Mark7829 Loc: Calfornia

Ansel Adams did post processing but he did it in the darkroom. In the last day of his life, when he could no longer go out in the field, he would hours in his darkroom tweaking his images even further. In his most famous image, Moonrise Hernandez, he eliminated some clouds as he darkened the sky.

I always PP my images but in the perfect/good light that saturates colors, naturally sharpens, I have to do minimal work. You must know your camera and always use a tripod. Be a master (or damn lucky) at exposure, shutter speed, ISO, composure (correct lens), perspective, and light. In order to capture great images, you must also go to great places in optimal photo conditions.

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

If Ansel Adams were alive today, I'm positive he'd be a MASTER of Photoshop because it would allow him to do in minutes what he spend hours and days achieving in the darkroom - and do it non-destructively so he could make minor changes over and over again until it reached exactly what he envisioned before he would print a single print on a color corrected and calibrated printer.

Ansel Adams also shot in color for a living but many only know him for his B&W work that was his artistic output.

In this day of digital, I don't look at post editing as something to be embarrassed about. I look at post editing software as another tool so you can strive to reach what you saw when you were at the original location because, despite what minimalists like the one you talked to would like you to believe, all digital cameras have limitations inherent to digital and if you don't post edit at least a little, you are just a victim of your camera's weaknesses.

I feel the same way about HDR photography too. Yes, it can be over-used and abused or it can restore reality to a file that lost a lot of what the naked eye saw at the original location as the shutter button was pressed.

jamesl Loc: Pennsylvania

I would think he is refering to the zone system too. You can get a copy of LightZone and try it out. It used to be a program that was sold, but it has been changed to a free program now. It divides your picture I believe into 16 zones and then you can use the tool to change where different areas are within the zones. It is like I said, Free, and is available here: http://lightzoneproject.org

Bozsik Loc: Orangevale, California

Knowing the zone system cannot be applied to today's processing the way it was in film days. The zone system worked based upon the difference between the darkest areas and the lightest areas of the image. You would then utilize the base exposure on the film and have to alter the time in the film developing process to attain the correct density on the negative. Any further corrections were done during the printing process.

Nowadays we can not overexpose and under develop the film to control contrast. You are required to digitally manipulate the image. They are similar in their affect, but are not achieved the same way. This is why he (Ansell in this case), had to use a view camera to attain the images. He could take each image, expose and develop accordingly for that individual exposure. Roll film didn't lend itself to doing that.

As for the wildlife images, they are nice. Some are well done because of the timing of the exposure or capture. The colors on most of them are way off, and they appear to have been well worked in PP. Most of them are pretty images, they just lack the realism of wildlife you would find in nature.

If you are unaccustomed to seeing many of these organisms in the wild, they look perfectly fine. But the saturation is too heavy.

I like them because they are beautiful in their own right, but I seriously doubt there is no PP.

davidheald1942 Loc: Mars (the planet)

I never worried much about the horizon, because
too many books, magazines etc. said "keep the
verticals vertical and the horizon will take care of
it's self.
A pretty good rule to live by. (photographically
speaking)
ronny

TheDman Loc: USA

Here's a shot from the trip with the 16-35 at 18mm, f/11. Corner sharpness was so much improved that I wouldn't think of shooting with the 17-40 again, and the 24-105 even looks pretty bad in comparison.

http://www.ddphotos.com/assiniboine.jpg

SharpShooter Loc: NorCal

R, you're a real pain aren't you? :lol:
I thought you already knew all this!!
The simplest explanations are on the Photographic Society of America(PSA)website, I think under divisions. They have set those rules set up to both level the playing field of all the club amateurs in the world, as well as to set personal precedents early.
The biggest authority is Rueters, which controls pro photographers all over the world. I have not looked at their nature division, but the journalism section has page after page of how to procure and handle a foto. From how to take it, to PP.
They discourage any photographer from working on anything, as they can easily disqualify a shot as authentic. The main operative being "authentic".
They don't trust a pro to know what they are doing, and instead want you to sent your pic to your regional field office where they have PP experts that can clean them up without destroying the original integrity of a shot.
Anything that makes a scene, not as it was seen, is out.
In a famous shot, that is deemed manipulated, the original file would be sent to an indipendant lab to check it for authenticity and manipulation.
Nature is always especially suspect.
If one is thinking of entering big time nature contests, you had better know your rules! You never know when you might win, then come under tremendous scrutiny for having done PP to improve the shot. :lol:
SS
Edit: I'm sure NG has a similar set of rules as well, similar to Rueters.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

The rules still apply, pretty much the same way they did - but because we are dealing with positive, not negative media, everything is reversed. We used to expose for the shadows, and develop for the highlights, with negative - but with color positive (transparency) we exposed for the highlights (the thinnest part of the image), and developed the shadows. Only back in the day, color positive film lacked latitude and dynamic range. You just have to get your head around reversing things. And we definitely expose for the highlights and bring out the shadows in post processing, as we work on our raw files (latent images), to turn them into psd or tif images (negatives), so that we can turn them into prints or online images.

The zone system is just as valid today as it was when Ansel Adams and Fred Parker came up with the concept.

Bottom line - zone system is cutting up the range of brightnesses in a scene into 9, 10 or 11 steps - with each step doubling or cutting in half the amount of light of the previous step, depending on which way you are going - bright to dark or vice versa. When you have a scene that lacks black and white, you use developing (you call it digital manipulation) to expand the contrast range to include a black point and a white point. When you have too much contrast, you use luminosity masking - aka hdr processing - aka digitally assisted dodging and burning using multiple exposures of the same scene, either digitally created from a single raw file or actually taken at different exposure settings - to compress the dynamic range to what can be represented by the destination print or display. It is still the zone system.

Bozsik Loc: Orangevale, California

Exactly what I said. Thanks. :thumbup: :thumbup:

Racmanaz Loc: Sunny Tucson!

I wonder if anyone critiquing this mans work realized that he is doing all this while battling "terminal" throat cancer? I think he does wonderful work, I challenge anyone on here who is critiquing his work to take the photo's he has with no to very little PP and came out that good. :) just saying is all.

Bozsik Loc: Orangevale, California

Your statement is a non sequitur. I don't think anyone debates whether the images are attractive. The statement said that he didn't do any PP. The images don't support the statement, that's all. They appear heavily PP in some. Doesn't equate to putting the person down.

None of it has anything to do with cancer. Just chill a little and enjoy the man's work. It is very nice. I find them beautiful to view.

Racmanaz Loc: Sunny Tucson!

Yes you are probably right, I'm chill now and trying very hard to practice that skill :) . Yes I do find his work outstanding and enjoyable to view.