Street - heavily processed

PhotoDavid78

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1344249022.955402.jpg

PhotoDavid78

I uploaded at the wrong resolution. trying out tapatalk. please standby

PhotoDavid78

Take 2

bdcolen

Well, I don't call this a photograph, but I do call it a lovely image.;-)

PhotoDavid78

bdcolen wrote: »

Well, I don't call this a photograph, but I do call it a lovely image.;-)

Thank you but I assure you that light passed through the lens of the camera

jiro

For me, the added texture and processing worked nicely with your photograph, David. Nice work.

PhotoDavid78

jiro wrote: »

For me, the added texture and processing worked nicely with your photograph, David. Nice work.

Thank you Jiro

bdcolen

Yes, David, I know it did. But what you are showing us is what might be called a photo illustration, as it bears little resemblance to the "light that passed through" your lens, and created an image on your light sensitive medium. Actually, why don't you post the image that came out of the camera - with no processing - and let us compare the two?

torags

Well, I agree with bd.

That said, I really like the image. The context is an excellent choice for the treatment.

Good work

PhotoDavid78

bdcolen wrote: »

Yes, David, I know it did. But what you are showing us is what might be called a photo illustration, as it bears little resemblance to the "light that passed through" your lens, and created an image on your light sensitive medium. Actually, why don't you post the image that came out of the camera - with no processing - and let us compare the two?

BD, dodging and burning a photo is also manipulating an image to get it to a desired look as a camera doesn't see what the human eye sees. Also, Black and White photography isn't a natural look but both are still considered photography. Ansel Adams was more known for his processing and printing than his actual shots. All photographers process their images whether it's fixing levels, cropping, or dodging and burning but never the less, here is the unprocessed version.

PhotoDavid78

torags wrote: »

Well, I agree with bd.

That said, I really like the image. The context is an excellent choice for the treatment.

Good work

Thank you

torags

Here is a good example of taking a boring photograph and making it of interest to look at.

PhotoDavid78

torags wrote: »

Here is a good example of taking a boring photograph and making it of interest to look at.

thanks I think...

bdcolen

It is, in its original form, a quite mundane snap shot. It ends up as a lovely digital "painting." This kind of manipulation is a far, far, cry from adjusting contrast, burning and dodging, which have always been part of the process of printing photographs. As to comparing it to conversion to black and white, I'd point out that digital sensors "see" in black and white, and that a filter is required to convert the black and white to color. So truth be told, converting a color digital image to black and white actually is taking it back to what the "camera saw," even if the photographer didn't actually see the scene that way. And don't get me started on Ansel Adams, who was a master printer, photographic inventor and innovator, important naturalist, but a pretty blah photographer. ;-)

And David, I'm not saying don't have fun with PhotoShop, or whatever program - it's producing lovely results for you. I'm just saying the resulting image isn't photographic - it's photographically based. It sure isn't documentary photography, because it isn't "documenting" anything in the real world, nor is it what normally would be considered street photography.

MarkR

bdcolen wrote: »

As to comparing it to conversion to black and white, I'd point out that digital sensors "see" in black and white, and that a filter is required to convert the black and white to color. So truth be told, converting a color digital image to black and white actually is taking it back to what the "camera saw," even if the photographer didn't actually see the scene that way.

I just deleted an (anti-)b&w rant, cause this isn't the place for it. I'd just like to point out that the above is about the weakest rationalization for b&w that I think I've ever read anywhere.

B&W is all about digital manipulation to achieve an effect.* It is as artificial as selective coloring or adding a textured background. Really want to show what your eyes see?** Do all your shots as 3-5 exposure HDRs.

*BW film shots obviously excluded. Same with the new Leica with the BW sensor.

**Really want to show what your camera "sees"? Photograph a matrix of alternating red, green, and blue pixels.

lensmole

MarkR wrote: »

I just deleted an (anti-)b&w rant, cause this isn't the place for it. I'd just like to point out that the above is about the weakest rationalization for b&w that I think I've ever read anywhere.

B&W is all about digital manipulation to achieve an effect.* It is as artificial as selective coloring or adding a textured background. Really want to show what your eyes see?** Do all your shots as 3-5 exposure HDRs.

*BW film shots obviously excluded. Same with the new Leica with the BW sensor.

**Really want to show what your camera "sees"? Photograph a matrix of alternating red, green, and blue pixels.

I am not sure what you mean Mark ? B.D is taking about what the camera sees ,but you are referring to what the human eye sees .

It's All Black and White After All
It may be surprising, but pixels on an image sensor only capture brightness, not color. They record the gray scale—a series of tones ranging from pure white to pure black. How the camera creates a color image from the brightness recorded by each pixel is an interesting story with its roots in the distant past.

The gray scale, seen best in black and white photos, contains a range of tones from pure black to pure white.

