What is your response to editing?

[weepete]

Hi, so I'm proudly saying to a friend that I've made the background blue'r and instantly get criticism that 'should't the photo show exactly what you took'? Well, the way I see it, is that its art, and if I personally feel that the sky needed to be a bit blue'r then I make it more blue. I know that there is nothing wrong with doing that, yet, I can't seem to find a better response than 'its art'. Yet the same person will say to me that its ok to edit out blemishes...I need a better response. Any ideas?

Well to me that stems from a complete misunderstanding about how cameras work. Your friend assumes that the picture the camera captured is an accurate reproduction of what you were seeing at the time. However we know here that it may not be and may need editing to get a bit closer to what you actually percieved. Consider, for example, underexposure. Lest say that you took a shot and it was so underexposed you got a black image, does that mean that it was pitch black and you couldn't see anything? Or lets consider a different example of overexposure, possibly not so extreme. I quite often "shoot to the right", that is to say I'll deliberately overexpose my shot as much as I can without blowing the highlights in order to squeeze as much detail into a shot as I can. In this cases colour is washed out and greys can be hazy, darks too light and it in no way is an accurate colour to the scene in front of me, but the data is there so when brought back down in post. Or is the photographer who uses fill flash to expose for a subject against a bright sky very different to the photographer who shoots multiple exposures to even out the lighting conditions in a landscape shot? Or what about bracketing, lets say you shot 3 shots 1/3rd of a stop apart, the colours of the sky in the least exposed one will be darker but which one is right? What if you shot at a tungsten white balance on a sunny day, would adjusting the white balance in post also be cheating? What about in camera.....?

Add to that your camera contains software that processes and makes adjustments for you, pre-set by the friendly people who made your camera. So aren't you the best person to judge how it actually looked at the time to you?

Most photographs sit somewhere in between a faithful reproduction of reality and what the photographer saw in there minds eye. So it's not only about how it looked, but how it looked and felt to you.

 

[Tim Tucker]

Hi, so I'm proudly saying to a friend that I've made the background blue'r and instantly get criticism that 'should't the photo show exactly what you took'? Well, the way I see it, is that its art, and if I personally feel that the sky needed to be a bit blue'r then I make it more blue. I know that there is nothing wrong with doing that, yet, I can't seem to find a better response than 'its art'. Yet the same person will say to me that its ok to edit out blemishes...I need a better response. Any ideas?

No image is an accurate rendition of the subject, they are all altered. There is no way that your computer screen, (or printed image), can display your blue sky with anything like the brightness of the original, but you can easily interpret a 'bright blue sky' when looking at a photo. You can also easily see when it's "photoshopped". (You would also expect a blue that reflects less light to be a darker blue in your print hanging in your hall, but it isn't. This is because we only see in relative values and not absolute ones).

It is also generally accepted that we do all see the same thing, in colours and brightness, unless you have a defect in your eye. However our memories of what we've seen will all differ the moment we look away from the subject.

So we have a photo that cannot possibly be an accurate representation, and and a memory of how the original scene looked that's not accurate either. Now if even your memory's "photoshopped" is there any real meaning in accurate, or differentiation between reality and perception?

Yes. You can compare the image directly against the original scene, then you will easily see the differences because we see the difference (relative values).

But a landscape is a set of conditions that will never be exactly repeated. Well that's not really a problem because your memory of the scene is a little off as well. Also your audience has never seen the original subject so they can only compare to (slightly off) memories of similar landscapes that they've seen.

Our question has changed. We can no longer ask if the photo is accurate because there is no way we can determine if it's accurate or not. So we ask instead, does it look real? Does it compare to our memories of landscapes we've seen or does it look obviously wrong?

Here's some blue sky. Well it's not actually blue. We call it blue because we are naming the dominant hue in the light, which is blue. But the atmosphere scatters more than just "blue", it scatters a range of wavelengths including cyan and some green, (sunsets are the light that travels through the atmosphere without being scattered, orange/yellow), so sky is more cyan than pure blue. When you make your sky bluer is really abstracting it slightly from your audience's memory of what actual sky looks like. It begins to look fake, "photoshopped".

Here's a real scene. Only it's not real, it is altered from 'what the camera saw'. But it is an accurate rendition of my memory and is presented to look real and convincing:

Now I can make the sky blue and immediately the image looks photoshopped because it no longer matches our memories of what we consider to be real or natural:

But I can also alter it slightly and as long as it looks close enough to your memory of what's real you will not be able to tell the difference. Unless you compare the two side by side. Pictures can never be accurate, they only need to look accurate.

