retouching (1 Viewer)

[the strange guy]

It's like cooking.
If you add MSG, bacon, cheese or all three it could be declared cheating or just damned tasty.

 

[magicbastarder]

people object to photoshop because it makes it easier to remove the photo from what the original scene was - changing the saturation, etc., on a photo rarely affects the truthiness of a photo, it's when you get into wrinkle removal, etc., that peoples hackles can start to raise, probably because saturation is easy to spot, but missing elements in a photo are not.

basically, using lighting, makeup, etc., or staging photos is not considered cheating because the image still ends up resembling what actually existed.

and photoshop can do a lot more (and is far more accessible) than old school wet darkroom techniques. in a way, part of the 'problem' is that what took a dedicated amateur willing to invest a lot of time into a hobby, can now be done by someone with a cracked copy of PS in a few minutes. so there's a lot more examples of bad photoshoppery than there are of old school results.

there's a current fad for vignetting (waning, i think) - undoubtedly inspired by the popularity of the holga, which reached stupid levels in certain circles (take a look at the photography section on boards from a few months ago), and i imagine that some day the pendulum may swing back to more 'purist' tastes.

personally, i've no interest in heavy photoshopping; if one of my photos required that much work, i'd consider the image to be a failure and wouldn't bother trying to rescue it.

 

[La La]

in a way, part of the 'problem' is that what took a dedicated amateur willing to invest a lot of time into a hobby, can now be done by someone with a cracked copy of PS in a few minutes. so there's a lot more examples of bad photoshoppery than there are of old school results.

there's a current fad for vignetting (waning, i think) - undoubtedly inspired by the popularity of the holga, which reached stupid levels in certain circles (take a look at the photography section on boards from a few months ago), and i imagine that some day the pendulum may swing back to more 'purist' tastes.

personally, i've no interest in heavy photoshopping; if one of my photos required that much work, i'd consider the image to be a failure and wouldn't bother trying to rescue it.

i think you've managed to condense what i feel about it here. i dont have an issue with minor tweaks - it's when i come across a photo that has been obviously tampered with that i have an issue with. but it's cretinly (typo, and it stays) been interesting reading people's responses to this topic. in a way i've probably softened my resolve towards it, i guess i can now understand its role as part of teh process for some people. as a personal preference i'd probably continue not to use it, though im now a little curious about that holga effect you mentioned!!! (though i could just get a holga...)

 

[RSJ]

I think perhaps you misinterpreted my comment .
I'm not knocking Roger Deakins ,indeed ,the opposite .

I'm saying that , it's down to his skills as a dp , including his decisions on grading that make Oh Brother ( and indeed his other movies ) look so amazing .

Just as an aside, Roger takes some beautiful photographs as can be seen on his site . Here is a quote from him ( admittedly out of context ) regarding taking reference shots for his films .

"I make minor adjustments in Photoshop to the images before E-mailing them to the lab."

I'm still not sure i get you. It doesn't really matter inanyways.

Just looking at those photos on his website. Really illustrates the difference between a talent with yer moving pictures and your static ones - there's very few of those photos i'd think were in any way special. Was watching burn after reading last night (not roger deakins but) and thinking how some of the shots wouldn't work as photos (specifically the walking down the hallway sequences) and how some photos wouldn't work as video either. Sort of how Controll wasn't as visually stunning as i expected, but i suppose Corjbin's talent and Deakins talent, they may deal in images, but it's not necessarily interchangable.

But that's a discussion for another day.

RE: this thread - it does really piss me off on flickr where someone's taken a shite photo and done some ridiculous photoshop on it and the end image isn't even any good, but you get morons coming along going "wow, the colors are amazing, you're a fantastic photographer" or "it looks so surreal, you should be a professional". I imagine that's what lala was on about in the first place. Drives me only mental!

There is one youngfella from iceland who takes reasonably good photos but makes them amazing in photoshop. His flickr is here - i see he's moved into less photoshoped area now but there's some before/after stuff on there that's amazing.