Anyone else not so crazy about photoshop?

[Gaerek]

Maybe it's because I prefer being out actually taking pictures than sitting on my ass in front of a screen. Maybe my youthful energy compels me to do so.

I don't know about the OP, but for me photoshop and image manipulation are completely separate things from photography. I'm not against it, I just don't like to do it. If I'm going to pursue photography as a career, I KNOW I'm gonna have to start using it, but at this point, while I'm still learning, I want to get my images as good as they can possibly be right out of the camera. That's my goal.

No, instead sitting on a your ass in front of a screen, arguing on a photography forum with complete strangers trumps both editing photos and taking photos.

Photoshop and image manipulation are the same thing. The only thing Photoshop (or any other photo editing program for that matter) let's you do is adjust pixels. Whether you're changing the WB, contrast, sharpness, or cloning, adding/removing elements, all you're doing is adjusting pixels.

Editing/manipulation goes hand in hand with taking photographs. The sooner you learn that, the quicker you'll start to see an improvement in your work. I look at Photoshop as any other tool I might use in the field. It allows me to get the shot I want, just like flashes, filters, reflectors, etc do.

 

[GooniesNeverSayDie11]

Perhaps Clemaire or Tkot can explain why their common characteristic is young age and lack of experience?
Perhaps that affects their opinion?

photoshop and image manipulation are completely separate things from photography.

While I commend you for wanting to get your images the best they can be in camera, I think this sentence is completely wrong. As I stated in my previous post, using photoshop techniques in the basic sense is no different than darkroom techniques, film choice, or using many filters. They DO go hand in hand. Processing or developing images, as well as characteristics of different media ( your cameras own built in processing algorithms are a good example ) have been a part of photography since the very first camera. Do you HAVE to process pictures? No. It is, however, a waste not to though. As you clearly are aware based on your post, if you want to get anywhere in photography you will have to learn. So I guess in a sense that in and of itself makes the two go hand in hand.

 

[shortpants]

OP go make yourself a camera obscura and call it a day. Modern technology sucks!

 

[Edsport]

A painter has tools like an easel, brushes, canvas, paint etc. and he'll paint a scene. He used tools to do a painting. Did he cheat because he used tools? Photographers use tools to do a photo, camera, photoshop, flashes, reflectors etc. Using a reflector to change the scene cheating? Photoshop to change the contrast cheating?

 

[jaomul]

Free will, PP, don't PP. Opinions are like....... And no one is necessarily right or wrong

 

[Tkot]

An admirable goal and probably the right direction. The unfortunate part, is until you learn to process your photos, you won't know which ones are really good and what settings you used to achieve that.

It is pretty often that we see threads on here about a photographer that has hit a wall...just can't seem to get better and doesn't understand why. Their images recieve praise and they are in focus and they show the subject, but they just don't have that 'wow' factor that they see in the magazines. They become discouraged and think that it must be some 'magical' gift that they just don't have. Occasionally, when they have 'editing ok', as you do(ironically, enough), I will process one of their photos how I would process it just to show them a comparison. Often, it takes about a minute in photoshop to take that same image to the next level...WB corrections, curves, a few targeted adjustments and suddenly they see what they had been looking for but couldn't figure out how to achieve.

There is no such thing as making it perfect SOOC...never has been. Even in the film days. Part of the reason some people hated the transition from film to digital is that they no longer had a crew of lab techs to fix their mistakes. They had just assumed that their pics were the cat's meow straight out of the camera and digital was screwing it up. It wasn't true then, and it isn't true now.

Good points. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm taking it one step at a time. Once I feel like I've figured out how to do things well on the camera and I feel like I'm doing the best I can do with that, I'll move on to image manipulation and work on getting that down. I've accepted that I'm gonna have to do it at some point, but I don't have the time to learn that as well as get out and actually take pictures, which is why I got into photography in the first place.

No, instead sitting on a your ass in front of a screen, arguing on a photography forum with complete strangers trumps both editing photos and taking photos.

Photoshop and image manipulation are the same thing. The only thing Photoshop (or any other photo editing program for that matter) let's you do is adjust pixels. Whether you're changing the WB, contrast, sharpness, or cloning, adding/removing elements, all you're doing is adjusting pixels.

Editing/manipulation goes hand in hand with taking photographs. The sooner you learn that, the quicker you'll start to see an improvement in your work. I look at Photoshop as any other tool I might use in the field. It allows me to get the shot I want, just like flashes, filters, reflectors, etc do.