Making something look obviously photoshopped is not art, it's just mis-understanding how people see and perceive images. Making your sky blue and convincing your audience it's correct is probably art.

 

[KmH]

As mentioned, a digital camera can only record a close approximation of the scene that is photographed. Quite a bit of editing has to be done to an image file before a photograph approximating what we saw can result.

The discrete analog light recording electronic cell that we call a pixel cannot 'see' color.
In other words the image sensor in a digital camera can only record a grayscale image.
A Raw image file, before the file is processed in a Raw file converter, is a grayscale image

To make a color photograph, a color filter array has to be placed in front of the image sensor.
The pattern of red, green, and blue filters in the color array is used to interpolate the colors in a scene well downstream from the image sensor.
The process of color interpolation is called demosaicing.
Some Raw image file conversion applications let the user choose from a variety of color interpolation algorithms.

All digital photographs start as a Raw image file.
In the case of a JPEG made in the camera the interpolation of color of a Raw file is done by a computer program in the camera before the JPEG file is written on the memory card.
A Raw file is written on the memory card and latter the demosaicing is done on a computer outside the camera.

There is even more than just demosaicing that has to be done to the Raw file, in or out of the camera, before we have a color photograph.
Because our eyes are non-linear and don't see the light in a scene in the linear manner the analog image sensor in a digital camera records light in the same scene we see in the camera viewfinder, even before demosaicing is done a luminosity curve has to be applied to the Raw image file.
In addition, some amount of anti-aliasing, sharpening and tone-mapping is done during Raw image file conversion, depending on which Raw conversion application is used to convert the Raw file.

In other words, if you process the same Raw file in different Raw converter applications you will see differences in the final photograph each application produces, because each application uses somewhat different luminosity curve, demosaicing, anti-aliasing, sharpening, and tone-mapping algorithms.
Shoot the same scene with a Canon DSLR, and then shoot the identical scene with a Nikon DSLR. Process both Raw image files in the same Raw conversion application and you will be able to see differences between the 2 photos because Canon and Nikon don't use the same image sensor or software between the image sensor and the file recorded on the memory cards.

Here is an example of a linear Raw file that has not yet had a non-linear luminosity curve applied:
Matthew Edel Blacksmith Shop

The same Raw image file after a non-linear luminosity curve has been applied to make the photo look like what our eyes see, but not yet demosaiced:

And the final, demosaiced, or color interpolated image;

 

[table1349]

'should't the photo show exactly what you took'?

This is only true when that's the product the photographer wanted. With that type of thinking almost every great painter in history sucks.

2 contrarian things:

1. you say he'll tell you its ok to edit out blemishes et al ok. I'm a bit of an sooc snob not because I have great technical skill or care about the purity of it all I just can't be bothered to edit things, thats not why i got in the game.

2. Mostly want to challenge the assertion that the great painters didn't suck. I will suggest they did and those daily artists painting realistic portraits had more talent and technical skill. Take van gogh, impressionism, picaso and abstract art and jackson pollack the guy who we forgot and whatever they did was called.

Van Gogh's stary night, very classic takes some skill to make but we generally teach 3rd graders to make a passable version in that style. Like the rest their mark came from dont let me say good pr but for being the first or successfully claiming to be the first in some style or pushing the boundaries of what was considered art and good art. However it takes more technical skill to paint exactly as it looks.

Picaso, not that I stared at many but looking quickly they're easily childish. Finally Jackson pollock and the other guy. Splattered paint on canvas, I could explain why and why people thought it had meaning. I'm not a total ludite but hardly takes skill or technique. Maybe he knew something or tried to prove a point... not to say he sucks but he doesn't have or at least his art doesn't demonstrate great skill. The other guy with him went the opposite direction... just as clever and both went to school together and were reacting to the same teacher and debate but the 'other guy' didn't get famous. Admittedly line design is less exciting and less unusual that formless color. The other guy probably had to try a lot harder and think more.

Not to mention early 20th century New York movement that was talentless. I see a drawer or painter make a caricature of a bob marley head and i'm like that takes skill, I can;'t do that. By the same token as an sooc snob I can say it takes skill and talent to get your color, wb and exposure right the first time. We would also mostly agree that editing too much and making things look unnatural is rarely preferred.

