minniev Loc: MIssissippi

You did quite well staying on topic, and thanks for sharing your views (they are similar to my own that I've offered in various parts of this interesting discussion. I like your term "artistic manipulation" but we do still have folks who don't think photography is an art form, so there's that, too.

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

It's been a while since I've emphasized this point: but here goes again:
Every photograph is a manipulation of reality...an intended, and routinely blithely accepted illusion that a three-dimensional world can be rendered on a two-dimensional surface. Having accepted that, it then seems ludicrous that umbrage be taken concerning burning in, dodging, using lenses of focal lengths other than "normal" for the format used, using colored filters (or cyber-versions thereof) , and all the other quotidian post-exposure image processing techniques of most photographers.

It is from this perspective that I find arguments denigrating pp of images past the putative purity of the SOOC condition to be incredibly pretentious and egregiously...with-nose-high -in -the -air -and -nostrils -flared, haughty and self-important!

My considered opinion is that I could not care less what sorts of - nor how much of "processing" any image posted has endured until and/or unless that "processing" has exerted some detectable deleterious effect upon image quality. Otherwise....although I am certain this topic will continue to surface and find willing discussants...it is, in essence (and again I stress...in my considered opinion...) meaningless.

The image, not the means of its achievement,ought be the concern.

Dave

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

I like it! You are indeed a "Cunning Linguist", Sir. My respect to you!

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

Excellent, and applicable to many disciplines beyond photography. Content and promotion are entirely separate skills, yet both are required for a successful business or even recognition. The Vivian Maier references are incredibly appropriate.

Thank you!

BartHx

Why would we single out photographers and tie their hands by not allowing them to make a piece of art that has been formed to their vision? It is common for a painter to alter a scene in a multitude of ways to produce something that fits their own vision. It is then that vision which is judged as to its value as art. I have heard sculptors defined as people who take an amorphous mass of some material and cut away anything that does not fit with their vision. Again, it is that vision that is judged as to its value as art. A musician rarely, if ever, performs the same composition twice in exactly the same way. On the music bulletin boards where I hang out, the discussion is about which performance you like better, not whether the artist had the right to alter the way he played it. An advantage music and photography have over most other forms of art is that they can much more easily allow for a future change in the artist's vision. Ansel Adams was also a very talented pianist and could, just as easily, become a well known professional musician. As I mentioned before, something he was fond of saying was that "the negative is the score and the print is the performance". Why should photographers feel duty bound to reproduce an image exactly as it appeared and not alter it to fit their personal vision? I know there are many people who did not like the way Jimi Hendrix performed our National Anthem at Woodstock. Like it or not, it was our National Anthem and appropriate to his vision of how it should be performed under those circumstances. As I have also stated before, I prefer Ansel's earlier performances of Moonrise. At the same time, I find absolutely no fault in his changing his vision of how it should be performed. I feel that a photographer should do whatever is necessary to fit his performance to his own personal vision at the time of the performance. To do otherwise would be eliminating a potentially great piece of work before it was ever tried. Whether or not a particular piece is great is a judgment that should be left to history.

minniev Loc: MIssissippi

Excellent points, particularly in the analogies about music. Most of us in this discussion seem to accept processing/editing as a given component of artistic endeavor, and most seem to include photography as an artistic endeavor (whether or not the resultant effort is "good art."). I was hoping some of the purists who often speak out on this question might wander in to share their views, but they'd probably feel like they'd been bushwhacked.

In researching the thread, I googled "is photoshop cheating?" and had too many thousands of hits to read through. Many agreed with most participants on this thread, but some did not. There were links to multiple photo fora with heated discussions, there were news features, and even a book by that title. So it is a debate that still lives.

Thanks for joining in!

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

Thank you. Photoshop is a tool. What people choose to do with it is a different discussion. It can help anyone manipulate, but only an individual can decide to cheat....

St3v3M Loc: 35,000 feet

For most of my time using a camera I thought it necessary to learn to take beautiful images straight out of the camera. 'Photoshopping' was some sort of heresy to the craft, or used to manipulate an image for artistic effect, nothing more. I would 'narrate' the image through the way I composed it and the settings, but never thought of it as anything more, and when shooting JPG would let the camera decide how to process it. This was The Way and anything else was cheating, with excuses like; You Can Always Fix It In Photoshop. It was like if you weren't a good enough photographer to get it right in-camera then you could cheat and fix it later. That wasn't good enough for me and I strived on always learning more and looking for a better way.

