To post-process or not to post-process

[roydonian]

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On 4/3/2023 at 12:37 PM, ianforber said:

At the moment I’ve got into the (bad?) habit of using presets that attempt to mimic historic film types. I know they aren’t accurately representing what the film would’ve looked like

Yes, film emulation can be fun.  A few years ago, I went with a group of other shutterbugs to take pics in one of London's old cemetries. Grey stones illuminated by the green light filtering through tree foliage produced dull and uninteresting results until I got the idea of using emulations of long-obsolete B&W processes from the 19th century.

 

[250swb]

18 hours ago, wizard said:

As a long time slide photographer, I know exactly where you come from. Nowadays you do not know whether any published or posted image is even remotely similar to reality, i.e. to what the photographer saw when he/she pressed the shutter button.

I'm not entirely sure Kodachrome was related to reality, nor any other slide film the photographer had a preference for given choosing represents having their own opinion about reality. It's a dream that slide film was somehow pure and showed reality together with the photographers skills to perfection. And what are those skills, well getting the exposure right would be one (the only one), except many slide film users would get the exposure wrong on purpose to under expose it, whoops, there goes reality.

Edited April 7, 2023 by 250swb

[dem331]

23 minutes ago, 250swb said:

well getting the exposure right would be one (the only one)

Framing was pretty important

[250swb]

2 hours ago, dem331 said:

Framing was pretty important

But you have to show your skill at framing with negative film as well don't you? If you're thinking of post-cropping well this is an old trick when making copy slides. So 'getting it right in the camera' isn't as exclusive to slide film as is claimed on that front. But given slide film has less latitude than negative it means accurate exposure is the only vaguely unique skill required over the reality trashing slap-dash Sunny 16 negative abusers. It's hard to understand the lofty perch of slide film users when all the skills are the same between slide and negative except perhaps the ability to read a light meter, or ignore it and abuse reality themselves with oversaturated colours. If ever there was a reason not to post process then this imagined link between reality and the innate skill of using slide film isn't the place to start due to a large build-up of hypocrisy. 

Edited April 7, 2023 by 250swb

[dem331]

1 hour ago, 250swb said:

But you have to show your skill at framing with negative film as well don't you? If you're thinking of post-cropping well this is an old trick when making copy slides. So 'getting it right in the camera' isn't as exclusive to slide film as is claimed on that front. But given slide film has less latitude than negative it means accurate exposure is the only vaguely unique skill required over the reality trashing slap-dash Sunny 16 negative abusers. It's hard to understand the lofty perch of slide film users when all the skills are the same between slide and negative except perhaps the ability to read a light meter, or ignore it and abuse reality themselves with oversaturated colours. If ever there was a reason not to post process then this imagined link between reality and the innate skill of using slide film isn't the place to start due to a large build-up of hypocrisy. 

If slides are the same as negatives because you can print them then framing is not as important. Your argument does appear a little tautological though. 
 

I am not sure anyone is trashing negative users. I’m certainly not. 
 

In any case I am be all for post processing. 

[Anbaric]

2 hours ago, 250swb said:

I'm not entirely sure Kodachrome was related to reality, nor any other slide film the photographer had a preference for given choosing represents having their own opinion about reality. It's a dream that slide film was somehow pure and showed reality together with the photographers skills to perfection. And what are those skills, well getting the exposure right would be one (the only one), except many slide film users would get the exposure wrong on purpose to under expose it, whoops, there goes reality.

It's a matter of degree though. If someone used underexposed Velvia then you know where the saturated colours came from. And maybe they amped things up with a graduated filter or a polariser or even cross-processing. But you also know that everything within the frame was actually there, nothing that was there has been removed, the sky belongs to the rest of the photo, and if you can't see the pile of litter or the telegraph poles or the ex-partner you'd rather not remember, it's because the camera wasn't pointed at them, not because someone has cloned them out (barring heroic efforts with intermediate prints, airbrushes and retouching knives). An original slide can still be deceptive, of course - maybe the event was staged or the framing was deliberately misleading. But a heavily edited digital image can, with comparatively little effort, look entirely 'real' while bearing no resemblance to the original subject at all, if there even was a subject (which, with the help of AI, there might not be). There's nothing wrong with this sort of digital art, of course, if it's what you want to create and you aren't setting out to mislead for some dubious purpose.

