Photo-Editing Rules

yoyostock

I think this is a pretty basic question (but maybe not): is there some sort of an acceptable level of photo-editing (anything from simply cropping a photo, to moderate manipulations of the color, to more complicated PS tricks) that is "reasonable" for a photo? Or, to put it another way, how much photo-editing can someone do to a picture before altering too much (if there's such a thing)? Is the final product supposed to look closer to: 1) what was originally shot, 2) or what you can accomplish using whatever was shot plus a photo-editing program?

For example, for a NooB such as myself, I often find that I don't always get that right exposure or color or even focus at times (I blame the camera and the lens for that of course, ). However, when I get home, it seems that it's pretty easy to fix things like that with just a few clicks. When I look at the final product, even though I might think that it now looks a lot better, I feel like it wasn't really a good shot because it was doctored up. Know what I mean?

So, what's the rule? Is there one? How much photo-editing is acceptable/reasonable?

DavidTO

The answer, while not really helpful, is "yes."

Don't tie yourself down to shoulds and shouldn'ts express yourself creatively. Sometimes you will enhance the reality of the shot, other times you will create a new reality.

Khaos

Unless the shot is for journalism, editing should not be an issue. The photograph is your vision. Most of what you do in Photoshop is what you can also do in a darkroom.

So often, especially for lansdcapes, what I see in my mind and what's actually there are two totaly different things. So I use Photoshop to bring the colors, contrast and textures that I saw in my mind's eye. I create and present to others my vision of the scene. Other photographers will produce their vision and everytone gets to enjoy different interpretaions.

So show us what you see and not what's just there. There are no limitations.

speedracer04

i think it all depends on what the photos is going to be used for.

-if it is just for you or to show off your work i dont think anything should hold you back. if you can make the photo better in PS then i think by all means you should do it.

-if you are working for someone, ask them what they will take and what they will not. I cover car shows mostly and i do, do color fix/curves/little cleaning but i know that i can not...say put two different photos together because it is not true for the show any more and it would give a false since of the show or location.

-i am pretty sure for news type stuff they dont want you to do anything to the photos, but im not sure.

i know that stuff happens but it is always easier/faster to take a better photo to start then spend lots of time fixing it.

i hope that made some sense

wxwax

If it's photojournalism, you have to be careful what you change in the shot.

Otherwise, do whatever pleases you. Who cares?

Ric Grupe

Rules!....We don't need no stinking rules! :nah

oldbmw

The general rule of them at my paper is I can make the photo look like what I saw in my head. To do that I will use the following tools:

crop
dodge
burn
curves
levels (curves more)
saturation
color adjustment
I will use the clone or patch tool to remove dust or scratch marks. NOTHING ELSE AT ALL IS DONE WITH THOSE TOOLS.

The most technical I get is using the selection tool to select an area to draw attention to a subject by using the tools above. At no part in my day does cutting, pasting, dragging or dropping come into play.




Nothing special or outstanding about this photo, but it had some technical aspects to it. Fill flash was used but since I didn't want to over expose the kids I had to bump it down a little. I knew I could dodge the horse shoe guy little to bring his face out a little more.

The hard part about it was hiding the huge light pole that is behind the anvil. It would have been easy to clone it out with that solid sky, but that's against my own rules and all I had to do was adjust my position and wait until he held a horsehoe in the right spot. I wish the girl would have stayed in the right spot because I had her blocking the water tower but she moved. I felt it was more important to show the horsehoe so this is the keeper. What I didn't see unitl just now was the tilted horizon, hopefully the editor fixed it. It's highly unlikely that he did anything even remotely right so it's probably still tilted an page A3 today.



Nothing special about this one either but it shows just about the most work I will do on a photo. This is one where I saw a plain dull lake in my head, the colorful kayak, the swimmers white cap and the no swimming sign. I used the AEL on something else besides the water. I don't remember if it was the sky or grass or whatever. The reason I did this was to keep the water dark.

The whole photo came out a little flat so I selected the sign, and dodged the white letters, dodged the swimmers cap, and dodged and saturated the Kayak after using the selection tool on it. If I would have done that to the whole frame the water would have changed colors taking away from what I saw in my head.

I knew in my head what I was going to do in Photoshop before I even took these photos. In the first one I took steps before hand to reduce the amount of work necassary. In the second I was pretty sure that if I metered right I would need to do the above steps to get what I saw in my mids eye.

Back to the subject. In most cases all I do is dodge faces just a little. some photos get a little more attention though. I think the second one is generally about the most any newspaper would do, they would just do a better job of it.

This guy does some of the best post processing work I have ever seen http://www.sportsshooter.com/ilyitch make sure to check out his galleries on the bottonm of the page.

If your not useing the photo for news or journalism all bets are off. I would probably stay away from altering candid type stuff including street photography.

yoyostock

Excellent, thanks! I'm not doing any photojournalism type stuff, so I guess I'm home free. No guilty conscience and liberty to edit away.

Seefutlung

That has been the question since the introduction of digital photography. When does the processing turn you into a graphics artist as opposed to a photographer? Unless you are worried about what/who you are ... don't give it another thought ... just turn your photos into the best image you can.

I am a former photo journalist ... so I just stick to cropping, burning and dodging and color/contrast adjustment. Just stuff that was available to me in a wet darkroom. But that is just me ... you have to make your own call.

jwear

Ric Grupe wrote:

Rules!....We don't need no stinking rules! :nah

this is as true as it gets only Andy has rules oh yea and DavidTO