Did you edit?!

[pixmedic]

Everybody lies...er, I mean, edits.

 

[limr]

I didn't make an execrable hash out of the photo, Lew. The picture isn't mine. That was the photo that the tutorial used as an example. It is the picture that I should supposedly emulating. So no, you didn't actually prove that point.

Don't give me the "unskilled and unaware" speech. But assuming for a moment that this is what's going on, if I don't know what I don't know, how am I supposed to look at my own photo, know what tool I'm supposed to use, then go search for videos about how to use that tool? This is what you said is the "best" way to learn.

How about looking at a few photos here, like Joe's example, and *gasp* LEARNING that oh, that was done with a mask. Now let me go find out about masks. That way, when I get to one of my own photos, I might understand what tool I might want to practice rather than wasting my time with trial and error.

Perhaps one day the idea that there is more than one way to learn something will get through your head. Until then, I'm done.

 

[limr]

Here's another "tutorial"

This one told me that I could create fantastic pictures like THIS ONE! Tone mapped to 11 and selective coloring.

Perhaps I just might learn more here.

 

[bribrius]

These threads are amusing, but beyond that really good. As they give further insight to individuals thought process in itself and somewhere between the extremes a middle ground can be reached with everyone possibly learning something.

 

[Designer]

The "middle ground" represents compromise, which means that someone has compromised his own standards.

Compromise is not my idea of success.

 

[The_Traveler]

I didn't make an execrable hash out of the photo, Lew. The picture isn't mine. That was the photo that the tutorial used as an example. It is the picture that I should supposedly emulating. So no, you didn't actually prove that point.

Don't give me the "unskilled and unaware" speech. But assuming for a moment that this is what's going on, if I don't know what I don't know, how am I supposed to look at my own photo, know what tool I'm supposed to use, then go search for videos about how to use that tool? This is what you said is the "best" way to learn.

How about looking at a few photos here, like Joe's example, and *gasp* LEARNING that oh, that was done with a mask. Now let me go find out about masks. That way, when I get to one of my own photos, I might understand what tool I might want to practice rather than wasting my time with trial and error.

Perhaps one day the idea that there is more than one way to learn something will get through your head. Until then, I'm done.

What Joe did was not nearly as important as why he did it.
That was a very simple example and the path from why to how is obvious.
My point was that on complex images, where the what-to-do and the timing aren't as clear or obvious, that is where the knowledge of why one does something is important.
That understanding comes from lots of work and the technical issues are comparatively clear cut compared to the artistic insight one must develop.

The hierarchy of decisions in editing is:

1. How should this image be edited to maximize whatever the image might become - and why?
2. What should the workflow, the timing of different techniques, be so that one can get to the final result and still leave an escape route?
3. What techniques should one use in this case?

You are looking at an Joe's example where Step 1 is obvious and simple, Step 2 isn't needed because of the simplicity, Step is only one way of doing it of three or four that might work as well..
I'm saying that learning about Step 1 is the most important so that you know how and when to use different Step 3s.
The way you learn about Step #1, the diagnosis, is to read lots of c/c, ask questions, try to intuit what makes pictures work for you and what doesn't and make those lessons into a generalized thought process.

And the last thing I will say in this conversation is that it is not good practice to be rude and sarcastic to people who might help you.

 

[bribrius]

You seem not to be able to see that your opinions come from a deep well of lack of knowledge and understanding.

No one can produce a picture without processing.
Every picture gets processed or you couldn't see it.
In light of that fact, picking out an arbitrary point and saying that any processing up to that is fine and any processing more than that is wrong is ridiculous and stupid.

Why do people edit?
For the same reason that people paint or draw or sculpt, they want to take essentially raw materials and make them into their vision of grace or beauty or interest.
For the same reason that, when adding a porch, people cut wood to fit and then paint it so that it matches the house - because there is some beauty and satisfaction in making something that meets one's own esthetic criteria.

