggestion, that changing colors is wrong, runs up into a problem: what 'color profile' is right? For example, when shooting slides, there is an enormous difference between color profiles when shooting Provia and Velvia. Or, when using film, there's a big difference between Reala and Portra. Which is 'right'? If we are going to subscribe to this idea, it seems that all photographers will need to agree on a film that renders color 'right' and stop using all the others. Personally, I vote for Velvia, though I'll probably annoy a lot of portrait photographers.

Of course, that's a weird idea, but it highlights a point. What it boils down to is that for some reason, some photographers get the impression that anything that they do to alter the image *before* processing is all fine and dandy (filters, films, long exposure, fill-flash, reflectors), but anything that they do after the shutter has been released (darkroom work like dodging and burning, push processing, chemical color shifting, or digital work like layer masking, levels, curves, and LAB color compression) must be wrong. Why? I don't know. While it doesn't apply in all instances, I don't think that most of those photographers have really developed a coherant philisophical position on the issue because they haven't thought through just what photography is and what they're trying to do with it.

I would never change any of my pictures. My reason is this: if I altered or changed a picture it would not be my picture anymore. [/b]

Who's would it be? Would it be mine? I could use more pictures! Really, I don't know what you mean -- if you alter your own picture, it's still your picture, it's just altered from how it came out of the camera. If you're shooting digital, that may mean something. If you're shooting print film, well, then just the act of making prints at Walgreens from your film is altering what came out of your camera. I think what you're getting at is that it just won't be 'real' anymore -- it won't be your 'picture' anymore, it'll always be that picture that you took and then changed.

Also susan Strom has some beutifull pictures that are probably better then a photo-proccessed one (Any photo-proccessed picture) and real. [/b]

I agree, Susan has some spectacular work! As someone who has tried and failed to get good lightning photos, I have a really deep respect for what she can do. But I don't think that how good her photos are have anything to do with the fact that she doesn't post-process -- she's just a darned good photographer. I'm sure if she post-processed her photos, she'd still be a darned good photographer.

I understand if the picture is not how you saw it in real life (The colors of a storm differint etc) but we will never actually be able to show what we saw in real life on a picture.[/b]

The crazy thing is though, while you may say such a thing, there are others out there who are doing a fairly good job of bringing their photos closer to reality. The "it can't be done" argument doesn't seem very convincing when there are plenty of people out there doing it. Granted, one will never get their photograph to look *exactly* like reality -- and honestly, to attempt that opens a whole new can of philisophical worms, as such things assume that we all experience reality exactly the same, which I suspect is not the case. But I see no harm in trying to get closer in places where it's obvious that you're far away, and neither do most professional photographers. They'd be out of a job if they didn't.

PS. Nick please calm down this thread is not worth getting upset over.
[/b]

No worries, Matt! I appreciate your ideas on this -- for the most part, I think this has been a pretty civil discussion. There's really no reason to get angry at anything that's said here -- as photographers, I'm sure we'll all continue to go along with our craft in whatever way we feel is right.

 

[Stan Rose]

While it doesn't apply in all instances, I don't think that most of those photographers have really developed a coherant philisophical position on the issue because they haven't thought through just what photography is and what they're trying to do with it.
as photographers, I'm sure we'll all continue to go along with our craft in whatever way we feel is right.
[/b]

What do you think should be the purpose of posting photos on Stormtrack, though?
Should it be to accurately convey what a storm looked like, to document and share with others who weren't privleged to see that storm from that vantage point?
Should it be simply to take pride in one's craft and share one's 'artistic' vision of a storm?
Should it be to compete to see who takes the best photo?
A combination perhaps?
I'm not saying there is a correct or incorrect response, but would be curious to hear your take-S

 

[Mike Peregrine]

What do you think should be the purpose of posting photos on Stormtrack, though?
Should it be to accurately convey what a storm looked like, to document and share with others who weren't privleged to see that storm from that vantage point?
Should it be simply to take pride in one's craft and share one's 'artistic' vision of a storm?
Should it be to compete to see who takes the best photo?
A combination perhaps?
I'm not saying there is a correct or incorrect response, but would be curious to hear your take-S
[/b]

