Too Much Photoshop Manipulation - where to draw the line...

markc said:
How do you feel about these images?

http://www.robertkleingallery.com/gallery/albums/uelsmann/aad.jpg
http://www.andrewsmithgallery.com/images/uelsmann/jerry.jpg

They were done by Jerry Uelsmann, all in the darkroom.


I think work like this is amazing! My belief on digital manipulation is that if you can tell exactly how its been done, if its all you can focus on..its not good. This on the other hand is so good it makes me enjoy the art without thinking about where the manipulations took place.

Its believable.

n----->:D
 
i rarely use photoshop personally. except for SC, multi exposure, and cool things like that. but if a picture is just completely badly done, and is made "good" in photoshop, i think that's over-manipulation.

so basically making up for a lack of knowledge in photography with a wealth of knowledge in photoshop. not ok. but using it as a tool to enhance already great shots with cool effects, that's ok.
 
Personally I think that if you're going to call your work photography that you should only apply images/effects that you could achieve either with the camera or the darkroom etc. but if you're going to call your work photographic art then you can do whatever you like to it.

I say this not because I think that there is really a difference in the two, more because there is a public perception of the difference between the two. The reason I call the second photographic art and not the first one is that the image you already have is interacted with in a similar way to an artist interacting with a painting. Obviously the two are very closely linked and there is a massive grey area in between the definitions. I just believe that if someone were to do a lot of work in Photoshop and came out with a great picture that was quite far removed from a photo, but still a photo none the less, they would get more respect for their work by calling it photographic art and not photography.

I would judge this on a piece by piece basis rather than pigeon holing an artist completely. I also hope that one day the dividing line of public perception with vanish but I very much doubt it will considering that photography is so often used as a portrayal of truth.

Opinionated little so-and-so aren't I!!
 
I think photoshop's just fine to use as a tool, but I like to view physical prints actually in front of me....I don't like looking at a computer screen, and digital prints still are not quite there.....when the printing process is improved I'll be a happy man....I believe a photo is not complete until it's off the screen and in your hand.....and there's too many folks who's entire photographic carrer has never left the hard drive
 
recently i was looking through the latest Pop Photo issue, and they had a review of the new Aperture program for Mac. at first i just thought "oh it's photoshop for mac users". but then i saw the $500 price tag
to me it seems to be a bad sign that software for editing your shots post-capture costs as much as a good P&S digicam. :confused:
 
ive heard a lot of talk about art and how one wants their art "labeled"

seriously folks, who cares. When it all comes down to it, you cannot make a truley bad photograph good in PS because the first half of the work is composition, focus and light management which is irreplaceble in PS.

the second half of the work is the darkroom persay, which can be PS, or a real darkroom. some of those "artsy" layered overlay mode pics which look all trippy took those guys literally years to learn in PS. Id say thats as much a skill as photography, put the 2 together and you have a really cool skill set.

In the commercial "real" world PS is used to give art editors and advertising departments the EXACT look they want for their commercials or ads. ITs as simple as that. The ones making the photos, and processing these prints are making big bucks. Thats why it costs so much money.

Theres a market for nearly everything, the more skill it takes to create a look, usually the better the niche. Id say the more you can do in the camera the better, but also I love to play around in PS sometimes myself... lol
 
Slick, there's a review on Apature and Adobes Lightroom (still in beta testing) to be found here:

Lightroom

and here:

Apature

I haven't read the review for apature as I'm a PC user but it seems both the products are trying to do the same thing more or less with Lightroom coming out miles ahead...

Sorry, bit off topic there :blushing:
 
magicmonkey said:
Slick, there's a review on Apature and Adobes Lightroom (still in beta testing) to be found here:

Lightroom

and here:

Apature

I haven't read the review for apature as I'm a PC user but it seems both the products are trying to do the same thing more or less with Lightroom coming out miles ahead...

Sorry, bit off topic there :blushing:

oh i wasn't trying to compare it with pc products, i was simply saying that it's somewhat frightening that a program can cost that much.

on the other hand i like the name "Lightroom" :mrgreen:
 
For me part of the point of using digital is the ease of manipulation. If I want "straight photography" (which I think is a make believe animal anyway), I'll shoot film. I've always been appalled by the excessive, unnatural look of Velvia, but many folks swear by it. If Velvia is okay, then I say the sky is the limit.
 
Oh my goodness MarC, you are so right. I had a roomate one time that was into that stuff, and he had to get maya, dude, my jaw dropped when I saw the price on that sucker.....
 
maya is crazy expensive. nice program though :)


i think it depends on what you are using photoshop for. If you edit portraits for clients, then overprocessing is a big issue. If you are trying to make abstract art with photoshop, then the 'line' is quite vague (or even nonexistent). I agree with DigitalMatt, the real issue is what you consider art. There are thousands of works of 'modern art' that I find obsurd and an insult to what I consider true art, but others consider them masterpieces. Heavily manipulated images can fit in this category, but in the end it really just rests on each individual's opinions.
 

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