Extreme Photoshopping

[Ericka B. Gray]

I like the questions about what the purpose is of posting photos on ST. I love looking at all the photos - both the more heavily photoshopped ones and the ones that are more, to me, natural looking. ST is a good mix of the scientific and artistic chaser communities - we all love storms and we all love the beauty of them. How each of us sees and experiences them may be different and I hope that we don't have to compete to have the most stunningly "processed" photo in order to feel comfortable posting. As I commented earlier, I see a towards posting of heavier processed photos, which seem to be getting much of the kudos. I wish there were more variety and would encourage those who hesitate to post less processed photos to do so. Computer problems here should allow me to post in the next few days and I welcome your feedback.

Ericka - sadly, back in Boston and not on the plains any more. But, hard at work downloading all the photos I took!

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

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]

Hi, Stan! These are a good set of questions.

I would say that the first question and the second question are not as dicotomous as they would seem; in fact, at least to me, they're inseperable. Conveying a storm accurately is one thing -- doing it artistically, in a way that evokes emotions in the viewer (hopefully comperable to the awe felt while actually there, in this instance) is another, and both of those are things that are very important for what I'm trying (and only rarely succeeding) to do with the photos that I take. For example -- it's no accident when I only let the ground take up 1/5 or less of the frame, as opposed to the usual rule of thirds. I do this because it deemphasizes the ground and emphaszies the sky; it gives some sense of the massive, opressive power of a storm. I didn't decide to try to start shooting with a superwide on a whim, I did it because I was trying to pull in more and more of the sky, the only way that I can find that gives a sense of the true scale of a storm that is either overhead or almost overhead. I try to compose in a way that conveys the awe of what I'm seeing (assuming what I'm seeing is awesome, which it seems that most of the stuff I've seen this year has been.) If it were as simple as trying to convey a storm only accurately, I'd just slap a webcam on top of the roof of my car and work with that. But to get a good photograph, you need to be more than accurate, you need to understand the language of the image, know what you want to say, and say it. (If you don't think images have their own language, I urge you to watch the movie "Koyaanisqatsi", which, next to 2001, is easily my second favorite movie.)

This is where it gets fuzzy, though. Ultimately, we're having a subset of the great argument that artists have been having probably since Ugh, painting a mammoth on the cave wall, looked over at Ooog and noticed that he was painting his mammoths a little differently. What is art? Why is art? Why do certain compositions and colors evoke certain emotions? What should an artist be trying to accomplish?

I can't say that I have concrete answers for all of these. I know what I want to do with the art I'm creating: generally, I want my photos to show something about the world that we live in that people either don't get a chance to often see or just plain don't notice. Specifically for my storm photos, I want them to render what I saw in such a way that the viewer experiences the incredible beauty, power, and scale of a thunderstorm. Not to get too philosophical here, but I see God in a whole lot of things in this world, in everything from mathematical fractals to coffee creamer swirls to the way the water massages its way into rocks. What I'm trying to do with my storm photos is show what I see in storms; I see a small manifestation of a process much larger than I can comprehend at hand, and that small manifestation fills the sky with roiling clouds, blows holes in trees with five mile long plasma channels, and sweeps dust along the prairie. It's awesome -- nobody who's been under a supercell or a squall line will deny that it is -- and that's what I want people to get out of my storm photography.

 

[Stan Rose]

I would say that the first question and the second question are not as dicotomous as they would seem; in fact, at least to me, they're inseperable. Conveying a storm accurately is one thing -- doing it artistically, in a way that evokes emotions in the viewer (hopefully comperable to the awe felt while actually there, in this instance) is another, and both of those are things that are very important for what I'm trying (and only rarely succeeding) to do with the photos that I take. [/b]

Ryan: Thanks for the thoughtful response. I am a bit uneasy about the idea that mixing artistic vision and portraying solid scientific/documentary info can be blended in Stormtrack. I think the problem is that to the photographer/artist, the artistic element will often 'win out' and accuracy will be sacrificed or take a back seat to doing what i have always seen to be what is right for Stormtrack: providing info to storm chasers. I don't want to see a return to what happened a couple years ago when an everything-goes tolerance started lowering this forum to the lowest common denominator (resulting in my lengthy hiatus from this forum).
But as i told Mike P, hearing others (such as you) describe their passion for their work has made me more tolerant. Hopefully, the artists/photographers will be mindful of the audience they are reaching (notice i did not say TRYING to reach) when they make post-processing desicions. As i said before, this is not an art gallery, though i don't have a problem with art and science mixing--forecasting still is quite a bit art after all.
Incidentally, 2001 has long been my favorite movie (probably have seen it 50+ times) largely due to the blend of cinematography and musical score. The Monument Valley scenes heavily influenced my own
artwork, including a photo-essay/book i published a couple years ago.

