SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

Completely missing the point. Like your slide film, your SOOC JPEG won’t be able to capture that detail. Your slide couldn’t capture that detail. Shooting a digital camera in raw you could bring out the detail, making the image more accurately representing the scene. No amount of “pre” work can do that.

photoman022 Loc: Manchester CT USA

I shoot in RAW so I have to post process. There are photos I have "changed". One of my favorite photos is of the redwood cutters "dorm" (it was actually a shack) at the entrance to the University of California Santa Cruz. I took the shot in the morning; this section of coastal California has a habit of having white skies in the morning; somewhere in the later morning the upper atmosphere fog burns off and all you have it blue sky (no clouds). I took the photo of the white, nondescript sky. I knew I would change out the sky for one with brooding, dark clouds. Do I let people know I changed out the sky? Only if they ask. People are impressed with the photo and it turned out how I envisioned it.

Way back when I processed my own black and white film. There were plenty of times I dodged and burned in the darkroom. Did I tell people about it? No. It was part of what I did as a photographer.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

So. forget about the ‘detail’; if the slide film didn’t record it in 1972, it no longer exists in a form in which it could be recorded.

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

Missing…or ignoring the point.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

Unless an image is labeled SOOC, you can safely assume there has been some level of retouching performed on it.

Abo

I believe this is art... by Koen Demuynck... in this case possibly commercial art:

Image by Koen Demuynck.

User ID

If you shoot raw and make full use of the in-camera PP controls, is the result still SOOC ? Shall we now consider new terms or jargon such as "ASOOC", aka "Augmented SOOC" ? (or "ESOOC" or whatever ... ).

IOW, "SOOC" could mean: "untouched after the moment of exposure", OR it could mean "untouched outside of the camera". Newer cameras have extensive "Retouching" and "Raw Processing" menus (some even offer limited compositing).

Picture Taker Loc: Michigan Thumb

The ART does not know the difference of RAW vs JP. The computer dozen't know art from a bad not art picture it can only help some of the technology to"fix" the recorded image.

PhotogHobbyist Loc: Bradford, PA

Additional proof that when we "assume" anything, it can make an ass of u and me.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Your are missing my point
[endwatch]

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

Your point has been missing from the start.

sippyjug104 Loc: Missouri

There's a reason why women wear makeup and there is a good reason why there are men that could use some fix'n up too! 😁 The same can be said most often times for the images we take.

User ID

THAT is sooooooo clever !
Did you make that up ?!?

Canisdirus

They don't have this 'imagined' problem in other art forms.

RetCapt Loc: NorCal mountains

I am a new member here, having been a very long-time lurker.

The post-process vs SOOC (which does not preclude altering the image in the camera, intentional or unintentional)) approach has been argued endlessly. One thing too often ignored by the SOOC advocates is that the camera itself influences the image it produces, either by the parameters engineered into the camera or by the user pre-setting the camera. So SOOC may exist, but it does not mean the image has not been altered.

My sole photographic objective is the print I make that goes on our or someone else's wall. I want that print to be as perfect as I can make it. That requires processing beyond what the camera can do regardless of pre-setting by the photographer. Going back to my film days, I do my very best to get it right in the camera before I take the photo. This sometimes requires bracketing, which I did with film and do now with digital. So at the post processing stage most of the time it becomes fine-tuning, not major surgery. But that fine-tuning is necessary to get the quality of print I want as the finished image.

I see digital post processing as analogous to darkroom operations using film.

Although my prints are predominately color, I also like black and white. But I don't have the ability to look at a scene and visualize it as black and white. It is during post-processing that I have time to examine my images and then make a decision whether or not to produce a black and white version. I have tried taking a parallel image in the field in black and white but I have found that I have much greater latitude by doing the conversion in post. So the conversion happens in post processing.

My film experience, although lengthy, was limited to 35mm. So that is my basis for comparison. The results I get with digital, even with my earliest (2009) cameras, far exceed in quality what I got from 35mm film. There are a number of factors responsible for this, and post processing is one of them.

What I can't visualize is someone being satisfied with less than what the entire digital photographic process can produce. The vast majority of time I am not questioned on how I create a print. A few years ago I had done a photograph looking across our local lake as a gift to our outgoing pastor. The print was done on 13X19" paper at 11X14" to allow the congregation to sign on the borders. In the foreground of this photograph, leading to the water, there are rocks and tree stumps. In the print, despite their proximity, they are completely sharp, as is the rest of the photo. I was asked by another photographer if I had added the rocks and stumps from another image to the lake image to get everything in proper focus. I told him I had not and would be glad to show him the SOOC image, which he declined. In this instance it was a bright day with the afternoon sun behind me, so no shortage of light, and in the ideal location. That allowed me the depth of field I needed. Post processing in this instance truly was fine tuning because the scene itself was just not challenging, for me or my gear.

When I look at someone else's photograph on display, I just assume they have post processed that image to make it the very best they believe it can be.

That assumption is not pejorative.