Agree 100% but these types of conversations on UHH - as you've already seen - don't seem to change anyone's beliefs. There appears to be a large contingent of members who have forgotten how much you could and would "edit" via the wet darkroom, and who are judgmental about anything to do with digital photography outside their narrow personal vision. On the other hand, some folks just like to argue!

I feel fortunate to have connected with several talented members here, early in my membership, who encouraged my exploration in the digital darkroom. Now it's a joyful part of the hobby.

The silhouettes in #1 are all home-made "stamp-brushes" made from my own pics

Agree 100% but these types of conversations on UHH - as you've already seen - don't seem to change anyone's beliefs. There appears to be a large contingent of members who have forgotten how much you could and would "edit" via the wet darkroom, and who are judgmental about anything to do with digital photography outside their narrow personal vision. On the other hand, some folks just like to argue!

I feel fortunate to have connected with several talented members here, early in my membership, who encouraged my exploration in the digital darkroom. Now it's a joyful part of the hobby.

The silhouettes in #1 are all home-made "stamp-brushes" made from my own pics

Reading a Hog conversation that gọt a little warm about whether post processing removes the pure “art” from photography. It seems some think photography must be SOOC to be “real”.
It seems to me the post processing could be interpreted as being similar to what a painter or sculptor does. Is a blob of paint SOOT (straight out of the tube) more “authentic” than the final painting the artist does? Is the sculpture of less merit than the block of granite?
The color and the granite are both genuine, and can covey a message without manipulation, but the artist that changes them also brings us something from his/her mind and heart that conveys or evokes emotion.
A photograph never captures the view exactly the same as experiencing it in person. It conveys something of the photographers interaction with the scene (think Impressionism). And I enjoy abstract and highly manipulated photos that are completely unidentifiable as to the subject, just as I do an abstract painting.
So, I say let each person do and enjoy and share photography however they want. All approaches are equally valid.

You've got it backwards: the problem is that post-processing puts art into photography.

I completely agree that it's possible to paint with photography--but I never met a photographer
who had the knowledge and skill to do it well.

On another thread, we just heard from a poster who's solution to a blown sky was to go into
Photoshop and fill that area with blue. Well, that's one way!

There you are, sitting in front of your computer monitor, glazing and tinting an image file.
The scene you photographed is long gone, just a faded memory. And so is your visualization
of that scene. "Hmmm....what do I know about how the sky looks?" you think to yourself.
Aha! It's blue! Problem solved.

Painters have a rather different understanding of the sky--or even of how common, everyday
objects appear in different light. Painters understand the laws of reflection, color mixing,
atmospheric perspective, etc.

Could anyone here have painted the attached painting (by California artist Boyd Gavin)?
Really look at it. We've seen similar objects a million times: salt shaker, ketchup bottle, table top, etc.
But have we ever really looked at them--at how light plays on them?

If not, then we should be extremely cautious about messing around with how objects appear in
image files. The interplay of light is extremely complex, and changes can easily make the
image look unnatural and "wrong". It takes many years to learn how to make a painting look
right.

If you take the image file scanned from this panting and start manipulating it in Photoshop,
the way we so cavalierly do with our photographic images, running "sharpen", altering
highlights and shadows, chances are you will quickly ruin it, making it look odd and unnatural.
A photographer is not a painter, and shouldn't try to be.

In the golden age of "straight photography", processing was limited to dodging shadows and
burning highlights during printing. (Plus occasional bleaching or intensification of a negative.)
This was a conscious choice.

Pictorialist photographers beginning in the 1880s had drawn on their negatives and cut them up
with scissors-- but the straight photography movement on the West Coast in the 1930s shunned
that kind of manipulation. Photography was supposed to be honest, not contrived, and not
an imitation of painting.

The same, humble approach--aware of one's artistic limitations---can be adopted in digital processing.
Unfortunately, software packages like Photoshop offer hundreds of ways to draw on your image file,
paint on your image file, and cut and paste on it. Digital filters like "sharpen" do drastic things
to tone and gradation.