 

[Glen Romine]

I'd like to add in a few comments that I haven't really seen addressed yet here. First - in the early days of PS image enhancement, individuals were generally inclined to add a disclaimer to images that had been 'digitally enhanced'. That practice seems to have almost completely faded away now. As Mike earlier mentioned - some folks like him are far more skilled in the art of image enhancement such that the final image has a rather natural feel, whereas some rookie attempts reek of adjustments. I wouldn't say that I have a problem with the practice, but would wonder at what point is a disclaimer appropriate.

Second, I personally find that my brain is unsatisfied by some of the extreme dynamic range recovery methods such as HDR. While it can produce a vivid and interesting image - it has a very unworldly feel to me - which I think comes from the unnatural lighting that results from the process. I think my brain just 'knows better' than to accept the composite image like the example that Ryan posted above because the lighting is just so unphysical. I think the concept of recovering some information from the shadows and highlights is well valued - but too me pushing this too far (despite the skill level of the user) yields a distracting element in the image.

Glen

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

Ryan: Thanks for the thoughtful response. I am a bit uneasy about the idea that mixing artistic vision and portraying solid scientific/documentary info can be blended in Stormtrack.[/b]

Ah, but science and documentary are entirely different things. Science doesn't care what a photo looks like; if anything, it's trying to extrapolate some sort of numerical data from the photo and compare that data with the numerical data extracted from other photos. A documentary can be quite artistic, indeed. A documentary takes into account editing methods, composition, flow, narrative, etc. etc. A documentary is art (usually journalistic in nature, unless you get a dishonest documenter). Science is not. I never claimed to be a scientist, and my images are definately not geared towards scientific investigation.

I think the problem is that to the photographer/artist, the artistic element will often 'win out' and accuracy will be sacrificed or take a back seat to doing what i have always seen to be what is right for Stormtrack: providing info to storm chasers.[/b]

Info about what, though? My photos do provide info: what it was like (for me) to be at a certain place at a certain time. A camera, on it's own, will not do this just by pressing the shutter, unless you've put considerable thought into what you do before and what you are planning to do after you press the shutter.

I don't want to see a return to what happened a couple years ago when an everything-goes tolerance started lowering this forum to the lowest common denominator (resulting in my lengthy hiatus from this forum). But as i told Mike P, hearing others (such as you) describe their passion for their work has made me more tolerant. Hopefully, the artists/photographers will be mindful of the audience they are reaching (notice i did not say TRYING to reach) when they make post-processing desicions. As i said before, this is not an art gallery, though i don't have a problem with art and science mixing--forecasting still is quite a bit art after all.[/b]

To the extent that reports threads contain photographs and essays about chases, the reports threads are, at least to me, art galleries. They have some very journalistic limitations placed on them, of course, but I don't see how one could confuse the reports threads with a scientific publication. I wouldn't worry about lowest common denominator problems; I can only speak for myself, but I'm personally very pleased with the quality of work that shows up here on Stormtrack. Seriously -- there are some very talented people here, and I'm not just talking about photography, either.

Incidentally, 2001 has long been my favorite movie (probably have seen it 50+ times) largely due to the blend of cinematography and musical score. The Monument Valley scenes heavily influenced my own
artwork, including a photo-essay/book i published a couple years ago.
[/b]

You know, the funny thing about 2001 is that just about every person I've ever met who says it's their favorite move has, like me, seen it a good 50 times. I love that movie. The cinematography really is excellent, and the story that it tells has so many embedded layers of meaning that you honestly can watch it 50 times and pick up something new with each viewing.

I really encourage you to watch Koyaanisqatsi. Make sure you get the DVD; see it on as large a screen as possible. Koyaanisqatsi also spends a significant amount of time in Monument Valley, and probably does it more justice than 2001 did. Koyaanisqatsi is a movie that requires patience, but if you can sit through 2001 50 times, I'm sure you'll be fine.

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

Second, I personally find that my brain is unsatisfied by some of the extreme dynamic range recovery methods such as HDR. While it can produce a vivid and interesting image - it has a very unworldly feel to me - which I think comes from the unnatural lighting that results from the process. I think my brain just 'knows better' than to accept the composite image like the example that Ryan posted above because the lighting is just so unphysical.
Glen
[/b]

BTW -- just thought I'd reiterate that the photo in the example so many pages back was *not* an HDR image. It all came out of a single RAW file and was acheived by using normal toning methods.