[250swb]

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9 hours ago, Anbaric said:

It's a matter of degree though. If someone used underexposed Velvia then you know where the saturated colours came from. And maybe they amped things up with a graduated filter or a polariser or even cross-processing. But you also know that everything within the frame was actually there, nothing that was there has been removed, the sky belongs to the rest of the photo, and if you can't see the pile of litter or the telegraph poles or the ex-partner you'd rather not remember, it's because the camera wasn't pointed at them, not because someone has cloned them out (barring heroic efforts with intermediate prints, airbrushes and retouching knives). An original slide can still be deceptive, of course - maybe the event was staged or the framing was deliberately misleading. But a heavily edited digital image can, with comparatively little effort, look entirely 'real' while bearing no resemblance to the original subject at all, if there even was a subject (which, with the help of AI, there might not be). There's nothing wrong with this sort of digital art, of course, if it's what you want to create and you aren't setting out to mislead for some dubious purpose.

As soon as you've scanned a slide does that make it more or less like a scanned negative? Even historically his debate has been run to ground and hasn't been relevant for decades. But the the argument continues to be rolled out as a way to imply 'doing it all in the camera' is a higher state of consciousness and skill than mere negative users can aspire to, and what a cheap argument it becomes.

[Anbaric]

1 hour ago, 250swb said:

As soon as you've scanned a slide does that make it more or less like a scanned negative? Even historically his debate has been run to ground and hasn't been relevant for decades. But the the argument continues to be rolled out as a way to imply 'doing it all in the camera' is a higher state of consciousness and skill than mere negative users can aspire to, and what a cheap argument it becomes.

That wasn't my point at all. I was responding to your doubts about Kodachrome being related to reality. I think that slides (or for that matter raw files or negatives) are anchored to reality in a way in which extensively manipulated digital images or heavily airbrushed prints are not. This is not a criticism of the skill of the photographer, nor is it a suggestion that this is the only way to maintain the 'journalistic integrity' of an image in situations where this is required. Today, of course, shooting slides would be a rather unusual way of creating such images. Instead, they would usually be shot digitally with the kind of generally accepted restrictions on image manipulation that have been linked to upthread. A slide, by its nature, happens to enforce many of these restrictions itself, but that does not give slide photograpthers some sort of moral authority on image integrity.

[250swb]

9 hours ago, Anbaric said:

That wasn't my point at all. I was responding to your doubts about Kodachrome being related to reality. I think that slides (or for that matter raw files or negatives) are anchored to reality in a way in which extensively manipulated digital images or heavily airbrushed prints are not. This is not a criticism of the skill of the photographer, nor is it a suggestion that this is the only way to maintain the 'journalistic integrity' of an image in situations where this is required. Today, of course, shooting slides would be a rather unusual way of creating such images. Instead, they would usually be shot digitally with the kind of generally accepted restrictions on image manipulation that have been linked to upthread. A slide, by its nature, happens to enforce many of these restrictions itself, but that does not give slide photograpthers some sort of moral authority on image integrity.

It's an incredibly narrow argument given nobody can show slides other than in a darkened room. National Geographic magazine printed the Kodachrome slides made on expeditions, and we know editing took place in the transition to print, and you can't show a slide on LUF without turning it into the same corruptible digital media that you criticise, and slides are open to being copied and cropped to alter composition, or slides can be made from prints. The existence of a slide does not make it an incorruptible rendition of reality. 

[wizard]

Am 7.4.2023 um 13:11 schrieb Anbaric:

But you also know that everything within the frame was actually there, nothing that was there has been removed, the sky belongs to the rest of the photo, and if you can't see the pile of litter or the telegraph poles or the ex-partner you'd rather not remember, it's because the camera wasn't pointed at them, not because someone has cloned them out

That's what I meant. I am of course aware of the fact that in particular Kodachrome slide film (with the exception of Kodachrome 25) did not record true to life colors (which is why I did not use Kodachrome a lot), but slide films got better and better and at least some of them (Agfachrome 50 RS, Fuji Provia 100F) were and still are very good in capturing colors that at least to me seem to match very well with how the colors were when I took the shot. 

