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09/25/2006 12:45:08 PM · #1 |
First off, congrats to Ursula on a beautiful shot. And this leads me to my questions....
....is this a photography site, or a "Let's see how well I can post process my shot in order to win" site?
Maybe it should be renamed to: dpppchallenge.com. (digital photo post-processing challenge)
It seems that some of the winning shots have major adjustments in Basic Editing and when it's Advanced editing, it's anything goes....
Just wondering what other folks think.
(Not pickin' on ya Ursula, but when I saw all the post processing, it just made me wonder)
Edit to fix spelling of Ursula. Sorry..
Message edited by author 2006-09-25 17:15:15. |
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09/25/2006 12:47:39 PM · #2 |
uhm...her shot isn't even all that edited. I realize she said she used the dodge and burn / clone tools, etc, but from looking at it, I bet it could have been done pretty damn closely in basic editing.
And her name is ursula not ursela.
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09/25/2006 12:52:52 PM · #3 |
Hmmm, once again down the well-trodden path...
Most photographs, film and digital, aren't complete without manipulation after the fact, whether it be in a darkroom or in a computer program. |
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09/25/2006 12:53:37 PM · #4 |
Photos have been post-processed since the inception of photography, and digital makes it a bit easier for all of us to do it without a massive, space-consuming darkroom. The advanced editing challenges are just that, a chance to showcase some of your advanced editing skills without destroying the original image. Purists may argue that it isn't really photography. But, if that is the case, perhaps we should all toss out these digital beasts and get back to shooting through homemade pinholes.
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09/25/2006 12:56:37 PM · #5 |
Sorry, for the misspelling deapee.
But I have to disagree.
I'm just saying, if you have to make all these changes (layers, blurring, etc...) to a photo, is it REALLY what came out of the camera? I know that there will always be a certain amount of adjustments to a photo, ie. cropping, contrast, saturation. I have been working with Photoshop since 1985 so, I do know a little bit about post processing. I know this topic has been beaten to death, but it still just puzzles me. My question then should have been---Is this a photography site, or a post processing site. It's gotten more and more like that.
Here are the editing steps attached with her photo.
Shot RAW, natural sunlight from a window, small gold reflector on the backside. Converted in Bridge.
Edited in PSCS2.
I didn't write down the steps, and worked on it over a couple days, but here it goes:
Cropped first, then cloned out (stamp tool/healing tool) a couple irregularities. Worked on levels and contrast/brightness. Turned to just about b/w (I think I did this). Created a copy layer and turned it to a dark purple blue, darkened edges to the left hand side a big more. Made a copy layer of this second layer and blurred with gaussian. Blended layer two with background in normal, layer three in soft light (different percents, played around with it). Flattened.
After that I worked with the dodge/burn tools, mainly dodge, to get the dandelion lighter. Resized, sharpened overall, reduced noise overall, sharpened selectively around dandelion, cloned and blended a few more imperfections mainly at the bottom right side of the dandelion, saved as JPG.
NOTE: The end product doesn't look much like the original. I'm not sure I like the type of editing, it is more than what I usually feel comfortable with, but I wanted to try something like this for a while, so here it is.
Edited to add my info on Photoshop that someone called me out on. I said 1985 first and I have since recanted that I added : (I worked for a major label company who were gutsy enough to buy all Macs, so we got to play with the Beta version of Photoshop in 1987--real version came out in 1990) Sorry for the year mixup...
Message edited by author 2006-09-26 18:39:37. |
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09/25/2006 12:56:56 PM · #6 |
Originally posted by Bosborne:
First off, congrats to Ursela on a beautiful shot. And this leads me to my questions.... |
Similar to the question you posted on her image 10 minutes prior to this thread? ;^)
"Good shot. But, could you please post the original? I'd like to see what it looked like before all the adjusting." |
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09/25/2006 01:04:01 PM · #7 |
No matter how the path was taken, the end result is what matters in my opinion. I see nothing wrong with post-processing, light or heavy, if it makes for a beautiful,interesting or powerful image. I'd say almost all digital photos need some sort of PP. Without it they are usually, let me repeat usually, flat and lifeless. I'm sure you'd be surprised at how much work is done on film when it's taken in to be processed/developed and if you do it yourself, you know this already.
And this is a beautiful image. :)
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09/25/2006 01:07:12 PM · #8 |
Originally posted by Bosborne:
First off, congrats to Ursula on a beautiful shot. And this leads me to my questions....
....is this a photography site, or a "Let's see how well I can post process my shot in order to win" site? |
If you have been around here for any length of time, you will find that this is a very redundant issue.
It's not a bad issue or a case of right and wrong. Photographers seem to come from different 'schools.'. One group of photographers treat photography as a documentary science and others treat it as an art. In the school of documentary science, editing and post processing to change the image in any significant way is generally unnecessary and unwanted. They want to see what they saw. In the school of photographic art, the original capture is a canvas upon which a photographic artist creates what he or she wants to see.
