| Author | Thread |
|
|
10/16/2007 03:23:02 PM · #26 |
Originally posted by Simms:
Ahhh, all the action is in here, I am still ranting over in the other thread.. might stick around here now.
Agree with Bear and ScrBrd. |
Welcome aboard! Rant away!
R.
|
|
|
|
10/16/2007 03:25:49 PM · #27 |
I would agree that consistency would dictate that if Photomatix is illegal, S/H should be as well. I like both and I use both, but I see that as the most consistent ruling.
|
|
|
|
10/16/2007 03:28:24 PM · #28 |
Bear, let me ask ya this...
Let's say SC kills S/H for basic:
Now, I have a photo that has some shadows I want opened up a bit. I open a JPEG in CS3's ACR and use fill iight to open up those shadows and I can also recover some highlights.
Ofcourse, I could have done this in RAW conversion to start. But, because I have CS3, I now have tools that I can use to fulfill the same need to open up shadows and recover highlights. But users of CS and CS2 can't do that, because S/H wa taken away from them.
----------
Needless to say, this brings forth a bit of a problem, right?
I think either we do need to go to minimal editing OR Basic rules need to become more results based, rather than tool based.
Message edited by author 2007-10-16 15:29:13.
|
|
|
|
10/16/2007 03:31:28 PM · #29 |
Originally posted by scarbrd:
I am all for keeping S/H and PhotoMatix in Basic. |
S/H is global. Photomatix is selective. Why would they both be allowed? |
|
|
|
10/16/2007 03:36:00 PM · #30 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
I would agree that consistency would dictate that if Photomatix is illegal, S/H should be as well. I like both and I use both, but I see that as the most consistent ruling. |
So, let me understand. There are two ways of getting the same result. One is illegal, the other is legal. You think this is wrong? |
|
|
|
10/16/2007 03:37:23 PM · #31 |
I think it should be allowed, I dont see how this is affecting the image so much that it would not be allowed. The more you use this S/H adjustment the worts the picture looks. I only use it a very little bit in my images. To me their is no reason this should be illegal to use for the challenges. All the rules are confusing enough already.
Originally posted by chip_k:
I think DPC should create its own photo-editing software and everyone should be forced to use it. |
lol they really should.
|
|
|
|
10/16/2007 03:43:13 PM · #32 |
Originally posted by eqsite:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
I would agree that consistency would dictate that if Photomatix is illegal, S/H should be as well. I like both and I use both, but I see that as the most consistent ruling. |
So, let me understand. There are two ways of getting the same result. One is illegal, the other is legal. You think this is wrong? |
Did you misread me? I am saying that if Photomatix is declared illegal then S/H should be as well...
|
|
|
|
10/16/2007 03:45:49 PM · #33 |
Originally posted by eqsite:
There are two ways of getting the same result. |
Tonemapping and Shadow/Highlight do NOT yield the same results. You might think so, but they don't. S/H, Curves, Fill Light, Recovery and Levels all adjust tones globally- all pixels of the same value get the same shift throughout the image. Photomatix takes local area contrast into account, so pixels of the same value are treated differently depending upon where they fall within the image. I don't consider that a global adjustment (the only kind allowed in Basic).
Furthermore, I don't consider tonemapping a corrective edit. The other tools are designed and normally used to bring out detail whereas tonemapping is designed and normally used to impart a distinctive, "special effect" look. |
|
|
|
10/16/2007 03:47:54 PM · #34 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by scarbrd:
I am all for keeping S/H and PhotoMatix in Basic. |
S/H is global. Photomatix is selective. Why would they both be allowed? |
Can you define/explain to me how applying tone mapping to a single TIFF exposure in Photomatix Pro is "selective" in the sense that DPC uses the term? We can't make "selections" in Photomatix, although (interestingly enough) we can in Shadow/Highlight.
In what sense is what Photomatix does any more of a "selection" in DPC terms than, say, the use of "selective color" or "hue/saturation" in Photoshop? With both of those tools, while no user-drawn selection is required, areas of the image are selected by the module in a user-defined way; I can apply alterations to any color in any of them, and to light, dark, and neutral areas in selective color.
Also in Photoshop I can use curves to significantly alter the tonal response of the image in areas of selected tonality, without making an actual selection.
I don't understand in what sense you find basic tone mapping to be more selective than that. It's true that tone mapping can alter local area contrast significantly, but so can shadow/highlight, albeit not as much. And in any case I don't see how, logically, this capacity to do that should fall in a different category than the above examples.