 

[Mike Peregrine]

Just a quick thing to add ... so far with the HDR tests I've been running the color and the light have been remaining absolutely identical to the actual scene. I've been making the effort to run the composite almost immediately after I take the shots. This lets me still have the image in front of me as I run the composite. I can tell you that the skyline composite I took last night was the same as looking out of the window of my automobile. Identical.

Here's what happens, though ... for one, if a person doesn't take the time to make the adjustments correctly for the scene before compositing the photographs, then they can end up with distortion. This isn't conjecture, it's a fact that we've all seen and it is what is making us squirm with some of this stuff.

Second, though, none of us realize how much our brains have been pre-programmed to accept subpar imagery, firmly believing that it excels, when the truth is that it has not been completely truthful with us throughout our lifetimes. What this means is that we have trained our brains to make adjustments in the photographs we see so that we actually get more information than is truthfully there. I know it sounds far-fetched. But think of the difference when the jump was made from B&W to color. B&W photographers HATED it ... they had learned to master black and white. To them it cheapened their profession. And many still prefer B&W (I do, for one) ... but photography nevertheless made a jump. Today we are seeing the same thing. There is going to be an adjustment period as people learn to work with a new medium - during which we can expect to see some weirdness (as we already have) ... this will pass as people become more proficient. But the only way to become more proficient is to just bite the bullet and do it ... we'll have to accept the fact that not every image will live up to everyone's tastes for a while.

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

I've had a few people ask me if the shot of mine that was brought up earlier in the thread was an HDR shot, and if not, how I evened out the exposure over the whole scene. The answer is that it's not an HDR shot, at least not how HDR is typically known; it all came out of a single RAW file, and a RAW file actually contains less exposure data than most print films. Programs like Photomatix can run an algorithm on a single RAW file and call it "HDR", but it's not HDR, it's just an overprocessed RAW file. (Overprocessed by an algorithm, no less!). A true HDR file will capture a wide range of exposure data, which, unless you own a $40,000 medium format digital back, means taking several photos and then combining them with a program like Photoshop's HDR merge or Photomatix.

At any rate, just because it's not HDR doesn't mean that the RAW file doesn't contain a lot of data that isn't immediately visible in the preview window. The best way to get at that data, if you need to, is to convert the RAW file several times, each time for each part of the scene that you want to render correctly. In the instance of the photo referenced before, I basically converted the single RAW file in photoshop several different times at different (simulated) exposure values as 16 bit TIFFs, then composted those TIFFs into on file. The composting is pretty easy; you basically just have to do a "select all" on the TIFF you'd like to overlay over the base image, do a "copy", then "paste" that as a layer over the base image. Then, go to Layer->Layer Mask-> Hide All. Once you do this, you can paint the overlay into the scene where it needs to be. You can also blend it in, if need be, but adjusting the opacity of the layer. Lather, rinse, repeat, until you have an image with an exposure latitude that closer simulates what the eyeball sees.

It's possible to just try to do this with curves without trying to compost different layers of different RAW conversions, but I've found that for whatever reason, even though you're working with 16 bit TIFFs, Photoshop does not embedd all of the 12-bit exposure data into the 16-bit file. You can't recover highlights in a 16-bit TIFF once you've done the conversion -- you have to recover them in the original RAW conversion. So basically, it makes sense sometimes to convert the same RAW file several different times and then compost, because that lets you pull out blown-out sky details. It's a bit more time consuming than just using curves, but I think it looks better.

 

[Rockwell Schrock]

I have used Ryan's method of composting photos countless times in processing my landscape and waterscape shots. It is extremely effective when used correctly, and often quite necessary due to the limited dynamic range of current digital cameras. Back in the days of shooting JPEG, I would actually bracket my shots (hand-held, no less!) and then match up the separate exposures in layers, and then mask out the appropriate parts. That's how I got this shot, which is my most popular by far. Also, this shot, and this recent one. Now I just use the RAW method explained by Ryan, but I still bracket just to be safe.

As for the ethics of image manipulation, I believe that manipulated photos should be labeled as such; if you notice, all my shots say "Image adjusted in PSP 10" or the like, because I feel it's unfair to give any other impression. I always post process my shots primarily because the Nikon D70 is designed with that workflow in mind; it purposely under-exposes and does not capture the most vivid colors in order to provide more latitude later in the workflow.

 

[David Wolfson]

FWIW, here're the rules regarding this in the National Geographic's current photo contest NG photo contest:

• Photos shot with a digital camera must be submitted online at www.worldinfocuscontest.com.

• Color or black-and-white prints.

• 35mm color transparencies. Send duplicates of your slides, not the originals.

• Original transparencies and negatives or high resolution digital files must be available so winners' pictures can be published.

• An image that combines the elements of more than one photograph or has elements removed is not eligible. Minor burning, dodging, and/or color correction is acceptable.[/b]