5 ms·

This sort of thing comes up all the time in the photography communities I follow. In particular, the idea of post processing. There are some purists who think t

This sort of thing comes up all the time in the photography communities I follow. In particular, the idea of post processing. There are some purists who think that no photo should be Photoshopped because there's some sort of loss of integrity there. You didn't capture the moment, you made the moment. But post processing has existed long before Photoshop. People who shot film did (and still do) alter their developer times, or do stand development over agitation, or dodge or burn prints. And every modern digital camera does some post processing in camera as well. White balance, color correction, or even more fancy stuff like film emulation modes...those are all forms of post processing. I know a lot of photography contests require the submission of an unedited raw file in order to enter, but that's not what people want to see in the end. They want the Photoshop look without going into Photoshop, and that's very, very rare to pull off. So where do you draw the line?

Mendenhall 9y ago
"Purist" photography is lot more impressive to me, if there is such a thing anymore, as you mentioned in camera effects etc. I enjoy a good photoshop job as well though. I think where it matters to me is when you are saying something is "authentic". Lets say someone is taking pictures of a beach for a resort advertisement. One could photoshop the sand to appear as some sort of rare pink color, but when you arrive that color will be nowhere to be found. Same thing if a news article has "beaches are more polluted than ever" and tint the beach to look green. That to me is akin to false advertisement. I also agree people like and want photoshopped images since almost all photos benefit from a little tweek to saturation and brightness. Just my 2 cents because I agree with all you said. Sidenote if someone says "wildlife photography" and its not in the wild, its not wildlife photography.
- TheGRS 9y ago
  While I don't think he was airbrushing or anything, even Ansel Adams did quite a bit of work in post processing to achieve the effect he desired. All of that work has simply moved over to Photoshop where you can get the desired effect much more quickly than you could in a dark room.
- pythonaut_16 9y ago
  I think the key is that Photoshop and post processing tools should always be used to enhance the representation of reality, rather than distort it; except when showing something beyond reality is the intended goal. It can also be said that post processing can be used to cover up mistakes that were made when the image was captured, and as a photographer one should strive to minimize those mistakes. TL;DR: Photographers should do their best to do a good job when they capture an image and to be aware of what they are trying to convey in the final version that they share with the world.
paulmd 9y ago
Photojournalism is a fraudulent concept from the beginning. There is no platonically neutral way to present a scene, you are inherently making editorial decisions even before you snap the picture, with your choice of positioning/framing/focal length. Which of these is the "neutral" way to portray this shot? And says who? http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/09/23/23/2CB1092D00000578-3246791-image-a-2_1443046088866.jpg http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/09/23/23/2CB1092D0000057... http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/09/24/23/2CB066F800000578-3248214-image-a-2_1443132727378.jpg http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/09/24/23/2CB066F80000057... From there it's all a matter of degrees. Pulling a distracting highlight, desaturating a distracting visual element, cloning something out, it's all on a spectrum. But you could do the same manipulations by changing your positioning and perspective a little bit when you take the shot. Even stuff like white balance and color correction is frowned on, which is incredibly stupid when using a filter or changing your film stock would have the exact same effect. And the fact that digital is inherently a processed format in itself - you're not seeing color, you're seeing black and white run through a Bayer filter and interpreted back to a color image. Basically, photojournalism is a bunch of people jerking themselves off and handing out awards for getting "the perfect shot" in-camera.
- vr46 9y ago
  This is wrong in about fifty different ways right from the first paragraph. Photojournalism has impartiality at its core, not 'neutrality'. Everyone has biases, nobody can be neutral. But you can certainly be impartial. Framing, composition are also aesthetic decisions, not just political ones, and those decisions are made both by the photographer at shooting time and picture editors at publishing time. The point is to draw the reader into the story. Making corrections and alterations to digital images is not 'stupid', it is a development that has occurred over time in response to accusations and revelations of genuine manipulations and fakery. With film, large-scale changes were very hard and almost impossible to do with the original negative or positive, so elaborate printing techniques were considered to be almost entirely aesthetic and artistic. With the advent and ascent of digital darkrooms, manipulation and alteration is easier and harder to catch, therefore the appropriate approach is to respect the original pixels and not change any: the integrity of the picture can never be called into question. This is a potted summary and there are certainly more nuances, complexities and subtleties than I can relate here, I also have a Masters in Photojournalism and do not appreciate the abusive tone bolted onto the previous comment.

