Native vs processing with (LR etc)

[frame-it]

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16 hours ago, discoman5 said:

I can’t help but think that true photography should probably rely on the images you get out of the camera without any processing.

 

that's great! 😇

get a Leica digilux-1

tiff files and a CCD sensor with CYGM color filter on the sensor which apparently captured more details from the visible light spectrum.

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[jaapv]

2 hours ago, frame-it said:

that's great! 😇

get a Leica digilux-1

tiff files and a CCD sensor with CYGM color filter on the sensor which apparently captured more details from the visible light spectrum.

Even better:

https://www.daguerreiansociety.org/making-a-daguerreotype/

[Jeff S]

7 hours ago, pedaes said:

Also worth Googleing how Ansel Adams famous image 'Moonrise,Hernandez,New Mexico' was created in the darkroom. 

And subsequently reinterpreted and revised in the darkroom over a 34 year period by Adams as his print preferences changed. Skies, especially, became much more dark, dramatic and contrasty. 
 

https://www.andrewsmithgallery.com/exhibitions/anseladams/arrington/index.html

This provides a good reason for modern day photographers, shooting digitally, to use RAW. Tastes change, and so do editing software capabilities.

Jeff

Edited November 24, 2024 by Jeff S

[adan]

23 hours ago, discoman5 said:

I can’t help but think that true photography should probably rely on the images you get out of the camera without any processing.

1) Can you show us an example of any photograph ever made over the approximately 200 years since the very first one, that was even visible "without any processing?"

2) Are you confusing the terms "processing" and "manipulating?"

Here is the first permanent photograph ever made (according to traditional history). Created by Nicéphore Niépce in the mid-1820s. On a plate coated with an asphalt or tar compound, which exposure to light energy, over several hours, made hard and insoluble in the brightest places. Then processed by washing the plate with oil of lavender, to dissolve the unhardened asphalt (shadow areas), leaving the light-hardened asphalt as the visible highlights. 

Without at least that processing with a solvent, straight from the camera, there would be no recognizable image at all. Just an undifferentiated coating of asphalt on metal.

(image linked from wikipedia commons).

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Later in its existence, the original plate was rephotographed by others and manipulated to add contrast and remove some of the haziness and scratches. This version shows very mild contrast manipulation; other copies were manipulated far more severely. Several variations can be seen here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View_from_the_Window_at_Le_Gras

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23 minutes ago, AussieQ said:

When people ask why I photoshop my photos, 

 But now you casually introduce an emotive term that is traduced across the internet, why? Does it matter what software package you edit your photos in or is ‘Photoshopping’ your idea of editing a photograph? I use Photoshop all the time but it’s just a tool and it doesn’t create the image, I do, so why should I give it credit other than in response to a query? I mean would you explain you used a particular brand of hammer to knock a nail in?

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Just now, AussieQ said:

100% of non photographer people I meet all mention 'photoshop'. It seems to be the term used by the laymen.

And you see no reason to educate them.

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1 minute ago, AussieQ said:

I try but it is quite insane how many people who are non photographers really mock the editing. I always get the old 'oh that photo is photoshopped, thats not real' response. 'This is where my women and makeup example comes in. I explain it to them with that example. 

I take your point, but 'photoshopping' is never a positive in the eyes of the ignorant.

[marchyman]

Very rough equivalent:

straight out of camera -- negatives sent to local pharmacy for processing at a consumer photo lab. The in camera conversion to jpeg replaces the photo lab.

Processed image --  image custom processed in darkroom.

Sometimes a snapshot is what you want.  For that I usually use my phone.

[LocalHero1953]

Where do transparencies come into this passionate argument for the darkroom and Lightroom? The Kodachrome colours that everyone praises, the staple of the family slideshow of yesteryear? They’re processed, but only according to a standard unvarying formula by a machine. As near SOOC as you’re likely to get in film world.

It’s after dark and I’ve decided to be a contrarian for the second page of the thread. 

By the way, the OP hasn’t replied. Have we scared him off with our replies, or has he just lost his original post, not realising it was moved from where he posted it (it would confuse me if I was a forum newbie).

[jaapv]

On 11/25/2024 at 12:07 AM, LocalHero1953 said:

By the way, the OP hasn’t replied. Have we scared him off with our replies, or has he just lost his original post, not realising it was moved from where he posted it (it would confuse me if I was a forum newbie).

He received an alert.

[jaapv]

On 11/25/2024 at 12:39 AM, mark_s90 said:

I think the post was done either as a "joke" post, or was done by someone who wanted to be recognized in the first or second thread reply as being the greatest thinking in this decades crop of photographers. 

 

There are many theories as to what constitutes "heavy" or "mild" editing to a photo. 

Joe Edelmans website, has/had before editing, and post editing shots of the same "photograph". Quite often, the editing is so heavy that the only resemblece between before and after is that they both contain a female model. In a good number, the clothing style changed.

 

WIth modern editing software, you have the control to open up a picture and through the use of the slider bars.. You can change the color of the person hair, eyes, makeup, clothing. In the old days of film photography, you would have too redo these in the real world, and take a new photo.  Now, we have editing software with AI tools, that in actual yootube demonstration videos, 

Be given a picture of a person on a park bench, a picture of a green suit and hat, and a lunar landscape, be turned into a picture of a person sitting on a park bench wearing a green suit and hat on the moon. 

In honesty, the REAL debate between SOOC and "lets photoshop this B)(TCH "  is this. 

Does the use of digital editing programs and digital cameras negate the requirement to have basic photographic theory down?

For example, backlight subjects. The OLD film standard was "the camera says i need to use 1/60 at f/8"  so the photographer would simply increase the shutter speed to 1/30 to compensate and make the person visible..  Now you simply need to run the AI program and tell it to make foreground visible, and its fixed.

