Is Using Editing Software Cheating?

[Chairman7w]

I don't think it's cheating at all. It's just "making a picture".

Mind you, I'm also of the mind that if someone DOES think it's cheating, I say, "then don't do it." I'm kinda the live and let live type. If you wanna do it, knock yourself out. If you don't, that's cool too.

I'm not gonna try and convice someone one way or another.

 

[DavidElliot]

In fact, I know a model he uses personally, and she is thick (kinda fat) and ugly, and his Photoshop work makes her look like a supermodel.

wouldn't that just be distorting reality? doesn't necessarily mean his photos are actually "bad," his choice in models is not what society views as "ideal" but you're probably right about them being bad though since you have first hand account.

 

[TheUndisputed]

wouldn't that just be distorting reality? doesn't necessarily mean his photos are actually "bad," his choice in models is not what society views as "ideal" but you're probably right about them being bad though since you have first hand account.

Technically, yes, you are correct. The thing about it is, he isn't using the camera to distort with angle as he should be to make her look thinner in shoot. He is taking the photos, and they look horrible, and then he super tunes them in photoshop.

I'm not even joking, by the time this guy is done with these images in photoshop, it doesn't even look like the same photograph or even the same girl. Next time I do a shoot with him I will take my flash drive and copy his RAWs so I can show you guys the before and afters. It is insane exactly how much of a difference Photoshop can do for a photo.

 

[ann]

i do anything i would do in the darkroom.

on the other hand, check out the video from Dove . It shows exactly what is done to an average looking young lady to create a super model

 

[Torus34]

'Cheating?'

When all's said and done the making of a picture, whether the medium be oils, charcoal, needlepoint, wood-burning or photography, is a 'game' the picture-maker plays with him/herself.

When you set out to make a picture, you have a set of 'rules' in mind. These rules may be as simple as, 'I will use watercolors' or 'I will use 120 b&w film.' The rules may be more complex: 'I will use a digital camera, photograph a landscape which includes a single tree, shift the color balance so as to add a surreal note and use the sharpening function of the processor to the maximum degree possible.'

All of the above produce pictures which can be [and imho should be] appreciated on their own merits qua picture without regard to the technique used. When you view a classic oil painting, it doesn't matter a hoot if you know the blue was created by using ground lapis lazuli in an albumen medium. What you are impacted by is what the picture 'says' to you. You evaluate it on that basis. While it's fun to know the minutiae [He used a special lens with an f64 stop,] the impact's the thing.

So, if any means to create a picture is 'legal', what about 'cheating?'

Cheating, I should think, occurs if at all when you are not true to your inner 'rules'. Let's say you set out to take some street shots and your inner 'rules' include exposing the film and making the final print without using any technique beyond cropping the image. Then, when enlarging, you interpose a patterned screen, burn in the corners and post-process with a sepia toner. You have 'cheated' on your initial rules. That's all. Nothing more than that.

And to top things off, I really don't see anything wrong with changing your inner rules along the way if doing so will make a 'better' picture. [I'll leave the definition of 'better' for another lecture.]

 

[ksmattfish]

Long before I get to the processing my photographs begin warping reality severely. The world is large, 3D, endless, and time constantly flows forward. In comparison my photos are smaller than life, 2D, cropped, and time is frozen. A little color or contrast tweaking in PS is minor in comparison.

Open your eyes #004 @Digital Outback Photo

Picasso on photography and reality: "Right after the Liberation, lots of GIs came to my studio in Paris. I would show them my work, and some of them understood and admired more than others. Almost all of them, though, before they left, would show me pictures of their wives or girl friends. One day one of them who had made some kind of remark, as I showed him one of my paintings, about how 'It doesn't really look like that, though,' got to talking about his wife and he pulled out a tiny passport-size picture of her to show me. I said to him, 'But she's so tiny, your wife. I didn't realize from what you said that she was so small.' He looked at me very seriously. 'Oh, she's not really so small,' he said. 'It's just that this is a very small photograph.'"

"People say photographs don't lie, mine do." -David LaChapelle