Mendenhall 9y ago

"Purist" photography is lot more impressive to me, if there is such a thing anymore, as you mentioned in camera effects etc. I enjoy a good photoshop job as well though. I think where it matters to me is when you are saying something is "authentic". Lets say someone is taking pictures of a beach for a resort advertisement. One could photoshop the sand to appear as some sort of rare pink color, but when you arrive that color will be nowhere to be found. Same thing if a news article has "beaches are more polluted than ever" and tint the beach to look green. That to me is akin to false advertisement. I also agree people like and want photoshopped images since almost all photos benefit from a little tweek to saturation and brightness. Just my 2 cents because I agree with all you said. Sidenote if someone says "wildlife photography" and its not in the wild, its not wildlife photography.

TheGRS 9y ago
While I don't think he was airbrushing or anything, even Ansel Adams did quite a bit of work in post processing to achieve the effect he desired. All of that work has simply moved over to Photoshop where you can get the desired effect much more quickly than you could in a dark room.
pythonaut_16 9y ago
I think the key is that Photoshop and post processing tools should always be used to enhance the representation of reality, rather than distort it; except when showing something beyond reality is the intended goal. It can also be said that post processing can be used to cover up mistakes that were made when the image was captured, and as a photographer one should strive to minimize those mistakes. TL;DR: Photographers should do their best to do a good job when they capture an image and to be aware of what they are trying to convey in the final version that they share with the world.

paulmd 9y ago

Photojournalism is a fraudulent concept from the beginning. There is no platonically neutral way to present a scene, you are inherently making editorial decisions even before you snap the picture, with your choice of positioning/framing/focal length. Which of these is the "neutral" way to portray this shot? And says who? http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/09/23/23/2CB1092D00000578-3246791-image-a-2_1443046088866.jpg http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/09/23/23/2CB1092D0000057... http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/09/24/23/2CB066F800000578-3248214-image-a-2_1443132727378.jpg http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/09/24/23/2CB066F80000057... From there it's all a matter of degrees. Pulling a distracting highlight, desaturating a distracting visual element, cloning something out, it's all on a spectrum. But you could do the same manipulations by changing your positioning and perspective a little bit when you take the shot. Even stuff like white balance and color correction is frowned on, which is incredibly stupid when using a filter or changing your film stock would have the exact same effect. And the fact that digital is inherently a processed format in itself - you're not seeing color, you're seeing black and white run through a Bayer filter and interpreted back to a color image. Basically, photojournalism is a bunch of people jerking themselves off and handing out awards for getting "the perfect shot" in-camera.

vr46 9y ago
This is wrong in about fifty different ways right from the first paragraph. Photojournalism has impartiality at its core, not 'neutrality'. Everyone has biases, nobody can be neutral. But you can certainly be impartial. Framing, composition are also aesthetic decisions, not just political ones, and those decisions are made both by the photographer at shooting time and picture editors at publishing time. The point is to draw the reader into the story. Making corrections and alterations to digital images is not 'stupid', it is a development that has occurred over time in response to accusations and revelations of genuine manipulations and fakery. With film, large-scale changes were very hard and almost impossible to do with the original negative or positive, so elaborate printing techniques were considered to be almost entirely aesthetic and artistic. With the advent and ascent of digital darkrooms, manipulation and alteration is easier and harder to catch, therefore the appropriate approach is to respect the original pixels and not change any: the integrity of the picture can never be called into question. This is a potted summary and there are certainly more nuances, complexities and subtleties than I can relate here, I also have a Masters in Photojournalism and do not appreciate the abusive tone bolted onto the previous comment.