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toprope_media
Mar 18, 2002, 3:53 AM
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Being both a designer and photographer, it was just a matter of time before I found the freedom of digital photography combined with the image manipulation of Photoshop. I don't see it as any different than using traditional filters while shooting film. I never do anything that I couldn't do in a darkroom. I am not a big fan of images that are "Photoshopped" to death. Photoshop can produce images that look fake and contrived and totally digital.
Do any of you use Photoshop or any other image editing software to compenstate for the weakness of digital images?
If no, are ther any "ethical" reasons why?
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russman
Mar 18, 2002, 4:04 AM
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My wife and I got a HP PhotoSmart 215 for our Ann. last year. I use Adobe PhotoDeluxe Home Edition 3.5 to edit and shrink all my photos. Very rarly do I "edit" and "manipulate" them. If I do, it may only be the Cloning tool to fill in some gaps or to cover up blems I caught on the shot. But for teh most part...I leave them as tehy are.
I am playing around with some of the Negatives and other Special Effects that are there...but will be a while before I actually show those...they make my son look devilish
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toprope_media
Mar 18, 2002, 4:13 AM
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I guess I should clarify what I mean by "manipulate."
The only things I ever do is boost contrast, color balance, black and while, dodge and burn, and play with focus.
I also like to add noise to black and white photos to give them some grain. Some tasteful computer work can really boost the atmosphere of a shot.
I have heard so many opinions on the evils of photoshop in the photography world, I was interested in what climbing photogs think. There are some purists that look at photo mainpulation as cheating. Thanks.
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xen_monkey
Mar 18, 2002, 4:14 AM
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I don't think there are any ethical problems with using photoshop to clean up photography. With a digital camera you'd most likely just be colour correcting since most digital camera are poorly colour balanced (unless you go do the $13000 large format backs). And if you're creating digial art with photoshop. The only ethical concern would be combining multiple shots. Like taking yourself out of a bouldering picture and placing yourself up a big wall, the claiming you free climbed it.
I plan on doing a lot of photography both digital and film this summer and bringing everything into photoshop for some work this summer.
I wouldn't mind seeing some of your results.
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chadplusplus
Mar 18, 2002, 4:16 AM
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I use photoshop for contrast and color adjustments and to combine pictures into panoramics. Its a nice toy.
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drysdan
Mar 18, 2002, 5:02 AM
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I use Photoshop in conjunction with my mediocre HP Photosmart 315xi. I don't see anything wrong with it. As you say, there's little need to do anything that can't be done in a darkroom.
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c-horse
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Mar 18, 2002, 5:25 AM
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Well, I am evil, in the minds of purists. I also will "manipulate" photos in photoshop.
Generally limited to correcting the exposure or color balance that the camera has forced on me. For example, I am using point and shoot now (because I haven't learned the other features well enough yet. yet.), so the camera translates every wall into 18% grey, which it isn't. I use the curves capability of ps to get truer (to my eye) coloring of the picture.
Also, the digital sensors are capable of less dynamic range than film (especially slide film like Velvia), which is furthermore, less capable than our eyes. I will sometimes adjust the histograms of a photo, to rescue details from the shadows or washed out highlights (turn the white sky into pale blue with wisps of white).
I've used unsharp masks to improve the perceived contrast in the rock, since I can't put a polarizing filter on my lense.
I've denoised high ISO images with some 3rd party ps actions that I purchased.
I've blurred sections of an image to artificially generate the depth of field that I wanted (but could not create with a 1997 p&s kodak dc210 1MP camera).
My goal is generally to end up with an image that on the screen (or occasionally printed on my inkjet printer) that captures "the image that I want". Usually that is strongly driven by what I remember, but sometimes I apply artistic license, to make it look the way I want.
Evil, maybe. Happy, certainly.
C
ps: here are a couple examples with the 1mp camera
unsharp mask
http://www.pbase.com/image/1050543
depth of field
http://www.pbase.com/image/1050544
curves adjustment
http://www.pbase.com/image/1087879
here are a couple with my new nikon cp5000
polarizing the sky
http://www.pbase.com/image/1360972
rescuing some overexposed stuff
http://www.pbase.com/image/1361014
as to the "original sin" of changing things dramatically, I've only done it once - here.
http://www.pbase.com/image/1245494
c
[ This Message was edited by: c-horse on 2002-03-17 21:33 ]
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maculated
Mar 18, 2002, 7:07 AM
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Most of my photos remain virginal as I was raised a purist. Digital photos are still photos and there's an art to getting the right lighting.
That said, sometimes I DO photoshop stuff.
Forthis picture I had to photoshop the climbers because as I shrunk it from its original (HUGE) size, they all but disappeared. I also did some burning in the tree line which is somewhat obvious posted here, but not in photoshop.
This photo got selective color applied to it. The elements with red were very dull and I think the composition is a lot nicer with brighter, but not false, coloration. Draws the eye inward along the circular plane.
This photo is the only other one I've doctored, and that's simply because the coloration in the background pinnacles was heavily turquoise and the climber was VERY dark. To compensate I had to up contrast and brightness, burn the background and play with the sky's blue hues to blend with the turquoise of the pinnacles.
