Please don't kill me -

David-Stallard

hey guys and gals, please don't kill me for asking but I have to:

To me the joy of taking photos is to save the memory of exactly what I have seen, so why do so many people take absolutly stunng photos and then change the colours / HDR (what ever that is) and basically butcher them in photoshop etc?

I am truely at a loss - as I said, some of the photos are stunning beforehand.

Maybe it's because I'm still relitivly new to the world of DSLR photography and one day I will wake up and think "today I'm going to ruin all my photos" but I seriously hope not.

.DAVID.

du8die

And that's where art becomes subjective. Some see beauty in what is, some in what could be, some in what could never be.

Now, in terms of basic post-processing and color-correction - nothing is EVER straight out of the camera. It never has been. Even in the film days, someone was making a decision (whether it was the photog in the darkroom, or someone at a lab) as to exactly what the print will look like. Now, we make those decisions in software. Even then, when you print a photo, chances are, some color correction is made by someone based on what they see (unless you go to a pro lab and explicitly tell them not to correct).

That having been said, if you shoot in JPEG on your camera, the camera is taking the raw data, analyzing it, and making a decision on what settings it feels are best for the shot. It then compresses it, and removes all the extraneous data. IE... a computer chip is "deciding" what you saw. That's why people say to shoot in RAW. That way the artist has the greatest control over the data captured, and can present it in whatever way they want or feel most accurately captures what they saw.

The fact that someone post-processed their photo does not automatically mean they "ruined" it. I'd say that as the artist, I want to make as many decisions about the art I produce as I can. As far as I know, there is no such thing as "Pure" photography.

Hope that's helpful.

pyry

Gnome wrote:

To me the joy of taking photos is to save the memory of exactly what I have seen, so why do so many people take absolutly stunng photos and then change the colours / HDR (what ever that is) and basically butcher them in photoshop etc?

I very often go for the scene in my mind, realistic or not. It's the freedom of the art.

Btw. Here's something worth a thought, HDR refers to High Dynamic Range imaging, a combination of exposures to expand the range of tones available in the recorded image. Cameras have quite a bit less dynamic range than human eyes do, so this is a technique you may have to go for in order to make the image look more like what you saw with your own eyes. There are several ways of working with HDR, some are realistic, some produce fairy tale scenes while others take you on an acid trip.

David-Stallard

Thanks
Well blow me down, I have posted the same question elsewhere and been totally shot down for it - you on the other hand have given me the most precise answer I could have hoped for.

'Each to his own' I guess is the best answer. Thank you

.DAVID.

pyry

Gnome wrote:

Well blow me down, I have posted the same question elsewhere and been totally shot down for it - you on the other hand have given me the most precise answer I could have hoped for.

'Each to his own' I guess is the best answer. Thank you

.DAVID.

To each his own is spot on

And welcome to the forum, I think you'll like it here

moose135

Welcome to DGrin, David. You'll find we're not like a lot of other places.

Photography is many things to many people, spanning the spectrum from "completely realistic" photojournalism style all the way to heavily post-processed "artistic" work, and everything in between. Find your style, dabble between styles, whatever you want.

Corehead

I TEND TO AGREE, over there. While post-processing can come in handy to correct for certain unexpected--and unwelcome--artifacts (dust specks, streaks, that annoying "bloom" and "purple fringing" that CCD image sensors sometimes afflicts us with), or to add some artistic flair for some marketing thrust, in general...

...the better ya are with your camera, the less you should have to, ah, cover up your mistakes with hours and hours on Photoshop (or whatever).

Hours and HOURS, mind you!

But what do I know after almost 50 years of straining the dust, combustion products, and bacterial spores with my lungs from this planet's air?

Steve-o

"Save the ales"!