When my cherished point-and-shoot died I purchased a DSLR and learned to shoot RAW. I was told there was more information in the negative and could make better prints from it, but at the cost of post processing them which I reluctantly learned to do. I stuck with the software supplied by the manufacturer and thought I was making beautiful images. It's about this time that I came across a section of the forum that was quick to tell me otherwise and so I looked again. I found new software, with new methods to pull out the image I desired and carried on. Changing the white balance, tonal aspects and sharpness seemed like necessary functions, but not at all the dreaded 'photoshopping' I thought was wrong.

I may never be a 'photoshopper' as I'm still reluctant to learn, but I see the power of being able to tell the story of the image you wish to tell. It's in this that while I may continue to work for the best image I can in-camera I no longer think of post-processing as cheating. I'm sure some rely on it to correct their mistakes, and whose to say that's wrong, while others use it to create amazing works of art that are not possible otherwise, and most to simply make the best image they can. I've said it before, but it stands true with this confession more than ever that unless you're a photojournalist photo manipulation is part of the process, part of how you make an image, and to say otherwise is misguided at best.

From the moment you look at a possible image you manipulate the way you want to present i,t with the way you compose it, the equipment you use, the settings you choose, how you process it, and of course how you present it. Everything you do manipulates the final image and that's okay, it's your image! S-

minniev Loc: MIssissippi

Thanks so much Steve, for speaking up as a "reformed" purist You have explained your personal journey very eloquently. And many others may think like you did, but have not yet challenged themselves to step off on unfamiliar ground.

All of us, even the ones who are highly skilled, are on a journey. Some of us have been traveling longer than others and may have taken backroads or goat-tracks that went in circles. But the understanding of all that is possible with the camera, with the lenses, with the software is not a sudden event, it is a process itself.

The first barrier I ran into in learning to do ANYTHING besides leave the camera on Auto was fear, and I wonder if some folks get stuck there too. The settings and the software seemed overwhelming and I was afraid I'd ruin all my pictures. It took a while to get comfortable and accept responsibility for controlling all the variables myself, and then go a step further to experiment in order to learn new stuff. To me it is worth the trouble. But each one of us has to decide those things for themselves. And all the decisions are valid!

St3v3M Loc: 35,000 feet

So true, so very true! S-

BartHx

My brother is an iternationally known research scientist. As a side effect, he tends to be a data geek. He got into digital photography when he saw just how much data a DSLR could provide about any given image. I, on the other hand, have always tended to favor medium format, silver based, B&W photography. I got into digital when my brother wanted to upgrade from his D70 and, to keep his wife happy, gave it to me for Christmas so that he could get a higher end model. At one point, our house was broken into and the D70 walked away (everything else was out of sight). When I went to replace the camera, my wife encouraged me to add some to the insurance money and replace it with a D7000. Unfortunately, none of my Cokin adaptors fit the standard lens that came with that camera and I had not gotten around to getting one that did. A year or so ago, I was shooting a series of nudes. We were shooting in open shade on a clear, sunny day next to water. While I try to do as much composing as I am able in the camera, for obvious reasons, the shots all came out with an unpleasant blue cast. It was a quick and easy process to eliminate the color cast with Photoshop and give the lady what she wanted.

As for darkroom manipulation, I try to shoot the image I visualize to minimize the amount of work it needs in the darkroom. However, I don't think I can count the number of images I have shot and been pleased with the result only to come back a few years later and wonder "what the heck was I thinking?". Your vision is likely to change over time and, as that happens, the manipulation has to start. There is nothing wrong with that. It is simply fitting an image to your current view of what the image should be. I seriously doubt that someone like Picasso actually saw things the way he painted them, but nobody faults him for manipulation. Why fault ourselves for trying to match our personal visions.

Dave Chinn

I too, was in similar circumstances. When I first went digital around 2006, everything I shot was in JPEG. Why? Because I was ignorant, stubborn and terrified to shoot in raw. After seeing the possibilities I forced myself to get out of my comfort zone to learn how to post process my images to achieve the next level. It has been a long journey with no end in sight, which I am extremely excited about because the road to successful possibilities is always under construction. Shooting in raw and post processing has also taught me that in order to get the best from my photos I needed to get it right from the camera first. A good base image to start with is always the best approach to post processing.
Dave