 

vor 3 Stunden schrieb 250swb:

The existence of a slide does not make it an incorruptible rendition of reality. 

Well, if you have the slide you can prove no corruption of any sort took place. And I shoot and have shot slide film to project those shots onto a large screen. None of what you have alluded to is possible there. The projected image will be what I have seen when pressing the shutter button,, no more, no less (except for a very tiny part of each slide being masked by the frame).

[250swb]

5 hours ago, wizard said:

Well, if you have the slide you can prove no corruption of any sort took place. And I shoot and have shot slide film to project those shots onto a large screen. None of what you have alluded to is possible there. The projected image will be what I have seen when pressing the shutter button,, no more, no less (except for a very tiny part of each slide being masked by the frame).

And what do you have if you use slide film to copy a slide and crop it in doing so, another incorruptible slide that can’t be edited? And what do you have if you make a copy of a print onto slide film, well I guess you have an incorruptible copy of what could be a manipulated print. 
 

Been there, seen it, done it. I’m old enough to know how photographers used to put a slide portfolio of their work together to take around agency’s, prospective customers, and for interviews. Absolutely nobody then ever attached the concept of incorruptibility to slides, it’s a modern phenomenon based on people not wanting or able to engage in post processing and then claiming some high ground back.

Edited April 8, 2023 by 250swb

[wizard]

Am 8.4.2023 um 19:11 schrieb 250swb:

I’m old enough to know how photographers used to put a slide portfolio of their work together to take around agency’s, prospective customers, and for interviews.

I'm old enough myself, probably about your age, and I dispute nothing of what you have pointed out above. I have never said a slide could not form the basis of any corruption, I simply pointed out that a slide itself is quite hard to corrupt, so if you have the slide you could always prove that no corruption took place, if that is required at some point.

I am an amateur photographer and have never put together a slide portfolio of my work to take around agency’s, prospective customers, and for interviews, I am just enjoying my own work. No need for me to claim some high ground back.

[Anbaric]

On 4/8/2023 at 9:14 AM, 250swb said:

It's an incredibly narrow argument given nobody can show slides other than in a darkened room. National Geographic magazine printed the Kodachrome slides made on expeditions, and we know editing took place in the transition to print, and you can't show a slide on LUF without turning it into the same corruptible digital media that you criticise, and slides are open to being copied and cropped to alter composition, or slides can be made from prints. The existence of a slide does not make it an incorruptible rendition of reality. 

Narrow? I was trying (perhaps unsuccessfully!) to make a broader point, that there is more than one way to preserve the 'integrity' of an image in a journalistic sense, including shooting digitally within the press guidelines (because you are obliged to, or because you choose to). A slide straight out of the camera has limited scope for manipulation, of course, which may make it attractive to someone who wants to impose this sort of discipline on themselves. Talking about media derived from original slides, like prints or jpegs or the analogue slide copies one or two people might still be making >15 years after everyone else switched to digital for this sort of thing, is rather shifting the goalposts. I also don't think anyone is trying to stake a claim to the moral high ground - 'incorruptibility' is a bit of a straw man argument here. You could, after all, snap a copy of the AI image on your 8K monitor and end up with a slide of something that never existed, but why would you bother? I think the original poster in this thread was talking about the degree of manipulation we allow ourselves to use, rather than forensic guarantees of integrity.

You mention cropping, but that's really only an issue for the 'show the sprocket holes' purists, who are pretty thin on the ground. Cropping, within reason, is something that's explicitly allowed by the press guidelines, for example, as are other straightforward adjustments like moderate exposure correction. These things are, I think, quite rightly regarded as different in kind to (e.g.) cloning things out of the final frame (cropped or not) or pasting them in from elsewhere. For some styles of photography, these sorts of manipulations are accepted and even expected, but can make an image worthless for documentary purposes.

