LWW Loc: Banana Republic of America

THEY ARE STILL RECORDING THE ACTUAL IMAGE THAT THE FILM/SENSOR ACTUALLY SAW.

By adding something that was not there they have moved from photography into something else.

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

I have been using Photoshop/Lightroom photographers package ($10.00 a month) for a couple of years. I have taken two classes and am no expert, but I enjoy it very much.
I used to , in the day, do a lot of darkroom B&W work, a lot. But now, I can sit at my desk in daylight and have fun.

BigDaddy Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

Of course passing someone else's photograph as your own, or editing in/out parts of your own photo and passing them off as something else is unethical. I don't like replacing my skies with someone else's sky, not because it is unethical, but because it's not my work. I have several photo's that I used others work for sky replacements. One is a picture of my granddaughter, taken by my daughter with her cell phone.

For some reason, I thought it would be cool with the Milky Way as the sky. I don't have a milky way photo, so I got one off a free photo site that is tied in with my editor, Affinity photo. This photo is for, me, and my family only, I don't sell anything, and I never pretend the sky is mine, there are no ethics involved.

If I ever take good photo of the milky way, (unlikely) I will immediately replace it because I prefer my own stuff, just because. This photo looks great on my big screen HD TV, so I keep it even though it's not my sky, it is my GD. I guess nothing in the pic is mine, it's my daughters cell phone pic, and someone else's sky. I like it, and that's all that matters to me.

(Download)

WDCash Loc: Milford, Delaware, USA

Some say tomato and some say tomato.

LWW Loc: Banana Republic of America

Cool image.

wapiti Loc: round rock, texas

Jfendley

I like Big Daddy's comment.

Soul Dr. Loc: Beautiful Shenandoah Valley

I just call my photography work, images. Nothing to dispute about that.

will

BigDaddy Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

Thanks, LWW. I have to sit on my hands not to post the original pictures vs my finished product. The pictures I like best are ones that start out bland, and I fix them up so they look great. The opposite of "unethical", I'm more proud of a successful editing session than I am of most original, SOOC pictures. Actually, my favorites are ones that pretty much suck, and I manage to turn them into something I really like. Often, I am surprised at how good a "bad" picture can become. Hoggers often say you can't make a bad picture good, but I guess that depends on what you consider "bad". If you have a good subject, but the rest of the pic sucks, you often can turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.

To me, showing how great a job you did is more braggadocio and trying to pretend your skill and hard work is SOOC would be rather stupid, other than in a contest or something. People that don't know how to edit think everyone is trying to pretend their pics are SOOC, when it's about the opposite, we are proud of our work, both in and out of the camera.

Anyone skilled in editing photo's knows it is not so easy to successfully edit a picture. The more you do to it, the more likely it will have multiple problems. Overdoing edits is a constant problem for all, particularly beginners. Sky replacements are pretty simple on the surface, but, as many pointed out, getting the right sky and lighting right and so on is the hard part. Myself, after maybe 25 years of editing, I still miss the mark quite often, and need someone else to point out the errors of my ways. Lots of times I just give up and toss the photo into a digital drawer, possibly never to be seen again.

This picture started out as a cell phone "portrait", something I complain about to my daughter often as cell phones normally are better done in landscape, because they fit monitors and TV's correctly with minimum editing. I like my pictures to display nice on my HD TV which is 1920x1080. This image started out as a portrait mode image, 3034x4032, not ideal for HD screen display. To correct it, you need to change the canvas size, and then put something in the added space is a nice touch.

This picture started out in my daughters kitchen, so the background was not sky at all. Pretty tough to add kitchen background to the added blank space of the landscape mode pic. Initially, I started with just a black background, and it looked good. Then, I saw a milky way pic on the hog, and thought, hey, that would look good as a background for this picture, so I grabbed it. I could have used it, but is was not all that good of a pic, so I went to UNSPLASH, on Affinities Stock panel, and searched for MilkyWay. I rarely do this, because it's much more fun using my own pics. Anyway, I really liked the outcome, so I kept it.

BigDaddy Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

Thanks Jfendley, very friendly of you to say.😊

craigart14

Was Ansel Adams a photographer or a printer? Was it ethical for Brett Weston to build an enlarger with 48 light bulbs to make dodging and burning easier? Is it still photography if you use acetate filters in your enlarger? Was it fair when dichroic filtration made easy color printing accessible to everyone? Tools are tools, vision is vision, imagination is imagination, and painting with light is painting with light.

BigDaddy Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

Nice. I think you just set the SOOC "purist" hair on fire...

greekd214

It's just another adjustment like anything else you do to enhance the photograph. Everyone stop crying about it. If you are against it, don't use it. Simple as that.

joecichjr Loc: Chicago S. Suburbs, Illinois, USA

A very good point!

FotoHog Loc: on Cloud 9

Why can't you be both? . . . .