Editing, purists and the future of Photography.

It's a shame really, as good as Digital cameras are, they still do not see or capture dynamically (as in they do not see or record as the Human eye does), which means our photo's rarely if ever capture a photo as we saw it. It is now a given fact that photo editing must occur (not to all, but to the majority of 'togs) for us to make up this gap between what we saw and what the camera captured.

Before digital photography, film photographers used various techniques or tricks to improve photo's and it was not uncommon then to splice in a good sky to a photo with a poor one. Many of these film techniques where demanded by digital photographers as the digital revolution came along, I guess they wanted to carry on as before. One such technique was Unsharp masking in film days, which first blurred a photo before actually sharpening it, we still have that method today in digital useage...and it's still called "Unsharp Mask" (but actually sharpens!)

I used to be dead set against editing of photo's, why rely of software to remove a piece of litter from a photo when I could walk to the piece of litter and remove it from the scene before actually taking the photo? Why try to remove the person (using software) walking across the scene in a bright yellow jacket when I could simply wait for them to pass? I have been called a "purist" many times over for this way of thinking.

I'm far from being a purist, I wont remove or add things to my photo's but I will lightly edit them to bring out the photo that I saw that day, I do this to make up for the shortfall in digital cameras to what the eyes saw. I embraced and helped develop/beta test HDR software as I believe HDR (High Dynamic Range, [as the eyes see it] ) photography is the future, in fact I believe and look forward too HDR cameras and there are a couple of models on the market already for this.

By the way, I will still walk to remove the piece of litter, or wait for the person in bright yellow jacket to pass by before taking the shot, I wont edit to improve, just edit to give me the photo that I saw and I have my own self imposed rule of "2 editd only" per photo.

But what are your thoughts on editing? How far will you go with it? Are you a purist? Or are you all for the general advance of photography and look forward to the day our cameras can actually see what we do, and then capture it?

Steve...

 

i dont know how too edit so that make me a "what i took is what you get" kinda girl and having seen terry get so frustrated in trying to recreate what he saw rather then what the camera took i think i will just stick at point click Print if i like it

 

Before OCT 2012 when I commenced a brilliant photography course
What came out of the Box Brownie was what Boots the chemist gave me back :-)
OMG there were some 80% horrors

So I bought more and more expensive camera's and the results were the same only in more detailed horror

Now during a photography course, I have left behind the "Snapper" and become a reasonably good "Amateur Tog"

I have not progressed to "developing" yet, so it is important to use the camera manually and try to get what it is you are trying to capture
My main editing is to capture to the right, to brighten things up in the original

Thanks to the photography course (Though the instructor now has grey hair, aged about ten years, and on completion of the course is booking into a Kendal rest home for therapy) :-)

Jack McH

 

My photography ideal is pretty much as SteveR's, so I presume I come into the purist slot. Apart from as he says moving that piece of litter etc. I don't make any adjustments to my pictures and accept them as they are. I like the idea of HDR though.

Up until now I haven't considered photography as a hobby, my pictures have been more through necessity than pleasure. I must admit though that the camera has found it's way out with me more and more often recently. On the demise of my pocket camera eighteen months ago, my dear husband bought me a Canon 1100D at my sons suggestion, as this camera was a reasonable step up from the previous one. My son, I hasten to add is a wonderful amateur photographer.

I am still at the semi-auto stage and my son is urging me to progress from there, laziness and lacking understanding of how a camera functions is holding me back. I think on the most part I have an eye for a good scene but I think that is probably best left to you more experienced photographers to decide.

 

Photography, unlike the human eye, looks at the world in frozen split seconds. The human eye is constantly readjusting focus and EXPOSURE to take a scene in. Therefore the camera ( in the hands of a competent photographer) captures the scene at the best compromise of focus and exposure. Processes in the darkroom (or digitally) should be aimed towards overcoming these constraints and anything beyond that is manipulation.

A typical example would be a landscape with a very striking sky. The human eye will quite easily see both the details in the landscape set against a dramatic sky. However the camera - in many lighting situations -will only see the details in the landscape OR the dramatic sky but -NOT BOTH TOGETHER. Proper photographic practice was always to enhance the element that was understated in the original exposure by chemical or digital techniques.
Image manipulation is adding elements which never existed in the photograph in the first place. Unfortunately, the digital darkroom (ie Photoshop etc) makes cheating 'extremely' easy.

I can rememember when photographic cheating was a highly skilled ability.
Be highly sceptical about nearly every image you see in the media these days.

 

If the purpose is to produce an "image" that is pleasing to the audience, then does it really matter if the "artist" used the tools provided by his/her camera or those in his/her darkroom or, the equivalent these days by his/her computer?
Back in the dark ages, about 40+ years ago when I got my first SLR and later a TLR and did my own developing and printing there were very few final prints I produced that hadn't been subjected to some form of dodging, burning or masking during printing or some form of exposure correction.
The "digital darkroom" makes image production and manipulation easier, more versatile, faster, less costly and wet and smelly, and accessible to a wider population.
I'm not so po faced about my photography that I won't edit out power lines in an image if it results in something I'd like to hang on the wall, though I would of course have prefered to take the from an viewpoint avoiding them, but it isn't always possible.

Despite what I've said regarding image processing it still isn't possible to make a decent silk purse from a sow's ear and the initial composition of any image remains the first and foremost element in producing a good final image.

 

Absolutely not, what does matter is that everyone gets out of it what they want to, however they achieve it or to what level of editing they apply, is really up to themselves.

For myself I just want my photo's to be a memory of what I saw, not what it can/could be. Occasionally I will exceed these self imposed bounds to pratice and learn, but I seldom save them, even less so display them.

But I am always wanting to push the boundaries.

Steve...

 

I have no problem with other photos being 'processed' it's just something I don't do (I don't know how really) Slight cropping (on camera) is all I have ever done.

 

This is possibly slightly off thread, though not entirely, but does anyone else feel that photos posted on here do not display as sharp as the originals?
I've found that photos I've posted in the competitions are not quite as sharp as I'd like and that I could get around this by applying a sharpening filter but it isn't allowed.

 

I have not noticed it with All the pix submitted, therefore as some five of the sixteen are crystal clear and sharp as a razor, I just accepted that the other less sharp pics were just exactly that (Less sharp)

Jack McH