Oh thank goodness! For about 5 nanoseconds there I was terrified that this wasn't going to degenerate into yet another 30 page argument about what is and isn't art, because wow.. it's been just way too long since that particular dead horse got drug out and properly flogged... again.

Lol

Tolstoy's What Is Art?


I just wanted to see the big ape go crazy and start flinging feces all around his cage.

 

[robbins.photo]

Tolstoy's What Is Art?


I just wanted to see the big ape go crazy and start flinging feces all around his cage.

Ok, so according to Tolstoy: "we cannot fail to observe that art is one of the means of intercourse between man and man."

Wow.. really? I mean does that sound to you like a road anyone wants to go down? Ya.. pass.

Lol

 

[table1349]

Tolstoy's What Is Art?


I just wanted to see the big ape go crazy and start flinging feces all around his cage.

Ok, so according to Tolstoy: "we cannot fail to observe that art is one of the means of intercourse between man and man."

Wow.. really? I mean does that sound to you like a road anyone wants to go down? Ya.. pass.

Lol

UV filter for protection.................yes or no???

 

[Rye]

2. Mostly want to challenge the assertion that the great painters didn't suck. I will suggest they did and those daily artists painting realistic portraits had more talent and technical skill. Take van gogh, impressionism, picaso and abstract art and jackson pollack the guy who we forgot and whatever they did was called.

Are you really saying Van Gogh, Picasso, and Pollack "sucked"? Ouch. That's a pretty bold statement.

Edit: OK Pollock is arguable

 

[KmH]

Had it not been for Peggy Guggenheim's support and influence, no one would know who Jackson Pollack was.

Without Peggy, I bet Jackson would have been just one more drunk to die in obscurity

 

[sashbar]

Cameras still struggle to deal properly with the whole dynamic range when you shoot something that includes shadows and the sky on a bright sunny day.

Even when the sky is not clipped it is often washed out and robbed of details. So it is always worth correcting the highlights in post processing. Which is very easy to do and inevitably makes the sky "blue'r".

Main thing is not to overdo it and oversaturate the image. And it has nothing to do with art. This is the typical example (1st is sooc jpeg, 2nd is the edited raw file):

But if you are guilty of doing something like this (below) then I am wholeheartedly with your friend.

Disclaimer: on your screen it may look differently due to different calibration and saturation levels, but I hope you catch my drift.

 

[sashbar]

Picaso, not that I stared at many but looking quickly they're easily childish.

This is Picasso, portrait of a fisherman:

Once upon a time a friend of Picasso's came to him and said:
-"Picasso, why do you paint the way you do? Why don't you paint more real?"
Picasso replied:
-"What do you mean 'real'"?
-"You know, real. For example, take this picture of my wife", - the friend said, reaching into his wallet: "A picture like this".
Picasso looked at the photo: "She is a bit small and flat wouldn't you say?"

That was when post processing was very limited.

A true story, btw. One of the main reasons why Picasso stopped painting "properly" was the emergence of photography.

 

[pixmedic]

Picaso, not that I stared at many but looking quickly they're easily childish.

This is Picasso:

View attachment 126830

 

[zombiesniper]

The other not real portion of the equation is the lens you are using.
Don't know about you but me eye can't adjust focal length so by the definition of what is real.
Not one single photo I've ever taken has been real. They're all blown way the hell up from what I can see with the naked eye.

 

[petrochemist]

Anyway, we are taking 3d scenes and making them 2d so not sure how the OP's friend is going to make the image just like what he was looking at. <snip>

While Dave's points are valid he's under stating things here
Actually we are usually taking 4D scenes. Time being an important part of the equation, both in the time we start the exposure (for landscapes etc) & how long we expose for (for scenes with movement).

 

[Vtec44]

How about ,"It's my photo. I wasn't asking for your opinion. I can do whatever I like to my photos. "

 

[PersistentNomad]

I had almost this exact same discussion with my friend Gina, who is a professional photog. I'm a trained artist. We were talking about an image she took of a couple kissing underneath a fall tree that was so beautifully fall it was unbelievable. It was- she admitted to me that the tree was actually still really green when they took the image, but when they were there it felt like the tree was ablaze with color. So, in post process she manipulated it so that the tree had little to no green left on it. It wasn't about trying to pull the wool over the viewers eye, it was about making the image more reflective of the way they all felt in the scene. As an artist, I totally get that (and your blue situation) because art is all about expressing how the scene felt. I take a lot of sky photos, and they are never captured true to life by the camera, so there is always doing post-process to make them more like how it felt to see them.