Naturalist Vs Adobeist

This is probably an issue that has been raised before but I wonder if there are still poeple out there who curse you if you post-process any photos?

As I became an avid Photographer only just before digital went boom, i never really got into filters and dark room effects.

The question i have to ask is: Is there really any difference between people who manufacture photos at point of shot and people who prefer to do it in post processing?

I would love to be able to take the perfect shot and exposure in the field but i simply am not good enough. I am however very skilled in creating beautiful shots in PS.

so tell me does that make me a bad photgrapher and just a great manipulator?

interested in both points of view.

Ryadan Jeavons

I dunno. The photos I do for publication usually look pretty bad out of the camera - they are linear RAW files, exposed for the highlights, and so are rather dark.

Someone WILL and ALWAYS HAS post processed every shot you have printed. That processing may be minimal or an automated process, but it is there.

The JPG's straight from your P&S will have been processed by the chip in the camera according to rules programmed in at the factory and/or adjusted by the end user.

If you drop your files off at a local lab or upload them to a lab, odds are that some degree of post processing will be done. (Color balance and exposure are the most common.) Although some do have the option of turning off auto-correction, few off the non-pro labs will have anyone properly trained to manually correct them.

And anyone doing printing at home will almost certainly do some processing first. Maybe some don't but then they are probably using the already processed JPG's from their camera.

Even when you had that last film camera, when you took the film to be developed, someone at the lab made some adjustments here and there, almost certainly.

About the only purists will be people shooting film and only looking at the negatives. Because developing and printing are post processes.

--
Chefziggy
http://www.pbase.com/chefziggy/lecream

I used to think software post processing was the bane of the photography world, but soon realized it's just an updated version of the old enlarger/chemical process.

But what I do get upset at is seeing so many books being written "all about digital photography" that devote one or two chapters to taking the pictures, the the bulk of the book being devoted to fixing the pictures or post processing. It seems (to me) like very few people care about exposure and composition anymore, that it's much more important to learn how to "photoshop" pictures to make them look good. Seems like the art of taking the picture is going away.
--
'My favorite subject to photograph is the dark side of the sun.'
Paul

Riordan Jeavons said:

This is probably an issue that has been raised before but I wonder if
there are still poeple out there who curse you if you post-process
any photos?

Click to expand...

Firstly practically all working professionals post-process every image. You are talking about image editing / manipulation. Or maybe image correction?

The rest of your post is quite confused, as image manipualtion and image correction are very different things.

Can you please define which you are talking about? because some parts have pro merits, some have art direction merits, some are cost saving excerises and then there is a whole bunch, that are just done by amateurs who have no idea what they are doing....

Riordan Jeavons said:

As I became an avid Photographer only just before digital went boom,
i never really got into filters and dark room effects.

Click to expand...

Riordan Jeavons said:

The question i have to ask is: Is there really any difference between
people who manufacture photos at point of shot and people who prefer
to do it in post processing?

I would love to be able to take the perfect shot and exposure in the
field but i simply am not good enough. I am however very skilled in
creating beautiful shots in PS.

so tell me does that make me a bad photgrapher and just a great
manipulator?

interested in both points of view.

Ryadan Jeavons

Click to expand...

Ansel Adams post-processed the heck out of his "RAW" exposures (i.e. film negatives) in his darkroom, using the tools available to him at that time (dodging, burning, etc). Photoshop and programs like it are merely the 21st century's equivalent of the wet darkroom.



--
My Art, Your Pleasure



http://photopedia.homestead.com

Thank you for all your responses. It certainly gives me comfort in knowing that the post processing I do is nothing to be ashamed of.

To clarify what i meant by post processing, I meant image manipulation. This largely involves lighting effects, gradients/photo filters, and also brightness contract.

I also love to desaturate pictures slightly to give them a softer feel.

My company website is almost up and running and when it is i will post some pics here your C&C.

Thanks again.

ryd

If I am getting your point I would say I am more of a Naturalist then a Adobeist. My thought process and approach is to get as close to my vision in Camera at the location.

This seems to speed up my process and gives me more latitude towards the photo I intend on making in the end.
--
I know my spelling and grammar are poor some times my spell check says 'I got
nothing

for you' and there/ their is no grammar check yet so please forgive me Jesus did.

I always try to get the best exposure possible from the camera but I will use RAW conversion and Photoshop where necessary to get the best possible end result.

By getting it right in camera I save a lot of work - and time - later on.
--
Greg

When you've got a moment, have a look at my newly updated site including my blog:
http://www.wrightphotos.co.uk
also http://www.wrightphotos.co.uk/FromeInFocus

Winner of the South West Rural section of the BBC's Picture of Britain Competition.

