Super Photoshop

[HarryG]

mmmmmm?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... rence.html

[Tracey McGovern]

Mmmmmmm - my sentiments exactly. I think I would prefer to take proper pictures in the first place

Tracey

[mike-e]

I suppose we are entering a phase of imagery in the photographic industry just as the movie industry has, it either hates or embraces -cgi- even tv is touched by the 'photoshopped' look. Maybe, for those who have been trained traditionally, we should look afresh at what constitutes taking a proper picture any more. This element is not going to go away , so lets keep it light hearted

[Paul Jones]

I suppose we are entering a phase of imagery in the photographic industry just as the movie industry has, it either hates or embraces -cgi- even tv is touched by the 'photoshopped' look.

H&M has this week admitted using computer generated models to promote swimwear and lingerie.

Link - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/artic ... mwear.html

[John]

It makes the doctored 1930s picture that caused a furore at the time look rather tame by comparison. I mean the one where a third person was removed to make it look as though a politican was having a meeting alone with a gangster. Soon we'll have the picture and nobody at all will need to be there.

[Ianuk50]

Even worse John is that in the future we may well have a brain - photoshop interface which directly links our thoughts to imagery, our dreams and our innermost secrets, then we will question our own sanity and what is real. Some of us already seem to have that link lol (in my case it is the medication hehe )

[Stu B]

I think I would prefer to take proper pictures in the first place

So you never in any way, photoshop your images Tracey.. (I think not_)

As I see it, It is not about being able to take a "proper" picture. Though this is certainly something you have to master. Its about picture manipulation. Both run hand in hand, and is a Phenomenon in my opinion, we must embrace with an open mind.

I've yet to meet a photogragher who dosn't strive to better his images.

If you take the example here of the snooker table. There is nothing wrong with the original image. So no extra camera skills are needed. The camera can only record what it sees at a particular moment. The additions, are a seperate skill which are applied to the image. The limits of which are only held back by the imagination of the author. Is there a difference between simple changes, such as setting levels, and totally changing an images look, by adding extra objects ?

Wouldn't we all improve the original image. If we had the skill set ? I think so...

[pammie]

Ian said

we may well have a brain - photoshop interface which directly links our thoughts to imagery, our dreams

Great - then I might get to find out who you are bossing about in your sleep in Chinese or Arabic or whatever it is....LOL

[mike-e]

Excellent post Stu eloquently put, and places both picture making and picture taking skills as equals to think otherwise even with todays technology leaves you missing so much that image making has to offer
rand as Stu says" As I see it, It is not about being able to take a "proper" picture. Though this is certainly something you have to master. Its about picture manipulation. Both run hand in hand, and is a Phenomenon in my opinion, we must embrace with an open mind.

I've yet to meet a photogragher who dosn't strive to better his images.
Mike

[Gill Blower]

Hi, I agree that we all want to produce the best 'image' we can but we should, as Tracey said, first of all produce the best 'photograph' we can. I personally think we will see fewer entries in competions in the future as judges are looking for what they call the 'wow' factor and these, in the main, do seem to come from images that are manipulated in photoshop. Dont get me wrong, I have entered a couple of landscape shots that have been through Photomatix but nothing as creative as we see winning competitions. At the end of the day it is personal choice.... I prefer photography.
Gill

[Paul Jones]

... judges are looking for what they call the 'wow' factor and these, in the main, do seem to come from images that are manipulated in photoshop.

Dont get me wrong, I have entered a couple of landscape shots that have been through Photomatix but nothing as creative as we see winning competitions.

... I prefer photography.

On Thursday night I was in Manchester chatting with a professional photographer and we got talking about manipulation. He made a comment which I'm sure Mike and others might have heard before - "you can't polish a turd".

Photo manipulation certainly has an important place in digital photography, without doubt, but it's always best to start with a decent image first and then polish and refine it in Photoshop.

Some of the heavily manipulated images that judges rave about in competition do nothing for me at all. Yet, some simple and unassuming compositions blow me away.

HDR has its place but doesn't suit every image and it takes someone who knows what they're doing with it (and an eye for a decent photograph), for example Keith R, to use it at its best. Just running every image through a HDR treatment won't turn it into a winner.

Having said that, everyone has to experiment with various things and find what works for them. If you can't please everyone, at least please yourself.


Mele Kalikimaka

[danny]

From danny I agree with gill i prefer proper photography's as taken ,be it adjusted slightly. I think this WOW Factor is deterring people from putting an ordinary photo into comps. Especially when some one uses a soft focus lens in camera to be told the photo is sorry!!! a bit soft.

[Walter Brooks]

You make a very good point Danny and something that the few of us who predominately use film discuss quite often both at the club and in the pub afterwards. Mark brings his darkroom prints in for our critique, but the bottom line that he hears is, that as good as the images may be - they will not win, but he likes to try nonetheless. The black and white film photography that we embrace will never win against over manipulated/ saturated images even more so if we were to submit our pinhole/ candid grab shots, so as Paul remarks, we try to please ourselves and not the judges anymore.
Walter

[John]

That's fair enough Walter, but when a black and white print really hits the spot then it will be in with a chance. I think I'm right in saying that Mark has actually done pretty well in competitions.

Eventually of course there will be a backlash, in a fashion sense, and the new in-thing will be the untouched, uncropped, life-as-it-is image. It all goes in cycles.

[mike-e]

Maybe I am missing the point
Are we saying that camera skills are more important to learn first before we learn manipulation?
If so then should we not be showing our raw/jpeg files as they are -out of the camera and unedited, as any thing else added would be 'manipulation'
For those who say use the camera technology to capture the image then embellish with finely honed embellishments that photoediting software can bring is the modern way to make images.
Super manipulation has been round a very long time, almost as long as photography itself.
The Cottingley fairies brought worldwide astonshment when two young girls photographed fairies at the bottom of their garden in 1917 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottingley_Fairies
Using basic camera skills, printing skills, they helped bring photography from a pure recording mechanism into something new. More importantly it illustrates a point thet NO ONE has mentioned yet that the the ability to be a good photographer is one who can see an image before it has been made and show it so its message can be understood.

Paul posted earlier that a professional photographer had said "cant polish a turd", remember professionals are meant to be proficeint photographers, and that you need to start with a "decent image"
For me the saying means that the photographer has to be able to show in his picture the message clearly so people can see it, and in doing so must use tools to do so like ;- composition,- seeing the light,- timing ,- expression,- all the elements that tell the story the picture trying to tell. without it it is useless, ie not fit for purpose.
Only then can it work, any deficiencies can be be sorted- in the pro photographers world- by the techies. Exposure, colour correction, dynamics almost anything can be fixed

Photgraphy is really like a tripod each leg plays an equally important,.So it is in knowing how to see an image, use of appropiate camera skills and using processing to deliver the final image.
So maybe camera skills first as opposed to photoshopping more is no more important than knowing how to make a picture work.
Can we have a debate on this please, It is more important to know how to show the message you are trying to tell pictorially than any camera skill versus photoshop first debate.
Remember technology can render our years of training almost to redundancy with you tube videos, phototraining 4U memberships, portrait professional retouching software, plug ins, camera defined auto shallow depth of field, auto face recognition focusing, people/landscapre/ nightime auto settings make image production quicker easier faster than ever before. But how to see the picture in the first place, has to be learnt by expreience, guidance, and intuition and is what separates the good from the rest
Mike
Or like I said earlier Am I missing the point?