Maybe you don't understand that urge, but unless you are completely solipsistic, from the amount of push back you have gotten, you should be able to realize that your opinion, even if it is held by the majority of people who have cameras, is not the opinion of those who are serious about their work.
And, it is insulting, even pathological, that you should continue to see people who do things differently than you as wrong or evil or liars or cheaters.

i was actually contemplating this. And believe it is the reverse. I am VERY serious. The photos i frig with the most processing are the ones i care the least about. Abstracts, pretty flowers, "artsy ones" whatever. All mostly entertainment.
Now if you noticed the coffee thread or what i have posted on here before about old photos. i am really into old bw images, have some old maps dating well back. so really i am probably about the most grounded (like a hundred or two hundred years back grounded) serious as you can get. And i have recognized the difference between a image that is good for a fleeting second and one that holds its value over extended periods of time. i don't know what the future holds, but i think i have a better chance of one of my images being in the historical society in a hundred years than any of yours being anywhere. so who is the serious one?

 

[The_Traveler]

i don't know what the future holds, but i think i have a better chance of one of my images being in the historical society in a hundred years than any of yours being anywhere. so who is the serious one?

You can think whatever you want; the point I was making, that seems to have passed you by completely, is that your opinion about post-processing is based on little experience or knowledge and the accusations you make about people's skill or lying are offensive and ignorant.

 

[pixmedic]

You seem not to be able to see that your opinions come from a deep well of lack of knowledge and understanding.

No one can produce a picture without processing.
Every picture gets processed or you couldn't see it.
In light of that fact, picking out an arbitrary point and saying that any processing up to that is fine and any processing more than that is wrong is ridiculous and stupid.

Why do people edit?
For the same reason that people paint or draw or sculpt, they want to take essentially raw materials and make them into their vision of grace or beauty or interest.
For the same reason that, when adding a porch, people cut wood to fit and then paint it so that it matches the house - because there is some beauty and satisfaction in making something that meets one's own esthetic criteria.

Maybe you don't understand that urge, but unless you are completely solipsistic, from the amount of push back you have gotten, you should be able to realize that your opinion, even if it is held by the majority of people who have cameras, is not the opinion of those who are serious about their work.
And, it is insulting, even pathological, that you should continue to see people who do things differently than you as wrong or evil or liars or cheaters.

i was actually contemplating this. And believe it is the reverse. I am VERY serious. The photos i frig with the most processing are the ones i care the least about. Abstracts, pretty flowers, "artsy ones" whatever. All mostly entertainment.
Now if you noticed the coffee thread or what i have posted on here before about old photos. i am really into old bw images, have some old maps dating well back. so really i am probably about the most grounded (like a hundred or two hundred years back grounded) serious as you can get. And i have recognized the difference between a image that is good for a fleeting second and one that holds its value over extended periods of time. i don't know what the future holds, but i think i have a better chance of one of my images being in the historical society in a hundred years than any of yours being anywhere. so who is the serious one?

well, obviously i am even MORE serious than you, because i think any photography at all is cheating and the only REAL talent that will stand the test of time are sculptures and paintings.
forget going back a hundred years or so...im going back THOUSANDS of years.
totally more serious than you.

 

[bribrius]

You seem not to be able to see that your opinions come from a deep well of lack of knowledge and understanding.

No one can produce a picture without processing.
Every picture gets processed or you couldn't see it.
In light of that fact, picking out an arbitrary point and saying that any processing up to that is fine and any processing more than that is wrong is ridiculous and stupid.

Why do people edit?
For the same reason that people paint or draw or sculpt, they want to take essentially raw materials and make them into their vision of grace or beauty or interest.
For the same reason that, when adding a porch, people cut wood to fit and then paint it so that it matches the house - because there is some beauty and satisfaction in making something that meets one's own esthetic criteria.

Maybe you don't understand that urge, but unless you are completely solipsistic, from the amount of push back you have gotten, you should be able to realize that your opinion, even if it is held by the majority of people who have cameras, is not the opinion of those who are serious about their work.
And, it is insulting, even pathological, that you should continue to see people who do things differently than you as wrong or evil or liars or cheaters.

i was actually contemplating this. And believe it is the reverse. I am VERY serious. The photos i frig with the most processing are the ones i care the least about. Abstracts, pretty flowers, "artsy ones" whatever. All mostly entertainment.
Now if you noticed the coffee thread or what i have posted on here before about old photos. i am really into old bw images, have some old maps dating well back. so really i am probably about the most grounded (like a hundred or two hundred years back grounded) serious as you can get. And i have recognized the difference between a image that is good for a fleeting second and one that holds its value over extended periods of time. i don't know what the future holds, but i think i have a better chance of one of my images being in the historical society in a hundred years than any of yours being anywhere. so who is the serious one?

well, obviously i am even MORE serious than you, because i think any photography at all is cheating and the only REAL talent that will stand the test of time are sculptures and paintings.
forget going back a hundred years or so...im going back THOUSANDS of years.
totally more serious than you.

lol. love it!

