Is it alright to PS?

Is it ok to PS your photos?


Results are only viewable after voting.

Status
Not open for further replies.

ndroo

Moderator
Staff member
Nov 22, 2003
8,242
3
38
53
www.fuzzyeyeballs.com
www.fuzzyeyeballs.com
A friend of mine who recently saw some of my (lousy) photos, asked me "are they original?" ... took me a while to understand that he was asking if I used Photoshop to edit them. Well, I did ... for some of them.

What I was wondering was "is it not ok to PS photos?". So this poll is to find out how many of you guys out there are for / against using PS.

Does PSing photos make them "not original"?
 

PS, as not changing it's orginal contents is ok...sometimes, using the clone tool in PS to remove distracting stuff is quite ok....
 

rncw said:
PS, as not changing it's orginal contents is ok...sometimes, using the clone tool in PS to remove distracting stuff is quite ok....

does this mean changing the brightness, contract etc is fine? i do that quite often. :D yeah agree that cloning to remove stuff is ok ... coz there are some distracting stuff which we just can't get rid of during the shoot.
 

There's not enough choices in the poll.

Depends on what you've done in PS. For digital images, standard workflow would include, curve adjuctments, USM, contrast, cropping, dodging and burning, etc. That's part of digital photography.

You have to set the level of tolerance of what is acceptable and what's not. There's no definite answer because its subjective. I'm not for or against heavily processed images but there is a line between digital photography and digital art. Where the line is, again depends on who you ask.
 

Kit said:
There's not enough choices in the poll.

Depends on what you've done in PS. For digital images, standard workflow would include, curve adjuctments, USM, contrast, cropping, dodging and burning, etc. That's part of digital photography.

You have to set the level of tolerance of what is acceptable and what's not. There's no definite answer because its subjective. I'm not for or against heavily processed images but there is a line between digital photography and digital art. Where the line is, again depends on who you ask.

sorry for the lack of choices. would be too extensive to list them all down. :) what i really wanna know, was a result from the question from my friend ... he made a statement that 'direct from camera' is original ... otherwise ... it's not ... that got me wondering ... :)
 

renegade said:
sorry for the lack of choices. would be too extensive to list them all down. :) what i really wanna know, was a result from the question from my friend ... he made a statement that 'direct from camera' is original ... otherwise ... it's not ... that got me wondering ... :)

Well, to be fair, PSing is part and parcel of the digital workflow to bring out the full potential of the pictures no matter what others may have told you.

Also, how can you quantify "original" since you can manipulate an image in the camera as well. The very act of selecting aperture and shutter speed is a kind of manipulation that would contribute directly to the end product.
 

Yah of cos it's ok!! The whole exciting part of digital photography is not just pressing the shutter release and reviewing the imags on the spot but also the post-processing stage. Unfortunately, not everyone places a good emphasis on the latter. Some might argue that digital photography can't match film for this reason cos it's like "it's so fake" but I think that's just an excuse for them not to take action and learn something new.

When one goes digital, invariably, there's often a need to improve your image in terms of colour, contrast and sharpness, to name a few parameters, even if it has been considered well-taken in general. This is done by the shop when print films are sent for processing anyway!

However if a picture is not very well-taken, using Photoshop to salvage it is not to be seen as a lame intention. Afterall, the final image is what counts and you are just using what technology has to offer. Why not? You're better off than the guy who shoots with slides but was laxed with his exposure techniques. In the end, you have the upperhand cos I think the final image is what matters.

Of course, if one decides to use digital photography as an excuse to lower his or her standards in picture-taking, thinking there's always photo-editing softwares to remedy a badly taken shot, that's pretty lame to me.

Otherwise, I don't quite see why originality has to be decided by whether the image has been PS-ed or not. In fact, I don't quite know anyone who is proud to present his RAW-converted, untouched images as being original!
 

I often equate post editing in digital photography with darkroom process in film photography. So in a way, whatever can be done in the darkroom is considered acceptable in post editing, to me at least.
 

kiwi2 said:
Yah of cos it's ok!! The whole exciting part of digital photography is not just pressing the shutter release and reviewing the imags on the spot but also the post-processing stage. Unfortunately, not everyone places a good emphasis on the latter. Some might argue that digital photography can't match film for this reason cos it's like "it's so fake" but I think that's just an excuse for them not to take action and learn something new.

Of course, if one decides to use digital photography as an excuse to lower his or her standards in picture-taking, thinking there's always photo-editing softwares to remedy a badly taken shot, that's pretty lame to me.

Otherwise, I don't quite see why originality has to be decided by whether the image has been PS-ed or not. In fact, I don't quite know anyone who is proud to present his RAW-converted, untouched images as being original!

:thumbsup:
 

renegade said:
sorry for the lack of choices. would be too extensive to list them all down. :) what i really wanna know, was a result from the question from my friend ... he made a statement that 'direct from camera' is original ... otherwise ... it's not ... that got me wondering ... :)

Wahhh. If your friend wants to be so strict in the definition of what's original, then I think even what comes from the camera is also not original. Don't care if it's an 11MP digital cam or a large format cam...

What IS original, is what you can perceive with your eyes at the location... Cos films or CCD/CMOS sensors can never capture the miraculous colours and contrast that our human eye can see. :)
 

kiwi2 said:
Wahhh. If your friend wants to be so strict in the definition of what's original, then I think even what comes from the camera is also not original. Don't care if it's an 11MP digital cam or a large format cam...

What IS original, is what you can perceive with your eyes at the location... Cos films or CCD/CMOS sensors can never capture the miraculous colours and contrast that our human eye can see. :)

:bsmilie: :bsmilie: yeah
 

of course it is acceptable. even when printing film, some lab do color correction for their client.
 

renegade said:
sorry for the lack of choices. would be too extensive to list them all down. :) what i really wanna know, was a result from the question from my friend ... he made a statement that 'direct from camera' is original ... otherwise ... it's not ... that got me wondering ... :)
What about RAW images? Direct from camera image has to be converted. Depending on what software you use (eg. Nikon Capture, Adobe CS, Capture One), you will get different results - even using the default software settings.

So what then is direct from camera? What is original?

I agree with CK... possibly your friend not very familiar with digital imaging/photography.
 

renegade said:
A friend of mine who recently saw some of my (lousy) photos, asked me "are they original?" ... took me a while to understand that he was asking if I used Photoshop to edit them. Well, I did ... for some of them.

What I was wondering was "is it not ok to PS photos?". So this poll is to find out how many of you guys out there are for / against using PS.

Does PSing photos make them "not original"?

Not everyone take photo for hobby or for the art's sake. Many take photos for documentary purposes only such as for the insurance claim, police forensic works, detective works, survey, etc. For this line of work, I guess the use of PS would be a no-no. Maybe your friend works in one of these areas?
 

rty said:
Not everyone take photo for hobby or for the art's sake. Many take photos for documentary purposes only such as for the insurance claim, police forensic works, detective works, survey, etc. For this line of work, I guess the use of PS would be a no-no. Maybe your friend works in one of these areas?

nope ... he's not in those industry. :)
 

Status
Not open for further replies.