Neither side is right or wrong. The problem is that the two schools don't seem to mix well. Each has it's place. This happens to be a place where both coexist.
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09/25/2006 01:07:13 PM · #9 |
| If you edit in a darkroom, you are considered a genius. If you edit with a program, it is considered scandalous. The question should be whether or not you like the image and if so, appreciation for the processing prior to presentation. |
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09/25/2006 01:07:25 PM · #10 |
| seriously what difference does it make? People liked it and it was within the rules. the name of the site is not straightfromthecamera.com either. and what is wrong with people postprocessing thier photos to make them look better. you may not think that it is better but it is apparent that most people do. |
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09/25/2006 01:10:20 PM · #11 |
There was another ribbon winner from last weeks opens that used what I and several others consider an illegal technique for basic but was voted on and allowed by SC to stay. So while I agree that editing is needed and should be used. (I use editing on every shot I take.) So taking advantage of the ability to make the shot look how you intended it to is OK. As long as your within the rules, and even sometimes when your not.
MattO
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09/25/2006 01:11:15 PM · #12 |
Originally posted by jmsetzler:
Originally posted by Bosborne:
First off, congrats to Ursula on a beautiful shot. And this leads me to my questions....
....is this a photography site, or a "Let's see how well I can post process my shot in order to win" site? |
If you have been around here for any length of time, you will find that this is a very redundant issue.
It's not a bad issue or a case of right and wrong. Photographers seem to come from different 'schools.'. One group of photographers treat photography as a documentary science and others treat it as an art. In the school of documentary science, editing and post processing to change the image in any significant way is generally unnecessary and unwanted. They want to see what they saw. In the school of photographic art, the original capture is a canvas upon which a photographic artist creates what he or she wants to see.
Neither side is right or wrong. The problem is that the two schools don't seem to mix well. Each has it's place. This happens to be a place where both coexist. |
The problem is that, often, what the photographer "saw" when they pressed the shutter and what the film/sensor "saw" are two very different things. |
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09/25/2006 01:14:20 PM · #13 |
Lordy, Lordy, you all can stop assembling the troops. It was just my opinion.
I said it was a good shot. Just wondering about THE AMOUNT of post processing.
You all need to lighten up....(No pun intended).... :) |
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09/25/2006 01:14:27 PM · #14 |
As cameras become more and more advanced, your question will become more irrelevant. This site is already behind the times with its editing rules. Post-processing is part of photography. It always has been. And now processing is getting so advanced that the difference between photography and digital art, which was shaky to begin with, will eventually disappear.
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09/25/2006 01:20:42 PM · #15 |
Originally posted by posthumous:
As cameras become more and more advanced, your question will become more irrelevant. This site is already behind the times with its editing rules. Post-processing is part of photography. It always has been. And now processing is getting so advanced that the difference between photography and digital art, which was shaky to begin with, will eventually disappear. |
I remember the early days of color reprodcuction for newspapers. We all (photojournalists) shot 35mm slide film. The only post processing done was cropping. The images all had to be exposed and color balanced properly, IN CAMERA. We not aonly had light meters, but color temperature meters and a full set of filters to compensate. It was brutal back then, but to say post processing has always been done is entirely accurate.
Message edited by author 2006-09-25 13:21:03.
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09/25/2006 01:27:03 PM · #16 |
Originally posted by Spazmo99:
The problem is that, often, what the photographer "saw" when they pressed the shutter and what the film/sensor "saw" are two very different things. |
This is true, but the general consensus is that an unedited digital or film image is as close as we can get in terms of the debate between unedited and heavily processed.
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09/25/2006 01:29:50 PM · #17 |
Originally posted by Spazmo99:
The problem is that, often, what the photographer "saw" when they pressed the shutter and what the film/sensor "saw" are two very different things. |
Given that the human eye and a mechanical lens/sensor capture very different things, that's almost a moot point. Even a simple B&W or Sepia transformation is very likely not what your eye saw.
Having seen the original, I can say that a color shift and Levels adjustment would get close to Ursula's entry. Reading all her steps just says one thing to me: "Attention to detail," and I commend anyone who puts that much time and care into her work. |
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09/25/2006 01:30:07 PM · #18 |
Originally posted by Bosborne:
I have been working with Photoshop since 1985 so, I do know a little bit about post processing. |
No, you haven't. I know this is hyperbole, but it really does make your argument look weak. |
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09/25/2006 01:33:24 PM · #19 |
Sometimes photography and art become one in the same. DPC voters definitely aren't voting exclusively on "photographic skills" ... since the array of images is so varied, it's hard to put a finger on what people vote on. I would say they typically are saying how much an image appeals to their eye.
Time and effort sometimes pay off ... sometimes not. If you spend 3 hours editting something to make it look how you like it and you don't adjust major parts of the image ... and everyone else really likes it ...
maybe you deserve a ribbon :) !
