Depth of Field Question

[Derrel]

FotoForensics - Analysis

 

[timor]

Well I stand corrected.

Almost. It starts to be tiring. No one, absolutely no one makes an effort to read about the optics. we called ourselves advanced amateurs, that should be understood better. Not some video spreading fallacies. The first one and the one most damaging is calling "apparent sharpness" a "focus". Incredible, that still this is going on with us. Explanation of DoF in cameras without a movements is very simple and the secret is in understanding the behavior of circles of confusion and human eye perception.
Here is much better explanation of DoF:
Depth of Field
still, it doesn't explain, why stopping down the aperture is making CoC smaller.
This article also explains how to calculate the hyperfocal distance and what is a diffraction and how this influences DoF - apparent sharpness of the photograph.

 

[timor]

FotoForensics - Analysis

Derrel, that's fantastic. What are you making out of it ? Boy and dog were cloned into the landscape image ?

 

[SoulfulRecover]

Thanks everyone for the great information!

 

[weepete]

Yep, boy and dog were shot on a different background, the uneaven dof in the foreground gives it away. That is some custom PS work. Looking at her images she knows how to hide the blend well between to different images.

There's a few shots like the little kid on the pier that are cute but no way that shot is real. Not whey shot in her portfolio is PSed though, I think there are a few with clever use of delibetatley angled DOF.

Question is does that make these imagesit's a bit seem like its a bit of a cheat?

 

[SoulfulRecover]

At what point does the work transition from photography to photo manipulation?

 

[robbins.photo]

At what point does the work transition from photography to photo manipulation?

Well that is probably going to be wildly a matter of opinion of course - for me I like stuff that is close to straight of the camera as possible. I don't mind some sharpening or maybe some small amount of cloning to remove small distractions, etc. Some folks of course prefer more post processing - for me there is a line where I consider it no longer a photograph. Some folks flirt with that line, or put a toe across it now and again, this lady pole vaulted over it.. rotfl.

 

[Robin Usagani]

At what point does the work transition from photography to photo manipulation?

Until people question it.

 

[timor]

There's a few shots like the little kid on the pier that are cute but no way that shot is real.

Question is does that make these imagesit's a bit seem like its a bit of a cheat?

And I was thinking it was a perfect use of fill in light.

It is hard to say, if it is a cheat, after all it is a digital age of digital art, sky is the limit. What feels like a cheat is her innocent story. Now is clear, why the boy do not smile, he was following the orders, he didn't feel like doing. It feels like a cheat to present something other people will think: "i can do it to with my camera, this is just a loving mother with a year of photographic experience, there must be a way for me to." Her images are still nice to look at, just now they feel like work of Norman Rockwell.

 

[Derrel]

At what point does the work transition from photography to photo manipulation?

The 23 Worst Photoshop Fails Of 2013

Seems like some people really are unsure of when enough is enough...

 

[apaflo]

At what point does the work transition from photography to photo manipulation?

The more experience and the more talent you have the sooner, the later, and the greater you manipulate. Even the average beginner usually realizes they need to manipulate quite a bit long before they press the shutter button. Oddly it seems they don't notice that for what it is. And many never realize, even after decades, that the manipulation is best continued right up to the point where a viewer's eyes land on the image.

That is to say, it's manipulation when you frame the image for exposure, and continues to be even as you frame the print for viewing. Being aware of each and every step will produce better photography.

 

[timor]

We may have new saying for over manipulated images: "Gone Russian Mother". :mrgreen:

 

[Derrel]

At what point does the work transition from photography to photo manipulation?

The more experience and the more talent you have the sooner, the later, and the greater you manipulate. Even the average beginner usually realizes they need to manipulate quite a bit long before they press the shutter button. Oddly it seems they don't notice that for what it is. And many never realize, even after decades, that the manipulation is best continued right up to the point where a viewer's eyes land on the image.

That is to say, it's manipulation when you frame the image for exposure, and continues to be even as you frame the print for viewing. Being aware of each and every step will produce better photography.

Agreed. Manipulate,manipulate,manipulate, and just look what can be accomplished.

 

[Braineack]

I could be wrong, but IMHO it looks like the ground at the bottom of the frame was blurred artificially. It just has that tilt-shifty look to it.

While she's a great photographer, she's also a great digital artist and knows how to maniuplate those pixels well. It's compeltely obvious to me just be glancing at it.

 

[TCampbell]

Yep, boy and dog were shot on a different background, the uneaven dof in the foreground gives it away. That is some custom PS work. Looking at her images she knows how to hide the blend well between to different images.

There's a few shots like the little kid on the pier that are cute but no way that shot is real. Not whey shot in her portfolio is PSed though, I think there are a few with clever use of delibetatley angled DOF.

Question is does that make these imagesit's a bit seem like its a bit of a cheat?

Not necessarily... you'd have to go read their tutorials on how to interpret analysis. I ran my own image (the candle on the rug -- which I deliberately didn't touch with anything just to see what would happen.)

It turns out the different brightnesses of the pixels simply mean the JPEG compression has changed. This will NORMALLY happen on areas with sharper edges. When I run the candle through the analysis (it's a pain to do it with an image posted to this site... I did it yesterday by uploading to Flickr, running the analysis against that site, then deleting it (it's not like I want this test-shot in my stream). If someone wants to run it through, have at it (it's just a test shot).

What I saw was that each of the "holes" in the candle had a bit of a highlight around each edge. The potpourri around the base of the candle also shoed up brightly (lots of sharp edges down there). Also... a line extended all the way across the scene in the area where the rug comes into sharp focus.

I suspect the dog and boy probably had sharpening applied. You could always test this with any of your images... just upload an untouched image, upload it and do an analysis, then apply sharpening to an area and repeat. I suspect you'll see the sharpened area shows up brightly.