To ‘shop, or not to ‘shop, Photoshop is the question

[Alec Jones]

I’ve picked up on one or two threads that there might be some difference of opinion if not simmering hostility as to whether or not it is acceptable for images to be processed or manipulated in an image editing application or rather whether they should be au naturel. Can we open the discussion on this and garner a few opinions?

Many thanks.

[Franz Ossing]

Quite plain, as I see it: if you want the scientific/meteorological truth, take the photo as is. If you want artistical expression then process the photo but make this clear by adding an (m) for “manipulated” to the title as is convention in the media (or should be, not to talk about “The Sun”).

The rest is good/bad choice: look at some of the harvest moon pictures where the moon was photoshop-enlarged so much that you could see the pixels while the horizon was sharp.

[George Preoteasa]

One of the problems is that what you see with your eyes is not what the camera captures by default (e.g. in the auto-everything mode). So what to do? I am learning that you can play with a few parameters (exposure compensation, white balance, probably others). So then why not use an editor afterwards? I think the idea is to stay true to what you saw,

Also, if it’s something really hard to notice, like a faint optical phenomenon, I would enhance the photo and just state it.

[Michael Lerch]

The only truth to any photograph is how the observer feels about it, and that Truth only pertains to that observer.

All photographs are only 2 dimensional representations of reality. If one wants reality, go outside and look up.

Before Digital Photography Photographs were still manipulated for many reasons. To Achieve balance, textures, flow of direction, are but a few reasons to manipulate a photograph then as well as today. Remember the word, ” Photograph” means…Light Graph..a graph, illustration, made with Light, not paint, nor pencil, charcoal or ink, but with light. Its still a Graph. To Turn A Graph Into a ” Print”, worthy of hanging on the wall in home or museum,requires work, or processing.

Personal taste establishes how much ” shop” is acceptable. As mentioned huge moon on ocean horizon can be offsetting as a huge Mars right outside the bedroom window. Over saturated photos are usually only cool to a select few, but even there, what feeling a picture brings the observer to, is the goal. For some over saturation acts like ” interference.” in whatever is being communicated. If ” Shopping” Interferes with communication rather than facilitates communication, then the Shopping FAILS.. So thats my answer To Shop Or Not To Shop..If Shopping Interferes, Diverts, Scrambles The Communication,,then change, adjust, redirect the Shopping.

All photographs , digital or analogue are subjective. You are taking a 3 dimensional observation and turning it into a 2 dimensional representation. The key is..knowing what you are communicating with that Light Graph and know how much and how little you need to facilitate or interfere in that communication….imho.

[Howard Brown]

Your title is not a good start. Those inverted commas threw me. I guess ‘shop is an abbreviation for Photoshop, so putting in ‘Photoshop’ is redundant (and ambiguous).

As a mere auto snapper who has never used Photoshop the question does not arise.

[Hans Stocker]

Hi Alec,

A lot might be already said. I noticed that Michael and George pointed out that a picture ‘au naturel’ might be an idée fixe. The brain makes an interpretation of what the eyes feed it with. The camera is just another way of interpretation of a light signal with the purpose to represent the signal the way we perceived it in reality. There are good cameras and bad cameras, analogue ones and digital ones. So there are good and bad representations of ‘au naturel’ this way and the question arises what is left of the concept ‘au naturel’. Not much, I think. Michael also mentioned the manual developing process of a picture in the analogue way that now seems to be fully represented by developing a digital RAW picture in Lightroom. It is funny to see that the question whether to photoshop or not seems to be of more relevance in the digital area than before, while the matter is not very different in both ways of making pictures, only  with the footnote that digital photo shopping opens a lot more possibilities. Frans Ossing for example mentioned the enlarged moon to enhance the dramatic effect of a rising moon at the horizon. In my opinion this is more a matter of (re)composing the picture than photoshopping in the sense it is meant in this topic.

This said does not yet answer the question put forward. The answer from me is that it is a matter of taste and a matter of what you aim for.

Making the question specific in respect to the gallery, one can read the instructions for submitting a photo for the gallery. Pictures are accepted “with no more than minor adjustments to the saturation and contrast, as we do not post images that we feel are unrealistic representations of the sky”. I agree with this stating point for the gallery, but note that inheren to it is the subjectivity and the judgement of the observer and of the editor.

When I check the gallery on this statement I can see it is mostly followed, but I have also seen  a few examples of too heavily photoshopped pictures to my taste. No offence I hope and no problem for me, but just observing the fact that handling the criterion is difficult.

My way of approach for the gallery is therefore to meet reality best but my experience is that one has to photoshop the picture often. For example iridescence can be overwhelming brilliant in reality but when I take a picture of this spectacle it does not seem to do favor to reality. That proofs that our eyes and brain do different things then the camera.

And then there is more than ”only” the gallery. Playing with contrasts, hues and other possibilities of photoshopping can give astonishing  and beautiful results just for the fun of it. Some make art of it.  It is just what purpose you have.

And now for something completely different (?)…… About achromatic chromaticity I found that “The natural center of chromaticity space is not always achromatic”. Great sentence. I am still curious about the interest you take in this subject Alec.

[Alec Jones]

We’re getting some good feedback on this topic which is very much appreciated.

My own position on this question is that I’m comfortable with all types and degrees of processing/manipulation whether it be delicate, light curves adjustments just to give an image a bit of a ‘lift’ to the opposite end of the spectum where you enter a world of pain with extreme pixel-wrenching agony to achieve some ‘in your face’ creative effect. Most of my formative years up to my late twenties were spent in my home darkroom producing  prints for our local camera club exhibitions. In my own experience, there was far more processing/manipulation involved in that sort of work than is generally required today by most digital images.

In my view, processing/manipulation doesn’t begin after you have taken the photo but from the moment you see a potential subject and decide to place a camera between you and it. This continues all the way down the chain until the moment you are satisfied with the result, either an image on screen or a print in your hand. I don’t believe there is such a thing as au naturel. It’s all approximation and subjective bias. Natural for one person is highly processed for another.

@Hans   I don’t have any deep seated passion for the subject but merely curiosity. It occurred to me one day some time ago whether I could photograph a scene that looked totally monochromatic even though in reality it was full colour. Moreover, I wanted to see how far I could push this idea. The image I posted under “Heavy” was one of the better ones I produced, it certainly had you fooled for a time! To try to describe the effect I came up with the neologism “achromatic chromaticity”, literally colour without colour. Certainly not scientific, just a product of my overheated imagination.

[Hans Stocker]

Haha, yes you fooled me with the achromatic chromaticity Alec.

Googling about the subject that also triggered my imagination can be informative and I learned that: “The natural center of chromaticity space is not always achromatic”. Here you are. Heavy indeed.

 

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