PS is good and necessary

davidweaver

I had a discussion this evening with someone that told me PS work was cheating. I asked him if he had ever read or heard of the Ansel Adam's books. He had not.
I went on to explain that there are 3 good books that still apply for the digital photographer albeit in a different fashion.
There is 'The Camera' and we have our cameras and learn how to use them, understand the strengths and limitations of the devices and shoot.

Then there is 'The Negative' and for many of us this is RAW processing. We have shot the image in The Camera and now it is time to create The Negative (or positive for us nowadays).

From there we take it to 'The Print'. This is all the extra digital darkroom work we do in PS before sending it to print and that includes the selection of paper (canvas, metallic, etc) and method of print (ink or silver).

The ideas behind those old an dated books are still very applicable today. You just have to adjust to the technologies. Photoshop, or your imaging software of choice, is essential to the creation of images. The poor use of camera, exposure, post-processing, and printing will lead to poor images. The reverse it also true.



Cheers,
David

divamum

Disclaimer regarding the below comments: I'm not saying that **I** agree that digital "developing"="cheating", simply musing on how that perception has become rather widespread.

I think the problem is that the sophisticated and highly manipulative media use of PP (particuarly in advertising) has generated part of this attitude. That, and the sheer ease with which one can now do things with a photograph which previously were quite a lot of effort - a couple of mouse clicks vs hours in the darkroom?

Having done a little bit of developing and printing a million years ago when I first started dabbling in photography, I will say that sitting at the computer screen is far more user-friendly - and thus something that I'm more willing and able to do - than what I used to have to do to develop (put a plank on the bathtub to use as a table, blackout the bathroom windows and doors, measure, mix, asphyxiate from the fumes in the small space, guess at how long to dodge/burn, clean up and restore bathroom to functional use etc etc etc. I learned it all DIY as I seem to have with just about everything photographic so I'm sure that had I taken a class and learned how to do it properly I'd have had a quicker and more efficient method, but fwiw...)

The irony, of course, is that there was plenty of non-digital photographic wizardry going on darkrooms, but I think in many ways it took more learned skills (chemicals, formulas, timings) - pretty much anybody who's motivated and knows how to use a mouse can get hold of a basic photo editor and start tweaking; with so much of the finished result being inherent in the program, it's "easier" and thus "cheating".

One other point: a lot of the "decisions" are made before you even upload your pix to the computer, because the software you choose to use will affect the outcome, as I have recently learned in a very real way. I finally got my hands on a copy of CS3 - I was previously using Paintshop 9 which, in theory, does all of the same things. But, even using the same commands, the RESULTS are sometimes hugely different - the algorithms and interpretations of each software are significantly different (to the point that I use both programs for different things, choosing the one that I think will best achieve the end result I want).

Interesting points for discussion - thanks for posting!

xris

For those truly interested in photography...

davidweaver wrote:

...3 good books that still apply for the digital photographer...

Totally agree. Points well taken. Darkroom is darkroom, though the lines separating photography from other graphic arts have become more of a blur.

pathfinder

I find the discussion of Image editing software and its effect on photography slightly amusing. Editing an image is "cheating", but painting an oil painting is a creative act of art..... Unless it is not, because it is copied before being painted via a lens projected image.


David Hockney wrote a gorgeous book titled "Secret Knowledge" that had as its thesis that in the early 1500s, painters began to use a camera lucida ( a box with a lens and an image plane ) to project images which they then traced and then painted, In effect, the painters were like digital photographers who captured images, and then edited and improved them, but utilized the cameras ability to capture complex graphical images, rapidly and accurately. The book has beautiful, color images demonstrating this thesis very nicely. It has stirred a great controversy in artists, and art historians.

Now, digital photographers are able to do a similar feat, capture the illuminated image, and then render it is Photoshop to match their inner eye. Photography is moving from a simple, mechanized capture to an artist's interpretation. What's not to like about this?