 

[Buckster]

For me personally, photography has always been nothing more than a means to an end, the end being the image I envisioned and aspired to create. How I get there is not at all the point to me, and never was.

I like cameras. I even collect them for what I perceive as their beauty and nostalgic reasons. But beyond that, they're just a tool to help me get to the final image, like a brush or a spatula or a knife or the paint is to a painter; Like the hammer or chisel or mold or pottery wheel is to the sculptor. Operating them is not at all the point, nor is operating them the end of the process. It's just one step in the process, and it's neither the first nor the last step in that process.

I was first motivated in 1969 to learn photography because I wanted to make images, not because I wanted to operate a camera or "capture reality" or "be" a photographer. I learned about light and shadow and composition and color, lenses, filters, masks, modifiers and assorted other techniques only so that I could use and manipulate them to create specific images of my own vision, and for no other reason. I learned how to do as much of that "in camera" as I could because for the first 30 years of my time behind a camera, that was pretty much the only way I could get the images I wanted to make, not because that's the way I necessarily wanted to make them.

I never aspired to be a "camera operator" as an end goal, the way some seem to embrace that as the point of their photography. On the contrary, I'm a creative, and a camera is just one of the tools I use in pursuit of my creations.

That said, all of my images, aside from the occasional handfuls of quick and dirty snapshots of a grand kid's birthday or something like that, are purposefully edited by me to fulfill my goal of creating images that fulfill my creative vision.

But that's just me. YMMV.

 

[bribrius]

nice post, probably the best one yet.. And look, this just hit 1400 views people love melo-drama. Like jerry...

 

[Ysarex]

For me personally, photography has always been nothing more than a means to an end, the end being the image I envisioned and aspired to create. How I get there is not at all the point to me, and never was.

I like cameras. I even collect them for what I perceive as their beauty and nostalgic reasons. But beyond that, they're just a tool to help me get to the final image, like a brush or a spatula or a knife or the paint is to a painter; Like the hammer or chisel or mold or pottery wheel is to the sculptor. Operating them is not at all the point, nor is operating them the end of the process. It's just one step in the process, and it's neither the first nor the last step in that process.

I was first motivated in 1969 to learn photography because I wanted to make images, not because I wanted to operate a camera or "capture reality" or "be" a photographer. I learned about light and shadow and composition and color, lenses, filters, masks, modifiers and assorted other techniques only so that I could use and manipulate them to create specific images of my own vision, and for no other reason. I learned how to do as much of that "in camera" as I could because for the first 30 years of my time behind a camera, that was pretty much the only way I could get the images I wanted to make, not because that's the way I necessarily wanted to make them.

I never aspired to be a "camera operator" as an end goal, the way some seem to embrace that as the point of their photography. On the contrary, I'm a creative, and a camera is just one of the tools I use in pursuit of my creations.

That said, all of my images, aside from the occasional handfuls of quick and dirty snapshots of a grand kid's birthday or something like that, are purposefully edited by me to fulfill my goal of creating images that fulfill my creative vision.

But that's just me. YMMV.

Buckster!!! I've missed you. Glad to see you!

Joe

 

[_t_is_me_]

I didn't get really excited about my return to photography until I began to learn more about post processing. It's still a learning process, but I am seeing progress. I've picked up some techniques from watching You Tube videos and I like to experiment some. There have been many pictures I finished, only later to realize I either wasn't actually finished, or I finished too much. The best thing about RAW and Lightroom though, is it's non-destructive and I can fix my mistakes at any time (or just learn from them and move on to the next session).

Jim

I have only just begun to edit my photos a SMIDGE, using some very generic software that came on my computer. Just your basic saturation, contrast, etc. I believe I have gotten some great photos from some okay photos by doing just this small step. So I definitely know what you mean. I'm excited to get better software and really learn how to edit.

 

[_t_is_me_]

Do yourself a favor and do two things:

- Assume all images are edited. Even Ansel Adams edited his photos.
- Don't worry about it.

Oh, I definitely assume all images are edited, but I want to know what KIND of edits are being done. Not the specifics, necessarily, but general stuff. I'm just nosy. And I feel like the way to learn is to emulate and then create your own style once you learn from other people.