I would love to be able to take the perfect shot and exposure in the field but i simply am not good enough. I am however very skilled in creating beautiful shots in PS.

so tell me does that make me a bad photgrapher and just a great manipulator
---------------------

you have to separate the maker of shots in the camera and all that is done in the pc is touchups from the manipulator of shots in the pc and the shots from the camera are really poorly taken or could be well done. there is 3 versions of the user here.

the first and last are people who know how to take photo with a camera and virtually every pic from the camera is well shot in terms of exposure and wb. the middle perason is someone who does not have the camera skills to take a good shot in the camera but relys on the raw converter and photoshop to MAKE his pics.

for myself, i have been shooting with an slr/dslr since 1970. almost 100% of my shots are exposed correctly in any condition and with correct white balance. it is extremely rare that one of pics comes from the field messed up from the camera. i am using pe6 and cs2 for touchups if needed, mostly the pc is used for sorting printing and storage of the images. i takes my workflow maybe 45seconds a picture if a use all my steps. mostly all steps are not used, so the time per pic is even less. for all what i just said i shoot jpeg at max quality in the camera. there are 3 times that i would switch to raw in an instant when there is no time to properly setup the shot, when the photog has no idea of the lighting becaused it is unknown or mixed, and when there is something he has to correct for in every shot(and it is easier done in the converter).

in other words i can get away with jpeg shooting because i have the experience and know how to make that work. not everybody does.

BUT, many people have come into photography since digital went mainstream about 7-8yrs ago. and these people do not have the photgraphy background to be able to do the camera field work accurately. they have to rely on the photoshop and/or the raw converter to have presentable images. it also is not true that if you spent many yrs shooting film prints you know what you are doing. the film print to a very large extent is made by the printing technicion at the time of printing. a good tech can take a pretty bad shot and print it fine. the people who shot slides, however, do not have this backup crutch in the workflow, the printing tech. when you shoot slides you have to get them right in the camera with exposure and composition. later you project your slides on the wall and there they are in all their glory good and bad. there is no way to realistically fix a bad slide. when i shot slides photoshop was not even an idea or a dram.

if you wish to learn more about the actual shooting in the camefra their are plenty of info available. in the following web pagae read titles 2-6 on the left. just click on them and will be taken to that info.

The natural way to view things would be with your eyes only. As soon as someone picks up any camera, they are being unnatural. A camera is a machine, and is no more natural than a computer. In fact, these days a camera IS a computer. And as has already been said, there is always some processing, whether it be film or digital.

I was talking to a guy the other day who said he deletes any pictures that aren't perfect right out of the camera. He sneered at the idea of even using sharpening in a computer. What he apparently doesn't realize is that his camera is doing sharpening and a lot of other manipulation/correcting.

This website, and these forums, are a perfect example of how unnatural photography really is. The latest techy doodad in a camera is about all anyone seems to care about, even if that doodad has nothing to do with getting better pictures.

I don't see anything wrong with using computers or computerized cameras to get good photos, although I do object to people manipulating photos in a computer and then passing them off as something straight from the camera.

Some people seem to think that painting or drawing is somehow more natural and pure than photography. Nothing could be more absurd. Paintings and drawings are manipulated, touched up, and corrected too.

To me, photography (in all it's forms) is the greatest invention of all time, and as far as I'm concerned anything goes, as long as you're honest about it.

Riordan Jeavons said:

This is probably an issue that has been raised before but I wonder if
there are still poeple out there who curse you if you post-process
any photos?

As I became an avid Photographer only just before digital went boom,
i never really got into filters and dark room effects.

The question i have to ask is: Is there really any difference between
people who manufacture photos at point of shot and people who prefer
to do it in post processing?

I would love to be able to take the perfect shot and exposure in the
field but i simply am not good enough. I am however very skilled in
creating beautiful shots in PS.

so tell me does that make me a bad photgrapher and just a great
manipulator?

interested in both points of view.

Ryadan Jeavons

Click to expand...

I'm into weddings and IMO any professional photographer who shoots pictures and just burns them on a CD and hands them to a client is straight up lazy and a ripoff. The pp part takes the longest and it's required to give the photos that little bit of a pop. It's all part of making the photo look good. Of course there's a fine line between what's too much but that's up to the photographer.

is the final results, and it shouldn't matter how it's achieved. It all comes down to personal tastes, and with today's endless supply of plug-ins and other technological advances, the possibilities are endless. What I do find, though, are so many people who go overboard with their tools...I absolutely hate those soupy, syrupy, over-saturated landscapes with the fake, overly-dramatic skies..but others obviously love them. HDR is a great tool for us, but again, as long as it is not used to the point of reality being lost.

