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10/02/2002 07:24:46 AM · #26 |
I think PhotoBlink to be one of the finest photography sites on the web. The quality of photography found there is simply staggering.
Rule #4 of their current contests states:
"Images should contain no obvious Photoshop (or other image editing
software) manipulations. That means no digital art pieces, no filter
effects. However, anything goes if the manipulations are not obvious to the viewer. (i.e. changing the grass to blue in Photoshop is not allowed because it is obvious that grass is not blue, but changing an umbrella from red to orange is allowed if it is skillfully done and viewers can't distinguish the Photoshop work)."
That, to me, is a fine rule and works very well.
* This message has been edited by the author on 10/2/2002 8:48:50 AM.
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10/02/2002 09:41:08 AM · #27 |
Originally posted by Zeissman:
This kind of thinking is very misguided in my opinion.
There is not such thing as a true photo. What you see on your screen is not what you took. It is an interpration of the data, and the data itself has been altered. The light range is adjusted, the color and saturation are adjusted. We can also alter the saturation, the color balance, the contrast and brightness, as well as remove color. Photographers that think a photograph is a literal interpretation of the world around them are deluded. And those that think a weak image can be made great are also deluded. The art of photography is displayed through the print, and there are more means of manipulating the prints than can be cataloged.
How about turning off the white balance, everyone shooting at the same F-stop and 35mm lens equivilant lenght, plus no cropping, color, brightness, or contrast adjustments?
It takes as much skill to masterfully edit a picture as it does to take a great photograph, and you must have an eye for what makes a great photograph to be successful in either (you can only remove a distracting element if you know it is distracting).
If someone wants to spend the time to edit out a background, and can do it so I cannot tell it was done, ok, let them do it. Especially if both elements of the photo were taken during the challenge. How is that really any different than someone that has an expensive studio set up? Most heavily edited works that I have seen are monstrosities, and would probably not do well here. You probably do not realize that most of the landscape photos you see with a beautiful large moon were compositions, two slides put together.
Photography is an art in my book.
Just what is a raw photo? There is no such thing. No film or CCD has ever captured life like it is. Our eyes and brains even make interpretations for us.
I love this site as it is too. But if you are not learning how to post process, you are missing the majority of what photography is about. The image capture is only the first of many steps. One of the great things about digital is: it give you all the best darkroom tools to use in the light real-time, why through that away?
And Zadore,
I hope you do not leave, I like lot of what you say. But I also think the winners earned their places.
What he said. I doubt there has been any 'classical' photography
that everyone holds up as examples of 'true' photography' that
hasn't been edited and manipulated a whole lot more than any
entry here.
We could I now think quite easily write rules that were loose enough
to allow any editing, while still keeping the spirit of the challenge
alive. We want 'natural-looking' photographs, we don't want
digital art, with people climbing rock effect 'human faces' (or
maybe we want a digital art catagory for that)
I think one thing that a lot of people are missing here, probably
from lack of experience in the techniques, is that it is a whole lot
harder to fake something in photoshop than it would be to just set
it up well and photograph it, in many cases. A lot of the DQ requests
for Photoshop are like that (E.g, Chris's lime, lemon and blueberry)
It would take ages to colour balance, fake the light, scale, perspective,
shadows etc to edit that blueberry in seamlessly, compared to just
sticking it into the scene in the first place.
My point is, that editing well and effectively to make a natural looking
scene is hard. But it is also a key part of creating a professional,
finished photograph or print.
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10/02/2002 10:37:23 AM · #28 |
My take on this whole thing:
This site will eventually need to grow into different contests, probably based on skill level. A novice challenge in which you are only allowed to resize and crop your image, an intermediate challenge which uses the existing rules, and an "expert" (don't really like using that word) challenge, in which anything goes (spot-editing, etc.)
This way, the "playing field" is leveled for different skill sets, people without photo editing skills can still compete, and people who feel like they need to fully complete their images before showing them will have a place to play.
Personally, I've gone back and forth on this issue a lot. Only once in my 28 challenge entries have I felt the need to "spot-edit" a photo in order to make it perfect. And even without the edits, I managed to get 6th place. (unedited, edited). So I've mostly been against allowing open editing, but people make a lot of good points about photography in general and it has made me go back and forth on this issue until I finally realized that we should just segregate people. heh. |
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10/02/2002 11:45:37 AM · #29 |
I have to agree with Journey on this one. I think everyone's big fear that hugely manipulated photos will start showing up all over the place is not a reality. As stated already most people won't vote well on images that have been noticeably manipulated.
"I've got an extensive art (drawing,painting) background, and could probably make a masterpiece every time with editing." No offense meant to you but I seriously doubt it. I have been working 7+ years as a graphic designer using photoshop everyday and another 3 years of school and I can tell you that you will never learn everything that is capable with Photoshop or equivelant programs. It is very very difficult to do major editing, cloning, background swaps etc., and do it well. I doubt very seriously there are more than a handful of people on this site that have the skill to do manipulations like that without anyone noticing. If participants try to do major edits and dont do it well, they will get slammed by the people with the knowledge to spot it.
On to another point. I respect the people that run this site. If they want to keep it edit free that is their right, but if you people out there think that the photographic images you see in museums are straight prints straight out of the camera you are sadly mistaken. Most "Master" photographers spend more time in the darkroom than out shooting. You will pay more for an Ansel Adams print that was printed by him because he did all the darkroom work and the final image was his vision. Darkroom work consists of dodging, burning, enlarging, contrast filters etc. There is a lot of time and work put into editing photographs produced from film. So to say this wouldnt be a photography site if we allowed open editing is just incorrect. Most people just want the ability to do what you do in traditional photography. Such as dodging, burning, blurring etc. Open sizes on image proportions would be great as well. Then we would actually be closer to a true photography site.
* This message has been edited by the author on 10/2/2002 11:44:27 AM.
* This message has been edited by the author on 10/2/2002 11:46:20 AM.
* This message has been edited by the author on 10/2/2002 11:48:09 AM. |
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10/02/2002 08:54:13 PM · #30 |
| So if you join a club that only discusses birds, do you rant about not being able to discuss frogs. Get with the programn and enjoy! |
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10/02/2002 09:59:50 PM · #31 |
You need to get with the program.
Capturing an image is only a small part of photography. ? Post processing is an important part of photography, one that all of the best photographers have mastered. There is no such thing as an unmanipulated image.
Originally posted by rapsiii3:
So if you join a club that only discusses birds, do you rant about not being able to discuss frogs. Get with the programn and enjoy!
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