Edited April 11, 2023 by Anbaric

[jaapv]

On 4/8/2023 at 10:14 AM, 250swb said:

It's an incredibly narrow argument given nobody can show slides other than in a darkened room. National Geographic magazine printed the Kodachrome slides made on expeditions, and we know editing took place in the transition to print, and you can't show a slide on LUF without turning it into the same corruptible digital media that you criticise, and slides are open to being copied and cropped to alter composition, or slides can be made from prints. The existence of a slide does not make it an incorruptible rendition of reality. 

I had no problem making Cibachrome prints from my slides - and nowadays, as Ciba/Ilfochrome has disappeared from the market there are still labs making impressively good  chemical Lambda prints from slides.

No photograph renders reality. The photographer has manipulated reality by his choice of framing, perspective, lighting, DOF, etc. from the beginning. Platonic realism rules. A photograph is but a shadow on the wall.

[Ouroboros]

I think there may have been other threads similar to this one.

My own take on post processing is quite simple: it is essential to post process your files if you want your work to be seen at it’s best.  I would never dream of handing over unretouched files or RAW files to my clients.  It is precisely written into my contracts.

If you don’t care or can’t be bothered to bring out the best in your work, what was the point of making the investment in all the photographic gear, computing power and peripherals in the first place?

The term ‘purist’ crops up in with glib predictability during these discussions, invariably used in the context of someone who restricts their retouching to basic cropping and contrast adjustments or even making no adjustments at all.  
 

My idea of a purist is the polar opposite to that; I see a purist as a photographer who has the creative ambition, vision and, ultimately, the ability to create a recognisable style in their work. To achieve that level of confidence requires years of practice and the real skill is to know when nothing more needs to be done in post processing.

ie, the difference between developing personal vision and working to be the best you can be as a photographer or being satisfied with a lifetime of eating Sugar Puffs for breakfast because Sugar Puffs are convenient and don’t require much thought.

 

[Photoworks]

this day they are no need in being so critical about post-processing.

If I look at any of the photos from "Masters" photos, they would be unimpressive without the time spent in the darkroom/processing.

Luckily you write a little description of the element in a chat window and the result is an award-winning image that does not need any post-processing. 

Life is simple again in 2023, out of the "box" images

[jaapv]

On 4/30/2023 at 2:03 PM, Photoworks said:

this day they are no need in being so critical about post-processing.

If I look at any of the photos from "Masters" photos, they would be unimpressive without the time spent in the darkroom/processing.

Luckily you write a little description of the element in a chat window and the result is an award-winning image that does not need any post-processing. 

Life is simple again in 2023, out of the "box" images

Err... no. 

[Erato]

A serious retouching process won't make you an artist but the content.

If you're contracted to makie a series of perfect memory to employer, then, do the professional post-process for a good pay check. And if you're loyal to yourself or your imaginary muse, then you might choose to leave it as it is if the recorded image(DNG/RAW) is highly satisfied.

The difference is quite obvious indeed, you're either become a toss(or a well-done, toasted) post process expert or a real photographer with a linear improvement alone with times go by.

[Tom R]

This particular topic has been discussed in numerous philosophical, cultural, and aesthetic essays, books, and collections---within and outside of the academy. Here's the thing: I have followed many such arguments and while they may be interesting and some even provocative, none has ever helped me find the photograph. That said, knowing something about these topics might be helpful during the selection/editing process, or when writing some kind of forward or criticism. Happily, that's not my trade

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[skahde]

Am 30.4.2023 um 14:03 schrieb Photoworks:

If I look at any of the photos from "Masters" photos, they would be unimpressive without the time spent in the darkroom/processing.

Whatever floats ones boat but I'd go one step further saying that the unedited picture is an illusion as you leave the editing to predefined processes, electronic or chemical, instead of making the picture you had in mind when you made the exposure. 

There is no such thing as an unedited picture and I rather take my luck into my own hands. 

Edited May 9, 2023 by skahde