When photography was first invented in the 1840s, it could only record black and white images. The search for color was a long and arduous process, and a lot of hand coloring went on in the interim (causing one photographer to comment "so you have to know how to paint after all!"). One major breakthrough was James Clerk Maxwell's 1860 discovery that color photographs could be created using black and white film and red, blue, and green filters. He had the photographer Thomas Sutton photograph a tartan ribbon three times, each time with a different color filter over the lens. The three black and white images were then projected onto a screen with three different projectors, each equipped with the same color filter used to take the image being projected. When brought into alignment, the three images formed a full-color photograph. Over a century later, image sensors work much the same way.
Colors in a photographic image are usually based on the three primary colors red, green, and blue (RGB). This is called the additive color system because when the three colors are combined in equal amounts, they form white. This RGB system is used whenever light is projected to form colors as it is on the display monitor (or in your eye). Another color system uses cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK) to create colors. This system is used in a few sensors and almost all printers since it's the color system used with reflected light.
Since daylight is made up of red, green, and blue light; placing red, green, and blue filters over individual pixels on the image sensor can create color images just as they did for Maxwell in 1860. Using a process called interpolation, the camera computes the actual color of each pixel by combining the color it captured directly through its own filter with the other two colors captured by the pixels around it. How well it does this is affected in part by the image format, size, and compression you select.

Because each pixel on the sensor has a color filter that only lets in one color, a captured image records the brightness of the red, green, and blue pixels separately. (There are usually twice as many photosites with green filters because the human eye is more sensitive to that color). Illustration courtesy of Foveon at www.foveon.com.

RyanS

MarkR wrote: »

B&W is all about digital manipulation to achieve an effect.* It is as artificial as selective coloring or adding a textured background. Really want to show what your eyes see?** Do all your shots as 3-5 exposure HDRs.

Sadly, not even this will work (yet). HDR photography, as it has been popularized recently, isn't a good term to describe what it is. A better term would be Dynamic Range Compression (DRC). It is taking a broad dynamic range and squishing it in to a range that your monitor can display (or in to the range a printer can print). This is why over-done HDR looks non-life-like. Lossy compression.

The interesting news is that several groups are working on display systems capable of a much broader dynamic range and gamut. We are getting closer... but we still need a few decades to really impress anyone. By then, I hope, digital sensors will have kept pace. We may also have access to very inexpensive high-quality stereoscopic imaging systems (that don't require glasses for viewing), so we can add depth as well. The effect would be like looking out a window... but at a mini-representation of the world.

Then we can all look back at our 2D photographs and lament their inability to represent the real world.

MarkR

lensmole wrote: »

I am not sure what you mean Mark ? B.D is taking about what the camera sees ,but you are referring to what the human eye sees .

.

Many on this forum prefer black and white, which is fine. Some people like HDR, some people like heavy vignetting. Some people even like star filters or selective color. A few people will even dare to blend it a textured background. But saying that one should convert an image to bw because it's more representative of what a camera "sees" is patently ridiculous. Modern Black and white is a completely artificial construct that originated with the technical limitations of early film & prior, and which can only be brought about on a bayer-sensor through artificially manipulating the image.

Excluding other types of photo manipulation from Documentary but allowing bw strikes me as hypocritical.

MarkR

RyanS wrote: »

MarkR wrote: »

B&W is all about digital manipulation to achieve an effect.* It is as artificial as selective coloring or adding a textured background. Really want to show what your eyes see?** Do all your shots as 3-5 exposure HDRs.

Sadly, not even this will work (yet). HDR photography, as it has been popularized recently, isn't a good term to describe what it is. A better term would be Dynamic Range Compression (DRC). It is taking a broad dynamic range and squishing it in to a range that your monitor can display (or in to the range a printer can print). This is why over-done HDR looks non-life-like. Lossy compression.

The interesting news is that several groups are working on display systems capable of a much broader dynamic range and gamut. We are getting closer... but we still need a few decades to really impress anyone. By then, I hope, digital sensors will have kept pace. We may also have access to very inexpensive high-quality stereoscopic imaging systems (that don't require glasses for viewing), so we can add depth as well. The effect would be like looking out a window... but at a mini-representation of the world.

Then we can all look back at our 2D photographs and lament their inability to represent the real world.

Thank you for the technical info re: HDR. My point was and is that other types of photo manipulation such as HDR are often shown scorn on this subforum, (or textured backgrounds!) but bw somehow gets a pass.

Sam

PhotoDavid78,

I am not going to participate in any rambling debate defining your creation.

I will simply say...............NICE. I like it.

Sam

bdcolen

Needless to say, I feel the need to respond to the nonsense that's been posted regarding black and white conversion. But first, let me note, as I did when PhotoDavid first posted his image, that I like it; it's a quite lovely photo illustration.

