photosbyhenry Loc: Apple Valley MN

Brontasourus here. I do no PP and I sell my photos at flea markets and craft fairs. Yes, Ansel Adams did do a lot of PP, but he had great photos to start with. I also shoot by b&w in the b&w mode and do not convert color to b&w.

Bruce H Loc: Oregon Coast

I think the hard reality is that the digital camera is a lousy instrument. It can not see what you can see and it can not record what you see. Film is a little better but still you need to tweak your settings to get it just right. I don't think you will ever get a photograph out of a digital camera that will look as good as what you saw when taking the photo.

If you shot in a .jpg format then you did post process that photo in your camera although you might not have realized it. Your camera has settings that alter or change what you just shot with the intent of enhancing the photo before saving it to your card. PP is nothing more and if you choose not to then so be it. I don't think you are a dinosaur just someone who chooses not to PP beyond what your camera does. You are using an electronic device after all.

Some may try and "manufacturer" a photo but most are just trying to get the best out of a less than perfect situation. It is almost impossible to make a bad photograph into a great one without it being obvious that it was altered.

Keep on shooting!

slickrock Loc: jacksonville

For digital it's PP either way after the shutter clicks . It's in the camera or in the computer. It 's a matter of degree and control.

RMM Loc: Suburban New York

Wow! Your view of photography and art is kind of limited. Look around at some of the work that's posted here, it's far more than some trivial fooling around. Some of these people have mastered their use of software to turn conventional shots into visually stunning pieces, and others have combined artistic technique with photography as surely as if they had picked up palette, oils and brushes.

There is nothing wrong in trying to get it right coming right out of the camera. That's the best possible starting point. But saying that's the end, it was right or wrong, perfect or a dud, is so limiting. Go look at some of your good shots, and tell me that there aren't several good pictures in there, depending on cropping and lighting.

sinatraman Loc: Vero Beach Florida, Earth,alpha quaudrant

I am giving you a standing ovation all the way from Florida!!! I could not have put it better myself. Photoshop does not have a creativity filter where you click on it and poof just like Jenie a finished work appears. Followed imediately by a highly irritated Major Nelson. (showing my age) I think there is much more skill, creativity, and artistic vision in one of those photo art pieces then just another perfectly exposed, perfectly composed, seen it a thousand times look its a mountain being reflected in a lake at sunset. How origional NOT.

jkaye65 Loc: Chico, CA

It seems to me that those here who are anti-PP are a bit uninformed about certain aspects of digital photography.

Unless you are going for that "soft" look, 99.9% of all digital images need to be sharpened. It's the nature of the beast. Spot on focus with the best lens can't get around that fact.

Another problem with digital photography is the limits of the camera sensor. That's where a little PP can help. Okay, sometimes a filter on the front of the lens can help, but I'd also call that PP (pre-processing).

There are other reasons for PP that don't alter the art of "photography". Your foot is in the door already if you even crop. And by cropping your image you increase the need to sharpen the image a bit. Why not fill the frame with your subject? In college when we turned in our work to the photography instructor we had to show the edges of the negative in the print. No cropping allowed. But we were allowed to dodge and burn, use filters on the enlargers, choose our own type of paper (fiber, glossy, etc.). All part of the art of photography!

Then again, if you're scared of your computer, that's another story.

Elle Loc: Long Island, NY

It's wonderful to be skilled with the camera and I give a lot of credit to those who use their knowledge in an imaginative way but how many of those are memorable when so many have the ability to take similar shots with a point and shoot? It's the postwork that can lift the ordinary to another plain for those of us who might not have the advantage of equipment, location or subject. I'm not taking away from the skills and patience of the "purist" but it's getting a little tiresome having this comparison brought up so frequently. A good shot is a good shot. If it gets better with enhancement all the more kudo's the photographer gets. It takes time, skill and an eye to do a good edit.

steve40 Loc: Asheville/Canton, NC, USA

I don’t know whether you would call my vision limited, or you would have to call me a purist. As far as worshipping photography goes I don’t, its one of a lot of varied interest in my life.