R.
|
|
|
|
10/16/2007 03:48:43 PM · #35 |
My point is this: I've been told repeatedly that the basic ruleset is tools based. So even if they do provide the same results (with a nod to Shannon's last post that they don't), it doesn't matter. This goes back to my personal pet peeve about the Edit>Fade option. This is legal in basic even though it is the same as creating a pixel layer and changing the opacity, which is illegal.
So, no, I didn't misread you. I just think that if this is your position, that you should also think that Edit>Fade should be illegal since the other ways of doing this have been deemed illegal. After all, we just want consistency, right??? |
|
|
|
10/16/2007 03:50:59 PM · #36 |
Hell, I wanna be able to clone out zits, since landscape photogs can clone out dust ;-)
|
|
|
|
10/16/2007 03:53:04 PM · #37 |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
...
But on a more abstract level, we need to decide what is the PURPOSE of basic editing rules, anyway. I say this because many of these things that are banned in basic editing have the result of making basic editing challenges MORE difficult for the average photographer. I say this because to a large extent you can find workarounds for most of these problems IF you are a skilled and experienced photoshop user; yet, by definition (apparently) "basic editing" is meant to somehow level the playing field so less skilled photoshoppers have a chance.
Let me be clear on that; as the rules are written now, and especially if S/H is disallowed, basic editing is actually a more difficult challenge than advanced editing. This is because a great many of the tools/filters allowed in advanced (but not in basic) represent automations of repetitive tasks, and if you are skilled enough in Photoshop you can get acceptable results without the automations, but it takes a lot of time and experience. ...
R. |
I agree with this, I don't know very many advanced tools in photoshop yet, I am still a beginner, in fact a lot of times I just hit the auto adjustment button, which I think sets S/H in lightroom, then try to do a little tweaking from there because I don't really know how to use all the sliders yet. The more of these types of things you take away, somebody that is very novice at post processing, like me, would have a tougher time.
I just barely joined this community hoping to get some of my pictures posted and get some feedback on them, but if I hit the auto, and then get things DQ, then I am not going to get anything out of this site. I was excited when I first found this, but if these, to me being basic tools, are gone then I will probably find another place to go. I am looking forward to making my first submission today.
|
|
|
|
10/16/2007 03:57:41 PM · #38 |
Originally posted by travis_cooper:
... I don't know very many advanced tools in photoshop yet, I am still a beginner, in fact a lot of times I just hit the auto adjustment button, which I think sets S/H in lightroom, then try to do a little tweaking from there because I don't really know how to use all the sliders yet. The more of these types of things you take away, somebody that is very novice at post processing, like me, would have a tougher time.
I just barely joined this community hoping to get some of my pictures posted and get some feedback on them, but if I hit the auto, and then get things DQ, then I am not going to get anything out of this site. I was excited when I first found this, but if these, to me being basic tools, are gone then I will probably find another place to go. I am looking forward to making my first submission today. |
Travis makes a great point regarding the use of "auto adjust". Personally, that was a VERY helpful tool when I first got going here myself. Quite frankly, there are still times when that isn't a bad first step with a few tweaks afterwards.
"Auto Adjust" has been validated in the past, and most image processing software has this feature...is this still going to be legal? I certainly hope so. |
|
|
|
10/16/2007 03:57:57 PM · #39 |
OK, let's take a step back and look at what "Basic" means.
One possible interpretation is that "Basic" refers to a set of tools and features present in basic or entry level image editing programs, like PhotoShop Elements. Use PhotoShop Element as a baseline of what can and can not be done in "Basic" editing. Shadow/Highlight is a feature of the current PS Elements offering, therefore it would be legal. Tone Mapping is not, therefore, not legal.
For "Advanced" editing, look more to the advanced editing tools available like Photoshop CS2 or CS3. Tone Mapping is a feature of these offerings, therefore legal in Advanced editing, even if you use a 3rd party filter to make the effect easier to achieve.
This is an overly simplistic view of the situation. And not all features of either would necessarily be allowed. But if Basic editing is here to give folks without the resources to buy a CS3 type of software, then it makes sense.