Touche.

 

[Kerbouchard]

An admirable goal and probably the right direction. The unfortunate part, is until you learn to process your photos, you won't know which ones are really good and what settings you used to achieve that.

It is pretty often that we see threads on here about a photographer that has hit a wall...just can't seem to get better and doesn't understand why. Their images recieve praise and they are in focus and they show the subject, but they just don't have that 'wow' factor that they see in the magazines. They become discouraged and think that it must be some 'magical' gift that they just don't have. Occasionally, when they have 'editing ok', as you do(ironically, enough), I will process one of their photos how I would process it just to show them a comparison. Often, it takes about a minute in photoshop to take that same image to the next level...WB corrections, curves, a few targeted adjustments and suddenly they see what they had been looking for but couldn't figure out how to achieve.

There is no such thing as making it perfect SOOC...never has been. Even in the film days. Part of the reason some people hated the transition from film to digital is that they no longer had a crew of lab techs to fix their mistakes. They had just assumed that their pics were the cat's meow straight out of the camera and digital was screwing it up. It wasn't true then, and it isn't true now.

Good points. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm taking it one step at a time. Once I feel like I've figured out how to do things well on the camera and I feel like I'm doing the best I can do with that, I'll move on to image manipulation and work on getting that down. I've accepted that I'm gonna have to do it at some point, but I don't have the time to learn that as well as get out and actually take pictures, which is why I got into photography in the first place.

I can understand where you are coming from. We have all felt overwhelmed at one point in time. There is so much to learn and it is wise to concentrate your efforts if you don't feel like you can learn it all at once. Heck, no worries. Pick a picture style you like, shoot in JPEG, and learn all about the photography, but tone down the rhetoric a bit. You came off as somebody who thought they were too good for post processing their photos, as somebody who would 'just get it right in the camera'. I think you have found that you are talking to people who have already been where you are at and have moved on and I commend you for that. The important thing is that you are progressing. There really isn't much to photography at the point of caputre...heck, all you have is a few options....shutter speed, aperture, focal length, composition, ISO, and lighting. Sure, it's a bunch, but once the photo is captured, you have a ton more options, and some of them are necessary.

You'll get there, I have no doubt about it. Just try not to be so argumentitive in the process. Most of us have been where you are. We all adhered to the same mantra of get it right in camera and you shouldn't have to post process. It was a lie. Honestly, it was a lie portrayed upon us by people who wanted us to think they were better than us. They wanted us to think that since we had to 'manipulate' our images we weren't as good and it just kept getting passed down to new photographers. Those people were insecure and they were misleading. There have always been corrections made to photos, and there always will be. By ignoring that, you may be deleting images that could actually be great with just a few simple adjustments.

Here is an example from today... http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...hoto-gallery/249853-new-shot-c-c-welcome.html There are three different images posted...one from the OP. One edited from another member. One edited by me. I'd like to know your thoughts on the thread and the images and if you felt what I did was cheating.

 

[Tkot]

I can understand where you are coming from. We have all felt overwhelmed at one point in time. There is so much to learn and it is wise to concentrate your efforts if you don't feel like you can learn it all at once. Heck, no worries. Pick a picture style you like, shoot in JPEG, and learn all about the photography, but tone down the rhetoric a bit. You came off as somebody who thought they were too good for post processing their photos, as somebody who would 'just get it right in the camera'. I think you have found that you are talking to people who have already been where you are at and have moved on and I commend you for that. The important thing is that you are progressing. There really isn't much to photography at the point of caputre...heck, all you have is a few options....shutter speed, aperture, focal length, composition, ISO, and lighting. Sure, it's a bunch, but once the photo is captured, you have a ton more options, and some of them are necessary.

You'll get there, I have no doubt about it. Just try not to be so argumentitive in the process. Most of us have been where you are. We all adhered to the same mantra of get it right in camera and you shouldn't have to post process. It was a lie. Honestly, it was a lie portrayed upon us by people who wanted us to think they were better than us. They wanted us to think that since we had to 'manipulate' our images we weren't as good and it just kept getting passed down to new photographers. Those people were insecure and they were misleading. There have always been corrections made to photos, and there always will be. By ignoring that, you may be deleting images that could actually be great with just a few simple adjustments.