 

In the old days if you wanted to afford lens flare on sunny days, you bought a 10$ lenshood and USED IT, and minded where you pointed the lens. NOW you can have 20,000 digital images with horrid lens flare fixed by selecting the edit menu, and then selecting the "remove lens flare" tool.. and boom, its all fixed in minutes on all 20,000 images. 

 

I think that you don't get the distinction between editing an image and manipulating it.

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1 hour ago, jaapv said:

I think that you don't get the distinction between editing an image and manipulating it.

But it's an interesting idea that if an artist can take up a camera (like Hockney) they are still considered an artist, but if a photographer decides to become more artistic they are considered less of a photographer. It's a snobbish distinction deciding you want your camera to say everything for you and consequently looking down on anybody who considers their camera can't do everything. I know what the OP meant and it isn't unusual for the casual snapper to think that way because they are fearful of overriding the camera and firmware they paid money for. 

[jaapv]

It is based on ignorance or maybe denial of the essence of photography: creating an image that matches the vision of the photographer. 

[david911]

Interesting thread. My thinking has changed in the last several months. I now think that anything the photographer does in post is fine if it reflects their conscious choice. Outsourcing the creative decision to  an algorithm seems less desirable, but as long as you choose the effect, it reflects your vision.

However, for me, I want to keep things similar to what was done in the darkroom - exposure, contrast, dodge and burn, etc. And do it manually, i.e. with "brushes" or perhaps "gradients", but not relying on AI knowledge- e.g. "mask the subject", "select the sky", "add a lake to this image" etc.

But this reflects my desires, not any moral judgment. Also, with the concept of "art" foremost, rather than the concept of documentation or reportage.

[jaapv]

No. That is graphic creation using photographic elements. Nothing to do  with the matter we are discussing. 

[jaapv]

This is what I mean:

Straight conversion of the DNG, camera profile, everything as shot - as much OOC as possibe

 

 

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[jaapv]

And this was the scene as I saw it:

It needed editing to turn it into a photograph which represented what I saw, not what the camera rendered

1. In ACR: Adobe Adaptive profile and colour balance
2. In Photoshop Topaz Photo AI: Mild denoise, slight subject sharpen, balance colour
3. Levels- cut off empty bright pixels, adjust midtones
4. Curves - linear contrast
5. Selective sharpening
---- For publishing on Forum:
6. Resize for web
7. Sharpen for web
8. After sharpen Gaussian blur 0,1
9. Copyright brush
10. Action for saving. (Flatten, convert to sRGB, 8 bits)

This took me less than five minutes. 

 

 

 

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[evikne]

This reminds me of a Halloween photo I took some years ago. The faint light from the lamp had almost no effect on the girl's face, and didn't turn out as I had hoped. So I added a mask to brighten the face, more on the right side than the left, and adjusted the color temperature of the mask to match the lamp light. Everything was done in LR.

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M10, 35mm Summilux FLE v1 @ f/1.4

Edited November 27, 2024 by evikne

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[jaapv]

5 hours ago, mark_s90 said:

NOpe, the woman with the glass ball editing, that has become the mandatory type of editing now. According to the various PPA youtube videos ive seen in the last few years. 

What we have is a bunch of imagine less hacks with cameras, who get to combine lots of things together with a computer.  IT sort of ties into an old argument from Star Trek the Next Generation. 

 

In an early 1st season episode, they had a charecter fall into the holographic water, and get soaking wet. When they left the holodeck, they had to figure out out to dry the charecter off. They apparently spent a week trying to create "futuristic" dryer machines. Roddenberry just called them idiots and threw a towel at them. 

 

Its almost like with the "photographers" that get profiled on the Lomography website.  So many of them talk about having had their photography shown in their home countries, always in europe. and about winning art contests.  I once spent an afternoon researching some of these gallery showings. and contests.  It turned out that most of them merely rent space in a public place, like pay a grocery store manager 10 dollars to let them hang a 8x10 of a flower by the customer service desk.  THAT because "public gallery showing". 1 even went and RENTED out empty retail spaces, like a closed and cleared out cell phone store, tossed a few pictures up and "opened showing to public".

 

We live in a world where people are called creative and artistic photographers becuase they do wierd "souping" to film, like soak it in urine for an hour before processing in c41. Or random household chemicals.  We have others that get the heros parade for using 40 year old color film.  We have many many more who get rave reviews simply because they can ad a background into a photo. 

 

But the folks who actually took the time to LEARN photographer, and have the ability to say "hmm its sunny, im going to need a lenshood and maybe a lens filter"  are called crocks, cooks, and morons because they "just dont let photoshop fix those lens reflections and lens flares".

Well, they are free to do so, after all painting ranges from abstract to magic realism, but it has nothing to do with mainstream photographic editing. As discussed in this thread. 

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5 hours ago, mark_s90 said:

 

But the folks who actually took the time to LEARN photographer, and have the ability to say "hmm its sunny, im going to need a lenshood and maybe a lens filter"  are called crocks, cooks, and morons because they "just dont let photoshop fix those lens reflections and lens flares".

That is an excellent description of the average camera club member. They take pride in learning something then never move on because those that feel like they could do so get marks deducted at the next competition night. There has never been a time when painting hasn't influenced photography, and you should see what people get away with using a brush! So it's perverse that in the digital age we should have your new set of moral rules for photographers presumably aimed at saving them from themselves, as if making an adjustment in Photoshop is the first step onto a slippery slope.

Take your Leica pocket book and stand in your pulpit if you like, but there are overtones in stifling creativity and proscribing how far people should go with it, and I think if they end up discovering their own voice by whatever means damned good luck to them.