So about black and white. First, converting to black and white is something that all of us who shot film often did in the black and white darkroom, taking a color negative and using it to produce a black and white print. The only manipulation involved was the usual adjustment of focus (sharpness), contrast, and burning and dodging, all of which we do in Photoshop. By using the color negative to produce a black and white print, one is simply focusing, if you will, on the gradients of light and shadow within the image. So making a similar conversion with a color digital image really is quite straight forward, and bears virtually no relation to things such as HDR, various Photoshop painting techniques, altering an image by heavy vignetting, by excessive burning down, or any of the other tricks that are considered verboten in photo journalism.

Also, digital cameras do, indeed, "see" in black and white, and their production of color images is as much an artificial construct as colored images of Mars, or, for that matter, colored MRIs. Lensmole provided a very helpful explanation of this reality - the sensor only captures light, not color. It requires a special filter over the sensor to turn that captured black and white image into a colored image.

Finally, one prefers color to black and white, great. Shoot don't convert back to black and white those images your camera has converted to color. I happen to like both color and black and white. But don't suggest that what David did to produce his photo illustration is no different than converting to black and white - because it isn't.

MarkR

bdcolen wrote: »

Needless to say, I feel the need to respond to the nonsense that's been posted regarding black and white conversion. But first, let me note, as I did when PhotoDavid first posted his image, that I like it; it's a quite lovely photo illustration.

So about black and white. First, converting to black and white is something that all of us who shot film often did in the black and white darkroom, taking a color negative and using it to produce a black and white print. The only manipulation involved was the usual adjustment of focus (sharpness), contrast, and burning and dodging, all of which we do in Photoshop. By using the color negative to produce a black and white print, one is simply focusing, if you will, on the gradients of light and shadow within the image. So making a similar conversion with a color digital image really is quite straight forward, and bears virtually no relation to things such as HDR, various Photoshop painting techniques, altering an image by heavy vignetting, by excessive burning down, or any of the other tricks that are considered verboten in photo journalism.

Also, digital cameras do, indeed, "see" in black and white, and their production of color images is as much an artificial construct as colored images of Mars, or, for that matter, colored MRIs. Lensmole provided a very helpful explanation of this reality - the sensor only captures light, not color. It requires a special filter over the sensor to turn that captured black and white image into a colored image.

Finally, one prefers color to black and white, great. Shoot don't convert back to black and white those images your camera has converted to color. I happen to like both color and black and white. But don't suggest that what David did to produce his photo illustration is no different than converting to black and white - because it isn't.

And a response to the response.


I am baffled by the idea that one would want to see what a camera "sees." It's been pretty well established, AFAIK that the raw output of a camera is blurry (due to the demosaicing process) and flat. Should we then also turn off capture sharpening and crank down the contrast so that we can get that flat blurry look that so many people find desirable?

And, as RyanS points out, HDR is significantly closer to what the eye sees-- when do you really see a blocked shadow or a blown highlight in real life? It's also as easy (or as hard!) to implement as black and white conversion. Heck, I have two (not very new!) cameras that can do HDR in camera.

I'd like to point out, by the way, that I'm not against black and white for Docu photos. Heck, I'm pro b/w, hdr, star filters, textured backgrounds, selective color, IR effects, tilt-shift, the whole nine yards. You find an obscure or overused effect, I'm all for it.Seriously.*

But don't pretend that black and white is somehow special from all those other things, 'cause it ain't. It's more familar, perhaps, due to the fact that it's about 100 years older, but it's still photo-manipulation.** Give the same (digital) color photograph to a half dozen photographers. Ask them to convert it to black and white. If your hypothesis as I understand it is correct, and we're just "getting back" to some a priori black and white image that existed in the camera, we should get back 6 of the exact same image. We won't, because those photographers are not all going to convert that image by doing a straight mixing of 25% red, 50% green, and 25% blue. In fact, if they're any good, none of them will.

To sum up: I don't think any form of photo-manipulation is, of itself, incorrect for this forum. I do consider black and white to be a form of stylized photo-manipulation. (There are about as many inches of books devoted to it as there are to HDR at my local bookstore!)

And at this point, we'll probably have to agree to disagree. I do plan to continue posting color, b/w, hdr, and maybe even some textured b/g pictures to this forum.

Oh, and, PhotoDavid78, cool pic! . Looks much better with the texture.

*With the exception that if you're trying to publish the photo, i.e. not playing around on a forum, you either need to play by some very strict rules such as the AP guidelines, or be very transparent about what you did.

**I guess, if you really want to get technical about it, until a 360 degree panorama 3d camera with a dynamic range of 20+ stops is invented, all photography is manipulation.

bdcolen

To which I only will add that every newspaper and magazine does black and white conversion; most newspapers would fire photographers who engage in other forms of what you call "manipulation."