Here is an example from today... http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...hoto-gallery/249853-new-shot-c-c-welcome.html There are three different images posted...one from the OP. One edited from another member. One edited by me. I'd like to know your thoughts on the thread and the images and if you felt what I did was cheating.

You hit the nail on the head! And your right, my first post was a little bit hoity-toity wasn't it? Haha. But this is good, a short discussion later and my point of view has already changed, like you said!

And that's a good point, there aren't all that many features in the camera to master, just shutter speed, aperture, and the rest... I guess part of it is that I just can't afford photoshop right now, I have to save up for my textbooks for college :/. Right now I have GIMP, just cause it was free. But since I don't understand how any of it works, I don't use it that much, haha. That explains it!

As for those three images, WOW, the difference is really noticeable! You may make a believer out of me yet! I like your edit the best, that's some nice work there!

I really appreciate your patience and willingness to make your point in a polite way Kerbouchard. This has been the best feedback I've received on this forum yet, so thank you! By the way, I just read your signature and that is a great quote!

 

[Kerbouchard]

FWIW, as a student, you get about 80% off the retail price of Photoshop...That puts the complete Photoshop CS5 Extended Suite at around $200 bucks...not exactly cheap, but a steal for a student. Might be worth looking into when you have some extra money.

No reason to hate on something just because it's expensive. Adobe has actually done a really good job with trying to make their software affordable to people who can't afford to pay full price.

And, also, FWIW, Photoshop Elements is a lot cheaper and was designed for people who don't want or have the need to do a lot of post processing. It's also offered at a student discount.

 

[Tkot]

True, true. I'll look into it! Thanks!

 

[Proteus617]

FWIW, as a student, you get about 80% off the retail price of Photoshop...That puts the complete Photoshop CS5 Extended Suite at around $200 bucks...not exactly cheap, but a steal for a student. Might be worth looking into when you have some extra money.

Last winter a friend and I spent some time in his darkroom. We printed 6 photos each for an exhibition at a local bar. Chemicals, film and 3 boxes of 11x14 paper ran us about $200. That was before the hike in precious metal prices drove up the cost of emulsions.

 

[Sw1tchFX]

FWIW, as a student, you get about 80% off the retail price of Photoshop...That puts the complete Photoshop CS5 Extended Suite at around $200 bucks...not exactly cheap, but a steal for a student. Might be worth looking into when you have some extra money.

Last winter a friend and I spent some time in his darkroom. We printed 6 photos each for an exhibition at a local bar. Chemicals, film and 3 boxes of 11x14 paper ran us about $200. That was before the hike in precious metal prices drove up the cost of emulsions.

Printing digitally isn't really even cheaper either. Lets say if you're doing 6 11x14's on fine art paper similar in weight and feel to good RC or god forbid fiber paper, that can get expensive quick, and it STILL wouldn't have the tonal range that a solid silver print will have.




You know, for the last 2 months or so, i've barely shot my DSLR (D700). I've been burning through rolls in my F100's like it was the 90's and having them scanned so I can put them online. Photoshop is a key tool for the hybrid workflow. If I need to make slight curves adjustments or selective dodging/burning, I need PS or LR. I'll get my film soup'd-n-scan'd, than bring it into LR to sort through and export. Honestly that's about all I usually need, which is the nice thing about film, it's a great time saver

 

[Kerbouchard]

Honestly that's about all I usually need, which is the nice thing about film, it's a great time saver

Yep, it is...and that is because a group of lab techs have already fixed everything that would have been up to you to fix if you were shooting digital. If you aren't using that D700, I'll be glad to take it off your hands for a decent price.

 

[Kerbouchard]

As for those three images, WOW, the difference is really noticeable! You may make a believer out of me yet! I like your edit the best, that's some nice work there!

I'm not trying to make a believer out of you. I just wanted you to see some of the options in front of you. As far as the edit, it took less than a minute, but I appreciate the kind words.

 

[matt hkd]

my opinion is that if you use photoshop to better represent what was there in real life, then that's okay and the better software you have to do that, the better off we are. cameras apply sharpening, contrast, saturation, etc by itself, and you can't expect it to get it right every time, so as long as you're going for what was actually there, then you're okay. Also I think that when people use it as a creative tool to make whatever images they want as art, that's okay too. I draw the line at using photoshop to manipulate an image that you say is supposed to be real but actually is not.