My vote would be for combination of all of the above, except maybe for the competition angle. And even the competition angle can be good and encourage growth to an extent, so long as we don't allow it to corrupt our viewpoints of each other - and the respect that each person naturally owes others. Stormtrack is not a scientific site, though it has strong roots in science - it is neither a site geared toward the media and journalism, though many in the media utilize it. At the same time, it is also not a site that cators to artists, though plenty of artists also use it. It is a hybrid of all of these, as are many of the people who use it. This question is philosophical ... and also behind many of the problems between individuals using the site in the past being able to 'relate' to each other ... so it will probably take the discussion across an entirely new branch of the tree.

 

[Mike Peregrine]

My mom just had an interesting point as I discussed this with her on the phone. She paints as a hobby and has been an amateur artist most of her life. She mentioned that there are many artists out there who have developed the style of photorealism - and who many in the art community have similarly rejected with the claim that their work isn't an effort at true art (or a representation of the artist's thoughts and feelings). The ones who have a problem with it say that these artists should just take a picture instead. I just thought it was funny, anyway ... an interesting flip on our conversation here. Just illustrates that this is more an issue with perception and relating to others than anything.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Taking a photograph involves several discrete steps, one of which is the actual recording of the image onto the film/sensor by projecting it through the lens. Before that, you have composition, focusing, aperture adjustment, shutter speed adjustment, and lens length and type to choose from. After that, you have the developing process and printing process for film, and in the case of digital imagery, post-processing adjustments.

While all of these steps are equally instrumental in creating the final image, I find it interesting that the act of recording the image to the sensor or film is elevated above all other steps as a 'sacred' event that cannot be tampered with once it has been done.

It's almost like giving yourself a photography handicap. Just think if the same 'sacredness' was applied to the other 'steps' in the process - then changing anything after them would be the abominable sin. Once you pick a lens, you have to shoot with that the rest of your chase day. Once you pick an aperture setting, you have to use that for the rest of the year.

Not agreeing or disagreeing with anything here, just thinking out loud. Recording the image onto the film/sensor is just one step in the picture taking process. Why is it given so much weight in its finality?

 

[Stan Rose]

Taking a photograph involves several discrete steps, one of which is the actual recording of the image onto the film/sensor by projecting it through the lens. Before that, you have composition, focusing, aperture adjustment, shutter speed adjustment, and lens length and type to choose from. After that, you have the developing process and printing process for film, and in the case of digital imagery, post-processing adjustments.

Not agreeing or disagreeing with anything here, just thinking out loud. Recording the image onto the film/sensor is just one step in the picture taking process. Why is it given so much weight in its finality?
[/b]

Umm...cause without that step you have no picture. not true of the other steps, so they are not "equally important".

My mom just had an interesting point as I discussed this with her on the phone. She paints as a hobby and has been an amateur artist most of her life. She mentioned that there are many artists out there who have developed the style of photorealism - and who many in the art community have similarly rejected with the claim that their work isn't an effort at true art (or a representation of the artist's thoughts and feelings). The ones who have a problem with it say that these artists should just take a picture instead. I just thought it was funny, anyway ... an interesting flip on our conversation here. Just illustrates that this is more an issue with perception and relating to others than anything.
[/b]

I totally agree, Mike! It's just that my opinion and perception are way more important than anyone elses! :lol:
Seriously, this is a good discussion--hearing the different perspectives has already made me more
open to them.

 

[Mike Peregrine]

Umm...cause without that step you have no picture. not true of the other steps, so they are not "equally important". [/b]

Hmmmm .... really?

I'd like to see some examples where you avoided the other steps but actually have a photograph to show for it.

I totally agree, Mike! It's just that my opinion and perception are way more important than anyone elses! :lol:
Seriously, this is a good discussion--hearing the different perspectives has already made me more
open to them.
[/b]

Same here, Stan ... I'm glad you are participating as well.