No, there aren't "rules" here - but this is a "Documentary" forum - and there is nothing "documentary" about photo illustration - it is taking what was, and turning into something that never was and never will be. It is NOT documentary. Period.

PhotoDavid78

I'm loving the debate. A quick example of why it's the journalist and not the processing.
A CNN photographer was covering Tibet and took a shot of the Chinese police beating Tibetan Monks. A few weeks later it came out that he purposely didn't shoot half the scene.
When compared to an AP shot of the same scene it showed the Monks throwing rocks and antagonizing the Police. So my point is, while both photos had little or no processing, it was the journalists shooting that made it unethical not the processing.

MarkR

bdcolen wrote: »

To which I only will add that every newspaper and magazine does black and white conversion; most newspapers would fire photographers who engage in other forms of what you call "manipulation."

No, there aren't "rules" here - but this is a "Documentary" forum - and there is nothing "documentary" about photo illustration - it is taking what was, and turning into something that never was and never will be. It is NOT documentary. Period.

But then, by your reasoning, neither would this picture be considered documentary: that little girl will never have all the color removed from her environment. She will likely never be encapsulated by a thick black border. She will hever have parts of her environment darkened and lightened selectively.* You took something that was, and made it into something it never was and never will be.**

... but I'd still consider it documentary!***

*I'm guessing you dodged and burned parts of the image for effect. I'm prepared to be wrong on that point.

**I'll hedge my bets and say there's an outside chance that she suffers from achromatopsia, and possibly glaucoma. But I think that's a long shot.

***(Even if it had a textured background!)

bdcolen

MarkR wrote: »

But then, by your reasoning, neither would this picture be considered documentary: that little girl will never have all the color removed from her environment. She will likely never be encapsulated by a thick black border. She will hever have parts of her environment darkened and lightened selectively.* You took something that was, and made it into something it never was and never will be.**

... but I'd still consider it documentary!***

*I'm guessing you dodged and burned parts of the image for effect. I'm prepared to be wrong on that point.

**I'll hedge my bets and say there's an outside chance that she suffers from achromatopsia, and possibly glaucoma. But I think that's a long shot.

***(Even if it had a textured background!)

Right. I'd call it street photography. And it has been very little altered - just a bit of burning in and contrast boosting, as one would do in the darkroom, to bring out the ceiling lights.

But this is getting pretty nonsensical.

MarkR

bdcolen wrote: »

Right. I'd call it street photography. And it has been very little altered - just a bit of burning in and contrast boosting, as one would do in the darkroom, to bring out the ceiling lights.

But this is getting pretty nonsensical.

Why is it nonsensical? It's all about where you draw the line ... Yours is a very narrow circle that strangely juts out for things such as dodging, burning, black and white, and frames. I've drawn the circle significantly larger, allowing things like HDR, texture mapping, etc.

It's very likely we'll never see eye to eye on this, but I'm ok with that. Check out my .sig for details.

We'd probably both agree that cloning in extra people to make a crowd scene bigger, or using the transform tool to make someone look sickly, are off limits. It's that sticky area of artistic intent where the interesting arguments lie.

(And if black and white isn't all about artistic intent, then why all the books?)

damonff

ugh

Qarik

you have picked some nice processing to enhance an other wise dull image..now imagine if you had used a more compelling base image and rocked that processing on that? Your skill here was that you found nice compleimentary process..whihc is no small feat but you could've picked a better base image no?

PhotoDavid78

Qarik wrote: »

you have picked some nice processing to enhance an other wise dull image..now imagine if you had used a more compelling base image and rocked that processing on that? Your skill here was that you found nice compleimentary process..whihc is no small feat but you could've picked a better base image no?

Of course and I have just not this time.

jhefti

bdcolen wrote: »

Also, digital cameras do, indeed, "see" in black and white, and their production of color images is as much an artificial construct as colored images of Mars, or, for that matter, colored MRIs. Lensmole provided a very helpful explanation of this reality - the sensor only captures light, not color. It requires a special filter over the sensor to turn that captured black and white image into a colored image.

Well, our eye pretty much works the same way. We are only sensitive to three colors--one of each of the three types of cones we have in our retinas, which filter the light into 'color' in much the same way as a camera does. And for each of these--much like an R,G, or B pixel in the camera sensor--the incident light is just converted into an electrical signal that conveys intensity. There is no actual 'color' that reaches our brain, only an electrical signal. All of the richness we perceive as color is just a construct of our visual cortex. For example, we cannot be certain that when we perceive a green object, it is actually green; it may be a combination of blue and yellow, with no green whatsoever. The important question is not what our eye sees--it sees very little, in fact--but what rises to the level of consciousness. This is many steps removed from our eye.

But as far as why B&W is still considered an acceptable format for documentary photography, I suspect it is nothing more than an aesthetic legacy.