A Commentary on Photo Legitimacy

There's no such thing as too far so long as the final product is what the person behind the camera/keyboard was aiming for.  The only point of concern is when an image is attempting to be passed as something that it clearly is not.  An obvious example is adding a UFO in an image and claiming it to be legit.  The same goes for superimposing a shot of the moon w/ a telephoto lens onto a shot taken with a wide angle lens.

I think a lot of photographers debate this question for the sheer ability of just being able to say that they captured the perfect image in camera without having to touch it in "post".  But as someone recently mentioned their disdain for the term "post-processing," I agree with them and feel that choosing to process images in programs such as Lightroom, Aperture, Photoshop, etc is simply their way of processing and creating an image.  Choosing to let your camera do all of the image processing for you is your choice but to condemn others for using other programs to complete the process is just silly.  IMHO, it's not that different than in the days of film of choosing to do your own developing or dropping it off at your local store and picking it up later.

There are also certain debatable choices that photographers make in their "post-processing" that can seem to border on the line of acceptable.  For instance, glamor portraits often smear skin textures into oblivion.  Some people actually like this sort of thing especially when it clears up acne and pimples, but the question comes up when dealing with scars, beauty marks, and proportion.  Color splash is also very popular with non-photographers but looked down upon due to taking the viewers eye off of the main subject (ie: BnW bride with red rose bouquet).   There are many examples in this context, which in my opinion should be openly discussed amongst a photographer and his/her client.  But as far as a photographer's own work goes, it is solely at his own discretion.

My personal workflow includes OOC jpegs and RAW images depending on need.  If I'm taking pictures of my kids at the play ground or walking through a mall, I shoot in jpeg and upload through my phone via eye-fi.  If I'm taking portraits or attempting to create a creative image though, I shoot exclusively in RAW so that I can manipulate the image more to my liking, including DR, NR, color balance, special effects, retouching, and more.  This simply cannot be done without "post-processing".

I think the idea of overdoing it though stems from trying to fix a bad picture.  In which case, people will tend to cover up their bad photography with heavy "post-processing" and is then ridiculed for being overly processed.  Just look at the influx of iPhone-ographers running their images through "app" filters.  Some of the filters are pretty cool but no matter how great the filter is, a noisy, blurry, non-composed shot will always be a bad photo.  But hey, if a person who took the photo and ran it through the filter: "Grandma's Basement" and the photo turned out exactly as that person wanted it, who are we to say that that's bad photography.

So to sum it up, it really is at the discretion of the person making the photo to decide what's too much "post-processing."  If there is a client involved, the client should be aware of the extent of processing being done.  And lastly, to claim an image to be something it clearly is not is borderline unethical and in some cases, against the law.

My last thought on this is that there are numerous of artists out there that start with an image captured with a camera and manipulate it through digital processing to such an extent that the image is obviously "fake" yet perfectly acceptable as art but still referred to as a photograph, photo, or image.  With this type of art form present in this day and age, I think a more appropriate question is what is the difference between photography and art?  Surely, one can argue that photography is an art, but what then should these digitally altered images be categorize as?  And at what point is a digitally altered image no longer considered a photograph?  There's a huge gray line in my opinion and this is why I truly think that it's solely at the discretion of the photographer, or to some extent, the artist. Just in case I lost you, think of a photograph of a red car.  Is it still a photograph if I manipulated the histogram in Photoshop?  What about if I tweak the saturation or turned the car blue? Is it still a photograph if I cut out the background? What about if I put another photograph of rocket thrusters onto the back of the car and superimposed the image onto a closeup shot of the moon to make it look like a car flying in outer space with Elvis driving?  Is it still a photograph now?