I've never read Basic to mean "leveling the field of peoples technical abilities" as I have read in various threads. I see it as more of an economic model to allow members with limited resources for their hobby to have a common set of tools from which they work.
|
|
|
|
10/16/2007 03:59:40 PM · #40 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
Furthermore, I don't consider tonemapping a corrective edit. The other tools are designed and normally used to bring out detail whereas tonemapping is designed and normally used to impart a distinctive, "special effect" look. |
This is SO not true!
tone mapping is "designed" to do exactly the same thing as Shadow/Highlight; they may go at it differently but the goals are the same. The design objective was to find a way to cope with extreme dynamic range and render it effectively on the screen or in the print. I tone map or use S/H on nearly every image I work on, and in at least 75% of the cases you wouldn't know it if I didn't show an original and tell you what I'd done. A lot of time my tone mapping results could have been obtained through curves, levels, and the like; it's just easier to do it in the single interface of the tool.
To say that tone mapping is "normally used" to get that "special effect" is a gross overstatement IMO; it's just that you don't NOTICE it unless that special effect is the end result.
And just as tone mapping can be exaggerated to the point where it no longer appears "basic", so can shadow/highlight, so can curves, so can hue/saturation, so can just about ANY tool.
Here's something for you to try: in CS2 or CS3, go to image/mode/32-bit, then do image/mode/16-bit and look what happens! Now you have the shadow/highlight tool up, and it is being used to tone map the image!
Yup, "tone map"; that's even the language Adobe uses in describing it.
Now you can use this process to produce extremely exaggerated results, just as you can photomatix, but I don't see any way (short of banning shadow/highlight from basic) that youc an legislate this process away; tell us we can't convert up and down while processing? Jejeje�
really, I hate to keep beating on this but it just seems SO inconsistent to me. Why not just institute "Minimal Editing" as the new basic and be done with it? I bet a lot of people would really like that. I wouldn't mind it. Continual advances in processing capabilities across the board, in RAW converters and image editors and stand-alone utilities, are basically making the "basic editing" ruleset impossible to maintain rationally, IMHO.
R.
|
|
|
|
10/16/2007 04:04:14 PM · #41 |
Originally posted by scarbrd:
Use PhotoShop Element as a baseline of what can and can not be done in "Basic" editing. Shadow/Highlight is a feature of the current PS Elements offering, therefore it would be legal. Tone Mapping is not, therefore, not legal.
For "Advanced" editing, look more to the advanced editing tools available like Photoshop CS2 or CS3. Tone Mapping is a feature of these offerings, therefore legal in Advanced editing, even if you use a 3rd party filter to make the effect easier to achieve. |
But shadow/highlight IS Photoshop's version of tone mapping. That's a fact. Any time you use shadow/highlight to recover detail from shadows while not blowing highlights (or vice versa) you are doing EXACTLY what tone mapping was designed to do. And BOTH tools can be tweaked to produce wildly exaggerated results.
R.
|
|
|
|
10/16/2007 04:17:22 PM · #42 |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
Originally posted by scarbrd:
Use PhotoShop Element as a baseline of what can and can not be done in "Basic" editing. Shadow/Highlight is a feature of the current PS Elements offering, therefore it would be legal. Tone Mapping is not, therefore, not legal.
For "Advanced" editing, look more to the advanced editing tools available like Photoshop CS2 or CS3. Tone Mapping is a feature of these offerings, therefore legal in Advanced editing, even if you use a 3rd party filter to make the effect easier to achieve. |
But shadow/highlight IS Photoshop's version of tone mapping. That's a fact. Any time you use shadow/highlight to recover detail from shadows while not blowing highlights (or vice versa) you are doing EXACTLY what tone mapping was designed to do. And BOTH tools can be tweaked to produce wildly exaggerated results.
|
We may be getting into semantics here. I don't disagree. My question to you is, are you trying to get a usable Basic rule set, or are you trying to keep using a version of Photoshop that is 3 generations old? CS3 is essentially Photoshop 10, in your original post in the previous thread (and perhaps ths one too) you stated you want to use PS7 and it does not have Shadow/Highlight, so you want to use PhotoMatix.
Creating a rule set based on a feature set, or lack of, in PhotoShop 7 is not good policy, IMHO.
My suggestion is to take a base line feature set from an inexpensive photo editing package and go from there.
PS - I don't mean to call Bear out specifically on this. Again, I would like to see S/H AND PhotoMatix stay in Basic. |
|
|
|
10/16/2007 04:23:09 PM · #43 |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
Originally posted by scalvert:
Furthermore, I don't consider tonemapping a corrective edit. The other tools are designed and normally used to bring out detail whereas tonemapping is designed and normally used to impart a distinctive, "special effect" look. |
This is SO not true!
tone mapping is "designed" to do exactly the same thing as Shadow/Highlight; they may go at it differently but the goals are the same. The design objective was to find a way to cope with extreme dynamic range and render it effectively on the screen or in the print. I tone map or use S/H on nearly every image I work on, and in at least 75% of the cases you wouldn't know it if I didn't show an original and tell you what I'd done. A lot of time my tone mapping results could have been obtained through curves, levels, and the like; it's just easier to do it in the single interface of the tool.
