Luminar - Replace sky? (Page 4): I love how everytime these discusussions about photo manipulation come up, we get the great Ansel Adam's quotes. I'll tell you one thing Ansel didn't...

mflowe Loc: Port Deposit, MD

Delderby wrote:

Often, in the past, I have read how many photographers defend their PPd pics as being true photographs by saying that they have reproduced what their "eyes saw" rather than what the camera shot. What would they say when the photograph included a replacement sky, which bore no relationship to the true sky as recorded by the camera?

I love how everytime these discusussions about photo manipulation come up, we get the great Ansel Adam's quotes. I'll tell you one thing Ansel didn't do. He didn't take a sky from one of Eliot Porter's photos and composit into one of his foregrounds.

wds0410 Loc: Nunya

Delderby wrote:

Often, in the past, I have read how many photographers defend their PPd pics as being true photographs by saying that they have reproduced what their "eyes saw" rather than what the camera shot. What would they say when the photograph included a replacement sky, which bore no relationship to the true sky as recorded by the camera?

I would say there are no rules and it's the final result that matters. Those who say there is a loss of integrity are the photograher equivalent of a writer who never uses an editor or re-writes anything. Someone smart said that isn't writing, its typing. In Ansel Adams famous photograph of Moonrise over hernandez -- the sky is heavily manipulated to be unrecognizable from the original negative.

All good photographs (especially landscape photos) by serious photographers (other than photojournalists as others have said) are post processed somehow - lightened, darkened, color enhanced, distractions removed or somehow reduced, contrast added or subtracted -- whatever. It is all fair game in my opinion.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

If Ansel Adams was the photographer worthy of that name, he'd do a better job Straight Out Of Camera like a Real Photographer.

mflowe Loc: Port Deposit, MD

wds0410 wrote:

I would say there are no rules and it's the final ... (show quote)

And I'll repeat myself. What Ansel didn't do was take a sky from say Eliot Porter and put it into "Moonrise"

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Hardly, R.G. Processing is part of making a photographic image. As Ansel Adams said, “Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships.” My peeve is that people will simply push some buttons and then claim to be a photographer when they have little understanding of the photographic process.
--Bob

R.G. wrote:

There's no such thing.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Deja vu all over again

R.G. Loc: Scotland

rmalarz wrote:

Hardly, R.G. Processing is part of making a photographic image....

I was saying there's no such thing as a photograph that's NOT been physically altered. Whether it's SOOC raw or SOOC jpg, it's been altered, and neither version will be an exact representation of what the eye saw.

sandykreit

Delderby wrote:

Often, in the past, I have read how many photographers defend their PPd pics as being true photographs by saying that they have reproduced what their "eyes saw" rather than what the camera shot. What would they say when the photograph included a replacement sky, which bore no relationship to the true sky as recorded by the camera?

I have no problem replacing a sky to improve a photograph, this is art not documentary. If you have a problem with it you can take pictures of skies and use you're own photograph to replace in your photograph.

BebuLamar

mflowe brought up a valid point though. He said Adams wouldn't use Porter's sky in his photograph so whose sky are you using when luminar replacing the sky?

sandykreit

I photograph skies all the time and have a folder of them in Lightroom. Luminar allows you to choose one of your own. I have no problem with that or using there’s.

ronichas Loc: Long Island

Rongnongno wrote:

If using luminar the choices are limited...
If using PS CC the sky is the limit...
Best bet is to use what the saw and it sees many things the eye does not. It is just how you pull this information out that makes a difference. If overdone of course it becomes ugly...

The choices in Luminar are not limited. You can add your own images of skies. I have a whole collection of skies that I have taken and used these when replacing a sky in Luminar 4.

mflowe Loc: Port Deposit, MD

BebuLamar wrote:

mflowe brought up a valid point though. He said Adams wouldn't use Porter's sky in his photograph so whose sky are you using when luminar replacing the sky?

I guess I respectfully disagree with most here on this issue. Maybe I'm logically inconsistent and a hypocrite. I don't know. But I just don't see how anyone can take any pride in taking someone else's work and combining it with their own. I'll admit I don't believe in sky replacement at all, but at least you can use one of your own.

mborn Loc: Massachusetts

sandykreit wrote:

I photograph skies all the time and have a folder of them in Lightroom. Luminar allows you to choose one of your own. I have no problem with that or using there’s.

Right On!

ronichas Loc: Long Island

mflowe wrote:

I guess I respectfully disagree with most here on this issue. Maybe I'm logically inconsistent and a hypocrite. I don't know. But I just don't see how anyone can take any pride in taking someone else's work and combining it with their own. I'll admit I don't believe in sky replacement at all, but at least you can use one of your own.

I am using my own skies. Often from the location of the image, but with a more interesting sky from the same location.

DebAnn Loc: Toronto

suntouched wrote:

In their mind's eye they saw a different sky than what was there :)

Good one Suntouched!