Photography is as much about looking as it is about snapping. But photographers are at their
best when they are doing photography -- not painting, drawing or collaging.. That was the fundamental
insight of the straight photography -- Adams, E. Weston, Strand, Lange, the later Stieglitz, etc--and it's still
true today.

Photographers are at their best with a camera in their hands, not a paint brush or its digital equivalent.
And as the saying goes: "true art is to conceal art."

Boyd Gavin, "Cafe Table". http://boydgavin.com/ https://natsoulas.com/artists/boyd-gavin

The end result has nothing to do with what camera was used or what size sensor. A photo either grabs our attention or it doesn’t.

No new vision? What an arrogant statement. And it comes from someone who has posted not a single photo.

Since when are you to speak for the rest of us? Who put you in charge to decide what we like, or what we find original? First of all, you, like any one of us, has seen less than a trace of what is being created daily. Or are you trying to claim that you see very single photo taken every day? I didn’t think so.

And please stop with the camera company BS. Advertising features doesn’t make people think that they are going to become professionals.

All this nonsense, yet no photos from you personally. I wonder why. You will never convince anyone by badmouthing. Haven’t you learned that yet? Let your work speak for itself.

Linda, this is called cognitive dissonance -

"In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort (psychological stress) experienced by a person who simultaneously holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values. This discomfort is triggered by a situation in which a person’s belief clashes with new evidence perceived by that person. When confronted with facts that contradict personal beliefs, ideals, and values, people will find a way to resolve the contradiction in order to reduce their discomfort." - Festinger, L. (1957). A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. California: Stanford University Press.

Three cognitive biases in particular are components of dissonance theory. The bias that one does not have any biases, the bias that one is "better, kinder, smarter, more moral, and nicer than average," and confirmation bias. - Tavris, Carol; Aronson, Elliot (2017). "Why We Believe -- Long After We Shouldn't". Skeptical Inquirer. 41 (2): 51–53. Retrieved 5 November 2018.

This helps to explain why people hold on to their incorrect beliefs in the face of logic, facts, and alternate explanations.

Or as a good friend of mine used to say, "denial is not just a river in Egypt."

Reading a Hog conversation that gọt a little warm about whether post processing removes the pure “art” from photography. It seems some think photography must be SOOC to be “real”.
It seems to me the post processing could be interpreted as being similar to what a painter or sculptor does. Is a blob of paint SOOT (straight out of the tube) more “authentic” than the final painting the artist does? Is the sculpture of less merit than the block of granite?
The color and the granite are both genuine, and can covey a message without manipulation, but the artist that changes them also brings us something from his/her mind and heart that conveys or evokes emotion.
A photograph never captures the view exactly the same as experiencing it in person. It conveys something of the photographers interaction with the scene (think Impressionism). And I enjoy abstract and highly manipulated photos that are completely unidentifiable as to the subject, just as I do an abstract painting.
So, I say let each person do and enjoy and share photography however they want. All approaches are equally valid.

Reading a Hog conversation that gọt a little warm about whether post processing removes the pure “art” from photography. It seems some think photography must be SOOC to be “real”.
It seems to me the post processing could be interpreted as being similar to what a painter or sculptor does. Is a blob of paint SOOT (straight out of the tube) more “authentic” than the final painting the artist does? Is the sculpture of less merit than the block of granite?
The color and the granite are both genuine, and can covey a message without manipulation, but the artist that changes them also brings us something from his/her mind and heart that conveys or evokes emotion.
A photograph never captures the view exactly the same as experiencing it in person. It conveys something of the photographers interaction with the scene (think Impressionism). And I enjoy abstract and highly manipulated photos that are completely unidentifiable as to the subject, just as I do an abstract painting.
So, I say let each person do and enjoy and share photography however they want. All approaches are equally valid.