To say that tone mapping is "normally used" to get that "special effect" is a gross overstatement IMO; it's just that you don't NOTICE it unless that special effect is the end result.
And just as tone mapping can be exaggerated to the point where it no longer appears "basic", so can shadow/highlight, so can curves, so can hue/saturation, so can just about ANY tool.
Here's something for you to try: in CS2 or CS3, go to image/mode/32-bit, then do image/mode/16-bit and look what happens! Now you have the shadow/highlight tool up, and it is being used to tone map the image!
Yup, "tone map"; that's even the language Adobe uses in describing it.
Now you can use this process to produce extremely exaggerated results, just as you can photomatix, but I don't see any way (short of banning shadow/highlight from basic) that youc an legislate this process away; tell us we can't convert up and down while processing? Jejeje�
really, I hate to keep beating on this but it just seems SO inconsistent to me. Why not just institute "Minimal Editing" as the new basic and be done with it? I bet a lot of people would really like that. I wouldn't mind it. Continual advances in processing capabilities across the board, in RAW converters and image editors and stand-alone utilities, are basically making the "basic editing" ruleset impossible to maintain rationally, IMHO.
R. |
Bear is 100% correct. Don't confuse the extreme uses to be the purpose of the tool no matter how popular the extreme usage might be. As we've seen with Unsharp Mask, Curves, Neatimage, etc, people use tools to extreme ends just for effect but that doesn't mean the tool is just an effects filter. Are we going to ban everything that can be used as an effect? If so please ban Neatimage, USM, Curves, Levels, Hue/Saturation and everything else that is not named Noise or Blur.
As I've said before, we are going about this the wrong way. Judge each application individually. Treat the basic ruleset as results based and not the silly tools based which is and always will remain filled with hypocrisy.
Message edited by author 2007-10-16 16:23:56.
|
|
|
|
10/16/2007 04:27:44 PM · #44 |
Originally posted by yanko:
Treat the basic ruleset as results based and not the silly tools based... |
Now this I can get behind. |
|
|
|
10/16/2007 04:36:01 PM · #45 |
Originally posted by eqsite:
Originally posted by yanko:
Treat the basic ruleset as results based and not the silly tools based... |
Now this I can get behind. |
I totally agree with this, but I also see how it would be hard to make up a rule set when results based can be very subjective. But you're right if there were results based rules then it wouldn't matter what program you use. And even if it is subjective you could learn to live within what starts being okay and what gets DQed. I don't use software to get a drastically different image, just to try and get it back to what my eye saw, and from my limited experience I really don't have the knowledge to do much, so I don't think my pictures would be affected by a results based rule set.
|
|
|
|
10/16/2007 04:41:45 PM · #46 |
Originally posted by eqsite:
Originally posted by yanko:
Treat the basic ruleset as results based and not the silly tools based... |
Now this I can get behind. |
I can too - that would be my choice also. In particular if you look at the rulesets as actually being for the benefit of digital images. I guess this just goes to show that SC decisions aren't always unanimous :)
However, if you look at the basic/advanced split as a way to encourage membership, or even in a small way if you look at it from the point of view of people who are just starting out in image editing and prefer to not feel threatened by anything difficult (and I mean that in the best way), it would be good to have a basic ruleset that is almost like the minimal we have now - very limited, very much an "appetizer" of sorts, a way to get your feet wet (or something like that).
It would not be my first choice. To my thinking learning and growth doesn't happen by limiting possibilities, but it is a way to approach the issues here.
Somewhere somebody said that this whole thing is a choice between artistic freedom and consistent enforcement. I guess it could be looked at that way, and in that case I would choose artistic freedom. But I don't think it needs to be that way -- to my mind there is no conflict between artistic freedom and consistent enforcement. Oh well. |
|
|
|
10/16/2007 04:50:09 PM · #47 |
Originally posted by ursula:
However, if you look at the basic/advanced split as a way to encourage membership, or even in a small way if you look at it from the point of view of people who are just starting out in image editing and prefer to not feel threatened by anything difficult (and I mean that in the best way), it would be good to have a basic ruleset that is almost like the minimal we have now - very limited, very much an "appetizer" of sorts, a way to get your feet wet (or something like that).