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09/25/2006 01:39:12 PM · #20 |
I don't know if posting the original would help or hurt the discussion. These discussions have a way of getting nasty.
The original is in colour. It is longer. It was shot against the light, and the idea was to get the rim of the glass and the dandelion seed head glowing, while keeping shadows in everything else. The "vision" was to show a leftover dandelion, at it's total end, folded over the edge of a vase and missing part of its seeds, but still glowing in the sun. Dandelions are the beginning (I was thinking of a "we want to take over the world" theme with dandelions originally). But this is the end of this particular dandelion, and the end of summer. Anyway.
The purple/blue actually diminishes this "vision".
I don't know. I had been wanting to try something like this, converting a colour image of a dandelion to a sort of tone in tone in blue/purple shades (I'm thinking of someone else's image, but can't remember whose it is at the moment).
Overall I like to think that post-processing should be as minimal as possible within what you want to achieve, but there shouldn't be any rules as to what you can and can't do. To me that makes sense.
Photography is art. Times change. It is best to get the picture right in the first place, in camera, but we have post-processing tools to allow us to bring out the best in each picture and I see no problem in using the tools we have. We are living in a different age now than 30 or 60 years ago, I like to be able to use the tools available today and use them well. I don't believe that anything in art is "set down in stone", that there is only one way to do something or another that is acceptable.
BTW, many, many images that look like they are "as envisioned in camera" are actually post-processed a lot more than this one. This one is a "in your face" processing - the others are masterfully done so that it looks like what you saw in camera, but it isn't.
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09/25/2006 01:40:31 PM · #21 |
post-processing is photography. pre-processing is photography. hell... thinking up the idea for a shot is photography...
one man's never-so-humble opinion...
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09/25/2006 01:41:24 PM · #22 |
Originally posted by ursula:
I don't know if posting the original would help or hurt the discussion. These discussions have a way of getting nasty.
The original is in colour. It is longer. It was shot against the light, and the idea was to get the rim of the glass and the dandelion seed head glowing, while keeping shadows in everything else. The "vision" was to show a leftover dandelion, at it's total end, folded over the edge of a vase and missing part of its seeds, but still glowing in the sun. Dandelions are the beginning (I was thinking of a "we want to take over the world" theme with dandelions originally). But this is the end of this particular dandelion, and the end of summer. Anyway.
The purple/blue actually diminishes this "vision".
I don't know. I had been wanting to try something like this, converting a colour image of a dandelion to a sort of tone in tone in blue/purple shades (I'm thinking of someone else's image, but can't remember whose it is at the moment).
Overall I like to think that post-processing should be as minimal as possible within what you want to achieve, but there shouldn't be any rules as to what you can and can't do. To me that makes sense.
Photography is art. Times change. It is best to get the picture right in the first place, in camera, but we have post-processing tools to allow us to bring out the best in each picture and I see no problem in using the tools we have. We are living in a different age now than 30 or 60 years ago, I like to be able to use the tools available today and use them well. I don't believe that anything in art is "set down in stone", that there is only one way to do something or another that is acceptable.
BTW, many, many images that look like they are "as envisioned in camera" are actually post-processed a lot more than this one. This one is a "in your face" processing - the others are masterfully done so that it looks like what you saw in camera, but it isn't. |
Well said.
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09/25/2006 01:44:19 PM · #23 |
Originally posted by Borusa:
Originally posted by Bosborne:
I have been working with Photoshop since 1985 so, I do know a little bit about post processing. |
No, you haven't. I know this is hyperbole, but it really does make your argument look weak. |
Photoshop V.1 came out in 1990, fyi.
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09/25/2006 01:50:41 PM · #24 |
Originally posted by Ivo:
If you edit in a darkroom, you are considered a genius. If you edit with a program, it is considered scandalous. The question should be whether or not you like the image and if so, appreciation for the processing prior to presentation. |
EXACTLY! Always had this argument with the 35mm conservationists at school. Photoshop is a part of photography now, get over it. If you disagree, that's fine, show me something better you've made using 30 year old chemicals! Go develop your I'm-so-much-more brilliant and daring nude photograph on tree bark (or whatever art students are doing these days just to try to be "different" for attention)! |
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09/25/2006 02:04:12 PM · #25 |
Im happily in the art side of things in that I feel creativity is not limited. I recently heard of a photograph that was printed on canvas and painted ON. But, the entire photograph wasn't painted. Does it make it a photograph or a painting? Does it matter? no, its creativity at work! Its ART!
Understandibly there are rules here that have been established. They seem to be stricter than most. Because of that, seems to have spurred a lot of nit picking on the part of the participants. I have read these posts after nearly every challenge. After reading them it makes me hesitate to participate myself. It is not the participants job to police the challenges. Its the group of people set up to do that job.
If you want to question an entry contact them.
Remember there are 200+ entries and only 3 winners... SOMEONE has to be 97, 104, 210... on that list. If your image doesn't rank up high enough doesn't mean your image isn't a great shot!
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