See? It's all a matter of taste because many people DO like the look of images that I don't care for. Photography...like any other medium, is all subjective, anyway. Do your thing, don't let others tell you that what you are doing is wrong.
--
charlesh

Is not do people pp..sure most do

(It is possible to have shots straight from camera, set up to your tastes..that are just fine too) Though nit pickers will say its processing (albeit in camera)

the point is..to me.

Do you overprocess your photos?? No need to look far on that one, plenty of HDR images around.

I also agree its down to personal taste as well. But I still feel, most of the work is done at capture, and the other stuff is the final touch. The last thing I want my photos to look like, is having been thrashed in a monster photoshop session.

And, its something many do..so, I try to avoid the overprocessed look.

But clearly, some of the digital uber pp, has little to do with photography, more digital art. If you took their computer away..from digital artist or whatever they call themselves....they would be stuffed 100%.
--



I am not the 'Ghost Hunter', nor am I the Irish actor in the 'Quiet Man' ;-)

the line on manipulation in photojournalism is clear....no changes to the content...no deception....

the line on other imagery is less clear...portraits are retouched, backgrounds are cleaned up, more chocolate chips are put in the scoop of ice cream...

here is an image of a "news" photo that distorted the truth...(although 3 missiles hitting you on the head are about as bad as 4)

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/in-an-iranian-image-a-missile-too-many/index.html?hp

Thank you all for your comments.

I wanted to wait until my site was up before responding so sorry it took so long.

I wanted to give you an idea of what i was talking about in regards to my work being processed.

http://littlemoments.com.au/gallery.htm

Most of my images are processed because as you said they need to just pop off the page and mine don't seem to unless i process. Only a few are not edited at all and remain as the original shot.

Have a browse through the galleries and let me know if any are overdone.

Also, my pricing is pretty cheap, do you think it is fair enough?

Kind Regards,

Ryadan

I have gone the jpeg route with no PP but that suits my approch to photography

and I find it alot of fun. Others may benefit from shooting RAW or in some cases both jpeg+RAW. Both have there pros and cons. Pick one and practice feverishly.

http://dwayneoakes.zenfolio.com

Take care Dwayne Oakes

Riordan Jeavons said:

I would love to be able to take the perfect shot and exposure in the
field but i simply am not good enough. I am however very skilled in
creating beautiful shots in PS.

Click to expand...

Is it really worth your time to fake it?

Does it add anything to the wealth of the world of true talent to fake it?

You either have it, or you don't. Perhaps find another area of the arts that you may be more talented in so you can be truly satisfied in knowing it is the real you, not the faked out, look like everyone else's faked out garbage photoshop one.

Seriously, try something different instead of adding just more faked out computer art to the world.

.....Does it add anything to the wealth of the world of true talent ????......

digital manipulation is an artform, as is painting, pottery, and bead stringing and pasting macaroni on a paper plate....

as with all art forms, sometimes art results, truth is, more often than not it doesn't..

in photography, the proof is what is finally within the borders of the image..it matters not how it got there,,, straight jpeg, raw, film (that is known as silver halide technology) , photogram or photoshop -manipulated..

what is you beef????

Well are we talking about photography or digital manipulation? Because there is a difference....

I just hauled a pack weighing over 60 pounds into one of the most remote and rugged parts of the country. On me was a D700 and a single 28/2 lens. In the pack was a Hasselblad 500 C/M, 50mm F/4, 100mm 3.5, two backs, 22 rolls of Kodak Techpan and Agfa APX 25, meters, tripod, etc.

I worked my a$$ off for days to get the real deal, not faked out photoshop images. I froze, bled, cursed, got soaked, blown around, sweated and climbed around on teetering rocks to engage in real photography.

To my clients; magazines, ad agencies, fine art buyers and my peers, it matters how I got the image. It matters that the spectacular color or form in a scene really happened in front of me, not behind me on a computer screen.

In a world of increasing fakery and deception, it matters far more to people than you might think.

markmark said:

.....Does it add anything to the wealth of the world of true talent
????......

digital manipulation is an artform, as is painting, pottery, and
bead stringing and pasting macaroni on a paper plate....

as with all art forms, sometimes art results, truth is, more often
than not it doesn't..

in photography, the proof is what is finally within the borders of
the image..it matters not how it got there,,, straight jpeg, raw,
film (that is known as silver halide technology) , photogram or
photoshop -manipulated..

what is you beef????

Click to expand...