... |
I partially agree with this, I would feel very overwhelmed if I had to enter in the advanced/expert editing submissions, because I don't know that much yet. I also don't think I would necessarily like my images enough to submit to a minimal rule set either. I like the idea of the basic rules, it is a nice middle of the road, I can do the simple edits I know how to do, so I feel more comfortable with my shot, but I don't have to worry about all those expert editors to compete with. Please don't get rid of the basic rules, but I agree some changes should be made, I think going the direction of results based rather than tools based will be the best way to go, it will get rid of the picture they keep using in the original thread that has such a drastic color change. That picture would be thrown out because it has obviously been changed, but it won't hurt people that need to do a little color correction.
ETA: I agree, are we trying to stunt artistic freedom, or make it so people have more equal ground on submissions so they can feel more comfortable? The rules should give people a safe place to enter their pictures so they can learn and grow, where they also don't think that they are way to novice compared to the other people submitting.
Message edited by author 2007-10-16 16:52:55.
|
|
|
|
10/16/2007 05:02:42 PM · #48 |
Originally posted by scarbrd:
We may be getting into semantics here. I don't disagree. My question to you is, are you trying to get a usable Basic rule set, or are you trying to keep using a version of Photoshop that is 3 generations old? CS3 is essentially Photoshop 10, in your original post in the previous thread (and perhaps ths one too) you stated you want to use PS7 and it does not have Shadow/Highlight, so you want to use PhotoMatix.
Creating a rule set based on a feature set, or lack of, in PhotoShop 7 is not good policy, IMHO.
My suggestion is to take a base line feature set from an inexpensive photo editing package and go from there.
PS - I don't mean to call Bear out specifically on this. Again, I would like to see S/H AND PhotoMatix stay in Basic. |
No, AT THE TIME I was stuck with PS7 and a slow machine, and Photomatix gave me tone mapping and allowed me to "compete" with shadow/highlight. Now I have CS2 and have both available. I use them practically interchangeably.
R.
|
|
|
|
10/16/2007 05:11:49 PM · #49 |
Originally posted by ursula:
Somewhere somebody said that this whole thing is a choice between artistic freedom and consistent enforcement. I guess it could be looked at that way, and in that case I would choose artistic freedom. But I don't think it needs to be that way -- to my mind there is no conflict between artistic freedom and consistent enforcement. Oh well. |
Don't you think that the basic ruleset (not to mention minimal) inheritly discourages artistic freedom at it's core? And by that I mean artistic freedom in post processing. Although with the owl pic getting DQed it seems like artistic freedom and creativity is getting discouraged in-camera as well. However, that anomaly aside, the essense of the ruleset as I've understood it is to get the photo right, period. Basic allows you to finish getting it "right" in post and Minimal demands that you get it right completely in-camera. "Right" meaning how you saw it through the viewfinder and not in your mind's eye so to speak. That seems to be what is at the core and become more visible each time we make revisions and chisel away at the sculpture that is the basic and minimal rulesets. It's not exactly my cup of tea and doesn't seem to be yours either but that seems to be what the idea of these rulests are about. In any rate it's not to promote artistic freedom but rather to encourage just camera skills and pre-processing/setup abilities.
Message edited by author 2007-10-16 17:16:35.
|
|
|
|
10/16/2007 05:17:41 PM · #50 |
Originally posted by yanko:
Originally posted by ursula:
Somewhere somebody said that this whole thing is a choice between artistic freedom and consistent enforcement. I guess it could be looked at that way, and in that case I would choose artistic freedom. But I don't think it needs to be that way -- to my mind there is no conflict between artistic freedom and consistent enforcement. Oh well. |
Don't you think that the basic ruleset (not to mention minimal) inheritly discourages artistic freedom at it's core? And by that I mean artistic freedom in post processing. Although with the owl pic getting DQed it seems like artistic freedom and creativity is getting discouraged in-camera as well. However, that anomaly aside, the essense of the ruleset as I've understood it is to get the photo right, period. Basic allows you to finish getting it "right" in post and Minimal demands that you get it right completely in-camera. "Right" meaning how you saw it through the viewfinder and not in your mind's eye so to speak. That seems to be what is at the core each time we make revisions and chisel away at the sculpture that is the basic and minimal rulesets. It's not exactly my cup of tea and doesn't seem to be yours either but that seems to be what the idea of these rulests are about. In any rate it's not to promote artistic freedom but rather to encourage just camera skills and pre-processing/setup abilities. |
One could say that the ability to be creative in a limited rule set requires more creative talents than allowing an "anything goes" type of rule set.
Just a thought. |
|
