rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Did you ever use Kodachrome?
How did you ‘finish’ it?

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

A large portion of photos posted here in UHH have no relation to what was actually seen.
Colors, intensity, vibrance, saturation etc. look to be amped up as one never sees such in real life.
Only in the Andean jungles of Colombia have I seen some saturated unreal colors in real life.

Blair Shaw Jr Loc: Dunnellon,Florida

I just enjoy the picture no matter the circumstance......I will never stop looking.

Someone's vision vs. someone's interpretation, is somebody else's department.

AzPicLady Loc: Behind the camera!

I'm not sure what good it will do to express my opinion here, as after 8 pages probably most aren't reading. And those who are proponents of "do anything you want" simply poo-poo my attitude anyway. But here goes.

I shoot reality. I want my pictures to reflect as closely as possible what actually was there. I want people who go to the spot where I shot that scene to see as closely as possible what they saw in my picture. I realize there are problems with that attitude. There's trash on the scene. There's a cable or a wire that interrupts the view. No, I'm not opposed to cleaning up the trash. And I do take out an occasional wire or cable. But I won't change the colour of a bird or oversaturate it to make it "more beautiful." I won't add anything to the scene that wasn't there. I did move an element some years back, but when I posted it I noted that it had been moved. And I did not call the resulting image a photograph. These are my ethics, not necessarily the same as those of anyone else. When things are manipulated beyond reality (changing colours, moving elements, adding elements, etc.) I think it might be a really nice image. But I can no longer call it a photograph. It now becomes digital art, which is fine - just not what I do.

And it's OK for me to be that way. Contrary to what those who PP to death their images might say, it's OK to deal in reality. And I think they should state that they have changed reality so that I, when looking at their image, don't think that it is reality. If it's a composite, let me know that.

Since I'm on my soapbox right now, I'll talk about something else. So many people point to Ansel Adams claiming he manipulated his pictures. So what? I really don't care what he did. He's not a god that made up all the rules of photography. He was a man that did pretty well within his own sense of right. The fact that I disagree with it doesn't make me wrong - just different.

OK, now you can laugh and deride me all you want. I'll stay true to me and what I believe is correct.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

But, where is the Adams * asterisk you and the OP seem to be demanding for disclosure??

Norm Barber

No use fretting over PP.
The only photos that are not post processed are Straight Out Of Camera slides and Polaroids (and relatively modern equivalents).
Film days had various film characteristics, several levels of contrast paper, flexibility over print exposure, dodging & burning, filters for the the enlarger, manipulation of the paper developing process including such rudimentary things such sephia toning, solarization, and over/under developing.

If you take into account the capability to over/under expose the film coupled with under/over developing the film, only amateur snap-shooters did Straight Out Of Camera.
Bring back those fabulous Polaroids.

mkahn

Just your choice of Kodachrome affected the color rendition, contrast, etc. It could be an entirely different image if you chose to use Ektachrome or Fujichrome, for example. A choice the photographer makes subjectively.

btbg

Yes I used a lot of Kodachrome. Finished it by printing large prints using both dodging and burning in my darkroom.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

I used slides, Punct.
No prints, never had a darkroom.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

I was aware of the subtle variance.
Not the radical saturation difference talked about above.
Sometimes the same scene would show up on the first slide of one roll that had been in the last slide of the previous roll, and I had. changed emulsions in between.

btbg

I also shoot reality. That's my job. However, reality does not mean straight out of camera. That is the point that Cannon and Rehess are arguing about. Straight out of camera does not reflect reality.

How many times have you seen a straight out of camera print from the old film days where the sky is completely white? Was the sky white when the photo was taken? Of course not. Just the film was unable to record the entire tonal range. How often do you see photos of architecture that shows a building such as a church with a tall steeple slanting in from both sides? Did the building really slant like that? Of course not. So, once again the straight out of camera photo did not show reality.

The reality is that a camera does not see light or shape the same way a person does and is unable to accurately record exactly what the human who was there actually saw. For journalism the rules are clear that we can only do minimal post processing, but that post processing is absolutely necessary in order to reflect reality on many occasions. We may need to straighten a horizon on a news photo that was shot so hurriedly that we failed to get the horizon straight. We may need to open up the shadows so that the detail still shows, or lower the highlights so that there is still color in the sky. We may need to adjust tone because the white balance did not show the colors that were really there.