I'm not very good at the photo manipulation because now that I've pointed it out, you can see that I've done these things rather easily. I think my best photos are the ones that are untouched.
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xen_monkey
Mar 18, 2002, 11:02 PM
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Here's a photoshop tip:
If you need to remove noise from a picture run the despeckle filter on either the cyan or blue channel. For some reason in most digital works noise appears there more predominatly. It removes great amounts of noise without mushing up you picture.
I sometimes do the magenta chanel as well if there's still too much noise.
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coldclimb
Mar 18, 2002, 11:38 PM
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I have Paint Shop Pro and it helps a lot with pictures. I use it for cropping, effects, despeckling, and a bunch of other stuff including switching heads on wedding pics. I love it.
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greatgarbanzo
Mar 19, 2002, 12:19 AM
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I only use it to enhance contrast, light or to resize the image. Not much.
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krillen
Mar 20, 2002, 2:33 PM
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I'm divided in my stance on this one.
I can see the purists view and the digital revolution point of view. I think as long you don't claim to be a superstar photog while manipulating in PS, there is no harm. There is a pride in total NON manipulation, if you can get good shots like that, then kudos to you, you are ahead of the game.
Also tehre is a fear by many photogs that with the rapid advancement of Digital photo technology, many of them will be out of work/left behind in a few years...
just some ideas.
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jdtschida
Mar 20, 2002, 2:47 PM
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My digital camera is a POS, so I have to use graphics software to clean up the images. I usually try to remove any noise, since it is all grainy, then I might do a slight blur effect to try to make it look nicer. The color, brightness, contrast also get changed to make it look better.
I don't take many pics, so "purity" isn't a big deal to me, as long as people can see the pic.
My software of choice is Paint Shop Pro 7.0 because it is easy to use and has good tools. If I need something special, I might use Photoshop 6.0.
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xen_monkey
Mar 21, 2002, 2:28 AM
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Are you Digital Shooters running Mac or PC. I just borrowed a friends Nikon CoolPix. Plugged it into the USB port on my G4 Mac and a happy little window pooped up telling me I've just plugged a Camera in, and it asked me if I wanted to d/l the pics. Plus it showed up on my desktop as disk. I've never had this much ease using an NT box.
It may have been a little off topic, but I was impressed
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downshift
Mar 21, 2002, 2:33 AM
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Nikon Cool pix good camera I've done a bit of photoshop editing with picture I've screwed up.. Some come out cool.. Most suck since I'm a bit colour blind. If I need something fixed I just pass it on to one of my graphic designer freinds...
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andy_lemon
Mar 21, 2002, 2:35 AM
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I hate macs...
I shoot digital and manual. Photoshop is great for making illustrations for both but my main use for it is to clean up my digital pictures. On my manual camera I can set shutter speed and apperature but I can't on my digital. This sometimes leaves the pictures too dark or too light. It doesn't take long to correct this on photoshop. Plus, (and I know this goes against photography ethics) there is sometimes that tree or even a white rag or trash or something that just makes a great picture crap. You can easily remove this on photoshop!
Andy
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rckfreek
Mar 21, 2002, 3:18 AM
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Well I will first off say that I am absolutely abhorred with normal digital cameras. Until you start getting into the really expensive stuff around $1800-$5000 best being Nikon F5 digital version. I think that for real photography digital is a joke. You have no control over depth of field (F-stop and so on) that the pictures are flat and you are down to the level of point and shoot 35mm $30 dollar camera.
As to the topic of Photoshop, I have used it extensively and personally love the program. And I think that there are touch up qualities and permanent qualities that you can't find with film and a hard copy. I don't look at the ethical side of things to much since I am usually doing all editing for my enjoyment not for money or advertisement reasons. However, there isn't much that I have found that can make a digital photo look like something out of a good SLR or super high quality Dig. or at least not with out creating a digitized photo that took you hrs and hrs to edit.
I am honestly sorry for my soapbox on this particular issue of Digital cameras but I think that the art of the dark room is being lost slowly but surely. I think that knowing your camera and the art of manipulating photos through the lenses is a much purer way to do things.
- ROCK FREEK
[ This Message was edited by: rckfreek on 2002-03-21 06:54 ]
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andy_lemon
Mar 21, 2002, 3:27 AM
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Quote:I think that knowing your camera and the art of manupulating photos through the lense is a much purer way to do things
Right on! I agree.
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awka
Apr 23, 2002, 7:28 PM
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all the above is true but you still want to use photoshop after all.
with prosumer cameras you have full control of everything (including, for instance, white color setting which is very hard to fully control in traditional photography even if you use different types of films, you need colormeters and full set of filters = for magazines they always retouch it with photoshop).
if you want to be a purist, don't add anything to the photo, but use technology to overcome techology limitations (like over/under exposures problems in different zones [remember Ansel Adams master of the zone systems, and incredible printer = used to use dark room technology to enhance photos], bad cropping, lack of contrast, color correctioin0
if you are more of an "artist" then there are countless of opportunities...
awka
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