RWR Loc: La Mesa, CA

The only way I can see this as a dilemma is if you're another of those who cannot understand why everyone else doesn't think the way you do. Please tell us the shoe doesn't fit!

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

Charles, photos used for journalism or forensics (sometimes) are typically not enhanced. It's as real as the camera saw it without adjustments other than straightening and cropping.

Photos that are taken as art - are meant to be visually appealing, usually at least to the creator, but not always necessarily to others who might view them. Whether they represent reality or fantasy is entirely within the prerogative of the artist. No different than the photorealism movement in the late 20th century, compared to the impressionists of the late 19th century - both are perfectly valid as an artist's point of view, but obviously very different in result.

tdekany Loc: Oregon

When you say "photoshopped" what exactly do you mean? Like a cat and on top of the moon? Or are you having issues with "processing" in general?

BTW, what are your thoughts on B&W?

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Reality is good enough for me. I don't try for unusual effects. Of course, I will play around with processing just to see what I can do, but when I want a nice picture, I just want a nice picture.

Howard5252 Loc: New York / Florida (now)

Post Camera Editing technology has come a long way.Today there are no negatives (only EXIF files) and changes made by photographers are done on what used to be the final print. So, photographers have gotten what they always wished for – to be called artists. They now have the same freedoms that artists have always had – to leave something out of a painting, to place something into a painting that was not there originally, and to change colors, sizes, and shapes at will. Photographers now have all of these editing choices and they are used to varying degrees of both quantity and skill. Because the amount of possible editing has reached a virtually unlimited amount, I believe the expectation of what photographs depict needs to be changed.

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

This is nothing new - it's just easier now. Almost everything we can now do on the computer has been done in the darkroom since the beginning of photography. And photographers have been called artists since the beginning of photography.

Kuzano

It's called "artists license". Humankind has applied it to every media used to portray images since applying charcoal and rock carvings to cave walls. It's interpretive and ego based, and likely will always be.

Look at the millions of dollars spent annually on the tools used to apply every one's different interpretation to what their mind believes they saw at the point of image capture. The capture itself is simply an image starting point, preserved by the technology we call the current camera.

According to some, we do it well. According to others, we do it very badly. We consider the result either by our own interpretation of our own and of others images. One of the decisive guides is the rank of professionalism "some" are able to gather into their coffers by how much others pay them for their work, good, bad, or otherwise.

There is no definitive answer as to what is good photography considering the ability we have to manipulate our images. That is the way it was with cave art. That is the way it has been for eons with all other media. That is the way it is today with photography, and other media applications, painting, and such.

Some of it is good and some not so good. Everybody owns and must defend their own interpretations, or NOT! It is so here on UHH just as it is hanging in the Louvre, or any museum of modern art. Some of it is pure crap. I rank myself accordingly.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

I use photoshop pretty much the same as I'd use chemicals and techniques to accomplish the same things in the darkroom. So, yes, there is the visually observed scene and then there is the artist's interpretation of what that scene should look like.
--Bob

Alex Taller

Photo editing software is a powerful tool. Often more powerful than the user's good taste and sense of limits. Having said that, I am not a proponent of rigid realism. Once in a while, a photographer gets a chance to create something deeper than whatever he saw in his viewfinder a moment before he pushed that button all the way; that chance shouldn't be wasted.

Howard5252 Loc: New York / Florida (now)

Actually that is incorrect. When photography first came into existence there was tremendous resistance and plenty of debate as to whether a photograph was art and a photographer an artist. Remember, up to that moment in time, paintings and drawings were the only methods of recreating a scene and they generally required a certain amount of talent to do it well. It was against that standard that photographs were measured. The main problem was "The Shutter"; pushing a button to create the photograph was not considered the equivalent of creating a painting.

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

I didn't say everybody called photographers artists from the beginning. But as you say, there was plenty of debate, and there were some who recognized photography was an art form, and photographers who felt they were artists from the beginning. For that matter, there are still those today who refuse to recognize photography can be art.

Bultaco Loc: Aiken, SC

bbrowner Loc: Chapel Hill, NC

You should... "know thyself". Then act accordingly. Be true to what you think and feel. There's only one YOU. Approach this as YOU. Don't worry about the others.

foathog Loc: Greensboro, NC

I agree with you. I wish they would also display the original shot.

camerapapi Loc: Miami, Fl.

You are right, I see many but many pictures manipulated to the point that they seem surreal.
I want to be fair, although I manipulate my images to enhance them and I use software to that end I always try to make the files as natural as possible. At times I exceed myself a bit.
Many photographers use these manipulations as an art form. It is how they feel and it is their art.