How much alteration is allowed ?

[Guest flatfour]

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I have just read the rules of a photography competition in a magazine and it says - "the image may not be altered other than for the removal of dust and scratches". How would anyone know ? - or am I being dim as a bit of a newcomer to digital.

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[stunsworth]

Anthony, if done well no one would know. There has to be an element of trust.

[jaapv]

A bit silly too. No crop, levels, curves, whitebalance, contrast, sharpening? That means jpeg only, straight from the card into the one-hour service...I don't think the digital captures in that competition will amount to very much. Nor the film ones, if any decent darkroom work is disallowed.

[Guest stnami]

It's easy to turn day into night but damn hard to turn night into day digitally

[carstenw]

They may not know as you submit the image, but may request a raw if you win. I would go with the spirit of the rules rather than trying to figure out where they might be bent.

 

You might for a clarification though. They may mean that you may not remove disturbing elements, rather than you may not change the exposure. And what if the image as the camera saw it does not correspond to the way it looked when you saw it? In that case, they are preventing you from getting closer to the truth, which can hardly be their intention.

[mat_mcdermott]

I'm sure no competition would object to manipulations that are part of the normal digital workflow such as levels, WB, etc...

[stunsworth]

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I imagine what they want is no severe digital manipulations - such as adding or removing elements from an image. It's very difficult to summarise that in a sentence or two. I can't imagine that level asjustment would be banned.

[jaapv]

I agree, but these rules seem to be aimed at really beginning film shooters ten years back. It does not build confidence in the expertise of the magazine......

[andit]

This is an interesting question, and one that has been asked for many years. Most people think that altering an image is a new thing that has been created by the digital age. Photo's have been altered since the birth of photography. In the old days we used to do it with filters, dodging and burning, tweaking times that the film was in the chemicals, sandwiching etc. etc.

 

The only difference is that it has become much easier to do such things. Basically anyone with a computer, the right software and a bit of know how can do things that lab technicians used to do.

 

I think what they probably mean is that elements are not allowed to be removed or added in - so if you managed to get a photo of a Penguin at the North Pole being chased by an Ice Bear, you may have some explaining to do...

 

Andreas

[andit]

Oh, just out of interest. NASA tweaks the photo's that are being sent back from Mars prior to being shown to the public. Mars infact has the same colour as the moon. It's a dull and colourless place. The general public however have come to think of it as the Red Planet, so all photo's are made Red... Make you think does it not? So why should one not alter an image just a bit to make it better.

Andreas

[Cyrshot]

I believe it is the original picture that makes the photographer. If you need to edit as much as some others above have indicated, then you're not a good shooter.

[carstenw]

ROTFLOL! Hahaha. Haha. That is a good one. Please tell another!

 

Have you heard of Ansel Adams? Would you consider him a good photographer? He doesn't qualify according to you.

 

The real point is that the photographer's *visualisation*, and *realisation* of that visualisation is what makes a good photographer.

 

Anyway, often the image doesn't look exactly the way it did in reality. Are we forbidden to put some reality back into the pictures?

[farnz]

I believe it is the original picture that makes the photographer. If you need to edit as much as some others above have indicated, then you're not a good shooter.

Would you care to post your workflow, Matthew, so we can understand how it should be done?

 

Pete.

[Guest sirvine]

I've never understood this (the sunset one at least--the others are pretty bad): A Question Of Truth: Photojournalism And Visual Ethics

 

FTA: “Our photo policy states clearly: ‘No colors will be altered from the original scene photographed.’ Our news stories and photos are not interpretive forms of art. When our tools and our human memory fail us, we must go out and try again to capture art in real life.”

 

So, I guess Leica AWB disqualifies it as a photojournalism tool? And B&W?

[ddp]

AWB on camera wouldn't be an issue - that's the same as using the correct filter with film. I would imagine they are talking about overt manipulation - as in what you might see in some of the galleries on photo.net

 

When I shoot film, I try and work with as much as what nature gives me from the outset and deal with it. I really try and keep things as close to original as possible - but that's my style. There are several digital images of motorsport I've done where I photoshopped for dramatic effect.

[Guest sirvine]

I still don't get it. How is alteration of a sunset's color misleading readers in any meaningful way? How is adjusting white balance and curves different than choosing a particular type of film? How can black and white be reconciled with that idiotic policy quoted above?

 

On the other hand, cloning smoke and lying in captions is just lame.

[ddp]

No one mentioned white balance and B&W as being disallowed in the contest, or newspapers. Not sure where you're getting that from.

 

The sunset image is questionable - although I can understand from a purist point of view adding an unreal color to it is wrong.

[Guest sirvine]

I was reacting to the policy of the Charlotte Observer: "Our photo policy states clearly: ‘No colors will be altered from the original scene photographed."

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[Cyrshot]

ROTFLOL! Hahaha. Haha. That is a good one. Please tell another!

 

Have you heard of Ansel Adams? Would you consider him a good photographer? He doesn't qualify according to you.

 

The real point is that the photographer's *visualisation*, and *realisation* of that visualisation is what makes a good photographer.

 

Anyway, often the image doesn't look exactly the way it did in reality. Are we forbidden to put some reality back into the pictures?

 

Ansel Adams was an incredible photographer, but there is a big difference between dodging and burning and alot of the post work that was described.

 

I can tell by the comments many people disagree, I believe it was cartier bresson who described photography as an instant painting.

 

Do as you wish, but I do not believe the first lieca was invented with the use of photoshop in mind.

[Jamie Roberts]

Ansel Adams was an incredible photographer, but there is a big difference between dodging and burning and alot of the post work that was described.

 

I can tell by the comments many people disagree, I believe it was cartier bresson who described photography as an instant painting.

 

Do as you wish, but I do not believe the first lieca was invented with the use of photoshop in mind.

 

Matthew--perhaps not, but the first Leica was certainly invented with the use of a darkroom in mind.

 

Film choice is also a major colour variant. Cross-processing, while not image manipulation per se, certainly changed colour without photoshop, as did toning, etc..

 

Dodging and burning certainly affects contrast and colour too (on colour images). But you should be doing this to produce a really fine print; I'm with Adams on this

 

HCB, in my opinion, was being metaphorical and poetic after all, and there's nothing wrong with that. Remember, compared to Monet's work--even a lengthy photo process would be "instant"--relatively. But in absolute terms there's simply nothing instant about a well developed and printed shot, though sometimes it's politic for people to think that way

 

Back to digital, to my mind, unless you want to prescribe JPEGs, all RAWs are interpretations, whether people think so or not.

 

Even if you didn't set white balance, contrast, BP WP and curves for best micro contrast, every RAW converter would give you different colour, more or less.

 

So they can't mean that kind of manipulation any more than film and normal print development.

 

BTW--if they DO mean RAW manipulations, don't bother to enter, because you can't possibly win (well, maybe that RAW shot of a black cat in a coal cellar would work ) .