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DPChallenge Forums >> Web Site Suggestions >> List of legal/illegal tools
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07/29/2011 08:13:19 AM · #1
In the "Rules" section, it would be nice to include a list or chart of which tools (both internal to photo editing apps and third party add-ons) are legal or illegal in each editing ruleset.

For example, I could have sworn that in the past I had read on here that Virtual Photographer was not allowed in Basic editing. To my surprise, this morning I stumbled across a blue ribbon winner from a few months ago that had been run through Virtual Photographer. I'd be curious about Alien Skin Exposure, too.

07/29/2011 08:24:28 AM · #2
There was a big change back in 2009. Link... //www.dpchallenge.com/forum.php?action=read&FORUM_THREAD_ID=919929&highlight=basic changes

Message edited by author 2011-07-29 08:24:55.
07/29/2011 08:26:46 AM · #3
Great idea. I would still love to know which NIK presets and their corresponding borders/vignettes/burns are legal.
07/29/2011 08:53:36 AM · #4
I don't think there's any such thing as an "illegal tool" anymore; just illegal processes.

Take Nik Silver Efex pro, for example, a B/W conversion tool — if you open an image in it, by default it's a straight grayscale conversion, legal in basic an advanced both. There are sliders on the right to alter every aspect of the conversion; brightness, contrast, color filters, "structure", these are all legal in basic editing. But there are other adjustments, including vignetting, edge burning, and u-point controls, that are designed to edit some parts of the image and not others, and these cannot be used in basic but are fine in advanced. And the program comes with presets, and some of the presets use the "illegal" processes and some don't, so you have to be real careful.

In other words, it's not that simple — you can't just say "This is a legal tool and this isn't."

R.
07/29/2011 09:37:24 AM · #5
Originally posted by Bear_Music:

I don't think there's any such thing as an "illegal tool" anymore; just illegal processes.

Take Nik Silver Efex pro, for example, a B/W conversion tool — if you open an image in it, by default it's a straight grayscale conversion, legal in basic an advanced both. There are sliders on the right to alter every aspect of the conversion; brightness, contrast, color filters, "structure", these are all legal in basic editing. But there are other adjustments, including vignetting, edge burning, and u-point controls, that are designed to edit some parts of the image and not others, and these cannot be used in basic but are fine in advanced. And the program comes with presets, and some of the presets use the "illegal" processes and some don't, so you have to be real careful.

In other words, it's not that simple — you can't just say "This is a legal tool and this isn't."

R.


But one could provide some standard guidance for commonly used software. In fact, precisely the kind of guidance that you just summarised.

Having been on here a few years, there has been an almighty change in the way that people post-process their photos. It used to be the case that elements, photoshop, paintshop pro, and one or two filters were all we really had to worry about. All the tools did pretty much what they said they did.

Now we have incredibly sophisticated software that provides easy access to sophisticated techniques through things like sliders. The nature of the changes being applied is sometimes opaque to the user, and while experts like you can figure out roughly what's happening and assess its legality in the DPC context, I think that relative beginners will be quickly out of their depth.

Sometimes there is detailed discussion and decision making on what tools, or what aspects of certain tools, may be legal - but no central repository for that kind of advice. Even if it were incomplete, that might be a good idea and at least be a place for the SC to maintain the record.
07/29/2011 12:58:38 PM · #6
Originally posted by Bear_Music:

I don't think there's any such thing as an "illegal tool" anymore; just illegal processes.

R.


I think you're probably right.
07/29/2011 01:07:55 PM · #7
Originally posted by Matthew:

Sometimes there is detailed discussion and decision making on what tools, or what aspects of certain tools, may be legal - but no central repository for that kind of advice. Even if it were incomplete, that might be a good idea and at least be a place for the SC to maintain the record.

I cannot envision us having enough time to continuously maintain an ever-changing list of tools, and every possible combination of settings within them.

I mean, for a given tool, on a given picture, setting Slider X to 6 may be fine, while setting it to 7 yields an illegal result; yet, for some other picture a setting of 10 will still be fine.

You are welcome to start a thread to try and collate such information, but I don't think we can/are going to post an "official" list.

PS: Given my record, I don't think you'd want to follow my advice on tools anyway ... :-(

Message edited by author 2011-07-29 13:08:19.
07/29/2011 01:25:57 PM · #8
Something as simple as resizing your image can lead to a DQ.



It's not the specific tool, it's what you do with it, evidently.

Message edited by author 2011-07-29 13:30:43.
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