I work hard to show reality, but that means that I also work hard on my post processing to make sure that what shows up in print reflects what I actually saw. To give you part of the technical reason that is so important is the press that our newspaper is printed on requires that photos be CMYK in order to print well. Most cameras by default shoot in RGB. That means that each time a photo is prepared for print it must be converted to a CMYK Tiff. IF you open photoshop and convert an RGB photo with blue in it to a CMYK you will note an immediate and sometimes severe color shift, particularly in blues and purples. That must be corrected as well as possible in order for the photo to show reality.

I do agree with you that composites and AI enhanced photos should be labeled as such rather than passed off as reality, but that isn't what actually happens. I also agree that ethically a photojournalist should try to reflect the scene accurately. That also isn't what actually happens. As Cannon has noted by the artistic choices a photojournalist makes a crowd may look larger than it really was, or may look smaller than reality just by how the photographer framed the scene. That may have been done simply because the photographer was trying to take a more interesting photo, or it may have been done to manipulate the viewer.

Can that be a problem? Absolutely it can. However, that has been happening since the beginning of photojournalism. The only real difference is that with the modern tools at our disposal it is easier to manipulate an image, but it has always happened.

What you and Rehess need to understand is that although there is nothing wrong with straight out of camera in no way is that an accurate depiction of what was actually in the scene. The choices you make as to what you include in an image and what you exclude alter the viewers perception the same way removing a wire or trash digitally will alter the viewers perception.

Failure to correct for the distortion of a specific lens, or the convergence of lines in a building because you choose not to post process does not make your photo more realistic. It merely makes it straight out of the camera. Because the choices you make in composition, the limits on the range of light to dark that your camera is able to record, the limitations of the lens you use, or even changes in focal length and f stop all alter reality.

Example, most wildlife photographers often shoot wide open, which blurs the background and removes distractions. Does that reflect the reality of what they saw? Absolutely not. How many times have you seen a photo posted here with silky smooth water on a waterfall? That is done in camera. Does that mean that the waterfall really looked like that? Of course not. It's just a fact that whether you choose to do all your work straight out of the camera, or you choose to post process neither guarantees that what you see in the photo is what you actually saw when you were there. In fact, I would argue that post processing is necessary in many cases in order for the photo to reflect what was actually there.

genocolo Loc: Vail and Gasparilla Island

This conversation continues to expand way beyond anything I envisioned or can understand.

My original question, many pages ago, was essentially, “should a photographer, who posts or publishes a terrific photo of a very blue tri-color heron in flight, note that it was pp to make it more blue?”

When I first saw it, it did not cross my mind that it was pp. I thought what an excellent and unique capture it was.


Maybe I should just assume that all posted photos have been pp by the photographer. (I am not taking about what camera pre and post processing.)

btbg

I understand that you are not talking about camera pre and post processing. The problem is that is part of the equation. Set your camera to vivid and adjust your white balance to bring out the blues in a photo and see if you do not also get a very blue and saturated tri-color heron in flight, without doing any post processing. I shoot in raw, which means that non adjusted the image will likely be somewhat flat and the colors may be muted, so I may need to adjust the luminousity, contrast, shadows and highlights in post processing, but in many cases you can do the same kinds of processing by how you set up your camera in advance of taking the photo by shooting in JPEG mode with one of the presets the camera provides along with an adjusted white balance.

Neither image is guaranteed to reflect reality. Straight out of camera can be very manipulated, and can distort reality just like a post processed image. I do think that composites and images with content that is altered with things such as generative fill should be noted as such, at least in some cases, but lets get real here, just because a person only shows images straight out of camera does not mean those images are any more honest or realistic than those that are post processed.

Shoot my camera will blend two images together in camera, or will take multiple exposures, or will do any of countless other things that allow manipulation of a photo without the necessity of post processing on my computer, so sooc is no guarantee that the photo has not been manipulated, just like the fact that a photo has been post processed doesn't mean that it does not reflect reality.

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

You may have the same TYPES of control but nowhere bear the same LEVEL of control.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

I totally understand that concept. Often I use wide-angle lens to put real trash or photographic trash {such as a barbed wire fence} behind me. I don’t like “silky” water falls because I view them as a photographic device that robs them of their power. As far as the sky is concerned, it depends on where you are when; sometimes the sky photographs white around here because it looks white to the eyes of most us, and adding blue doesn’t represent what we see.