The output from a digital camera is something like a negative, well just a slight bit better. I haven’t seen the digital camera yet, that can produce the perfect image, all of them profit from some basic editing.

But beyond that, I will leave anything further to the addicts that need to go out, and find a life. I even do a little HDR, but I don’t tone map images, so they look like a comic book. I do it only! to obtain a greater dynamic range.

So as a great author once said, "we all walk to a different drummer" - don’t we ??.

MtnMan Loc: ID

The other luddite approach I keep seeing is people wanting to learn how to shoot manual with their new DSLRs. I did that for 30 years with my SLR and want to lean all the stuff these new machines do and how to best take advantage of them.

I can even focus manually when extremes require so there is no joy in manual for me.

Heaven knows theres lots to learn about a machine as complex as my D5100. I am really enjoying it.

I consider PP as an ecological replacement for a darkroom which we can all access for far less money. I actually tried some darkroom stuff longer ago than many of you have lived and didn't like it. But I am really enjoying my Photoshop Elements. A long way to go on learning it, too.

Regards,
Larry Leach

randymoe

Saw Annie Leibovitz on David Letterman this week. She knew Ansel Adams and claimed he would be deep into digital PP as he was a big wet darkroom manipulator. Annie also said she loves digital and will never look back. I admire both of these great artists and take Annie's word as authoritative.

arphot Loc: Massachusetts

Post processing, from what I've "heard" on forums, including UHH, is that even in the darkroom, film had its own form. Depending on the extent of the process (cropping, levels, etc), my opinion is if the resulting image comes out the way the photographer envisioned it, then who's to say good/bad or right/wrong? Sure, you could try to get the spot on exposure and if it didn't work go back when the conditions are the same so you can try again. I don't know about others, but I have enough going on in my life (family, work, etc) to have to repeat my challenges. That's not to say I wouldn't, but it's not my workflow at this time; maybe when I retire ;)

So, if getting it right OOC is the goal, then by all means, go for it. I aspire to get there myself someday. But, I will still use Photoshop (or whatever other tools I have at my disposal) because I personally like to create art with my photography.

I definately am not a fan of just running a filter on something and calling it art. I have a workflow that works for me fairly well.

As far as my photos (those that don't have any PP) go, this is as close to Out Of Camera as it gets with just a tweak of levels.

Pretty Scene

photocat Loc: Atlanta, Ga

Anything I can do in the darkroom I do on the computer.

There are boundaries , but they are set by myself. FOr example I would never skinny someone down.

When I past what I feel is a photo when it is hung and sold it is called digital art.

I do try to get as much correct in camera as is possible, just as I do when i use film. However, with 64 years of darkroom experience I also use whatever tool is necessary to provide a final print to match my creative vision.

BBNC

There are those who do serious PP, those who don't, and those who are somewhere in the middle.

Like politics and religion, the only consensus to be reached is that each of us will deal with the subject in our own way, and no one way is inherently superior.

I don't like the term purist, because true purism is a form of snobbery. Most of us are not true purists, just dedicated to the perfection of one idea or another.

Screamin Scott Loc: Marshfield Wi, Baltimore Md, now Dallas Ga

Your cameras's lens & sensor/film, don't "see" the same as our eye/brain does, so for those purists who say they want to capture what their eyes see, it ain't gonna happen...Our brains process what our eyes transmit so it's only logical that the camera's software or a photo editing program is needed to adjust that image as close as possible to what we "saw" to begin with. As for the poster who says he uses the camera's B&W setting & not coverting it in post, needs to realize that the camera's software is doing a conversion which he has limited control over. I don't spend hours on the computer photoshopping my images. I try to get them as close to what I want to begin with, but to say a bit of photo editing makes an image not a photograph is absurd.

tony Loc: douglasville, ga

I am a (kinda) purist too. Guess my days of B&W photography has stayed with me. I processed my own film, printed, dodged, burned and cropped. Everything from 4X5 sheet film to 8mm movie frames. If it wasn't on the neg or transp. then I would burn some more film. So I am going the way of my hero, Mr. Adams.