Do the majority of today's Digital Photographers use Photoshop?

[Tailgunner]

Is this a hot button topic for photographers?
In a word, yes.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind for future reference.

digital directly manipulates the image after the photo has been taken
Film was also manipulated : 18 Old-Timey Photos You Won't Believe Aren't Photoshopped | Cracked.com <-- extreme examples, but "Photoshopping" was around loooong before Adobe introduced us to Photoshop.

Film can be manipulated but doesn't seem to be a rule.

 

[jowensphoto]

Is this a hot button topic for photographers?
In a word, yes.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind for future reference.

digital directly manipulates the image after the photo has been taken
Film was also manipulated : 18 Old-Timey Photos You Won't Believe Aren't Photoshopped | Cracked.com <-- extreme examples, but "Photoshopping" was around loooong before Adobe introduced us to Photoshop.

Film can be manipulated but doesn't seem to be a rule.

Think of PS as a digital dark room. The RAWs are negatives. Negatives HAVE to be processed ("manipulated") in a dark room the same way RAWs have to be processed in some sort of RAW-processing software.

 

[ronlane]

Even shooting jpegs in camera they are processed to a degree. (it's just that you don't see it as it's done in camera.)

 

[amolitor]

Film can be manipulated but doesn't seem to be a rule.

Actually it's impossible to perform the simplest film photography job WITHOUT manipulation. You MUST choose a contrast grade to print a b&w negative. There's no such thing as "straight out of the camera" since that's a negative image.

Slide film might be the only medium where there were (often) literally no post processing choices made between >click< and final medium, and then only if you counted the slide itself as the final medium (which often it was not).

 

[Tailgunner]

Is this a hot button topic for photographers?


Anyhow, Film and Digital seem to differ greatly when it comes to Post Processing, digital directly manipulates the image after the photo has been taken...the term photoshopped comes to mind. It just seems that one is capturing a moment in time and directly manipulating the image after the fact is diluting the moment? Is it real or is it Memorex? I don't deny the images turn out great and are in them selves works of art, I'm just tryin to decide whether or not I consider them photography or Photoshopped. I have much to learn about the subject.

You have never worked in a dark room have you? The big difference between digital and film post processing is that with digital anyone with a computer and the right software can post process. With film you had to have a darkroom. Digital is quicker and in some respects easier, but the same thing can be done to film.

No, I haven't but I can't imagine one achieving the same effects with developing film in a dark room as they can with digital and photoshop.


Anyhow, have to run, the FedEx man just dropped off my new D3100...who knows, maybe I'll play around win photoshop one of these days.

 

[table1349]

Film can be manipulated but doesn't seem to be a rule.

Where did you get that idea?

An Abbreviated History of Photo-Manipulation | Evan Baines Photography

Truth, Beauty and Fine Art Photography

Digital Photography Articles

I've never driven a race car, but there are automotive races every weekend. I can drive in a race on my computer however.


I've never flown a 737, but there are airlines that transport people all over the world. I can fly a 737 or virtally any other plane on my computer.


The Metropolitan Museum of Art had a while back an entire exibit dedicated to famous film minuplations. 40% of Ansel Adams work was done in the darkroom, not in camera.


Photo manipulation stated in the darkroom right after photograhy was invented. It is neither new, nor rare, just more time consuming to learn and develop the techniques.

 

[jowensphoto]

Gear: Gripped Sinar F1,

Has this always been in your signature? lol

 

[samm]

I like to let the camera do the work.If it don't; then its on me to correct the settings.I shoot what i see most times.Thats the beauty of digital,it can all be erased .

 

[480sparky]

I, for one, would really like to know how anything done after the shutter closed became known as 'bad', 'improper', 'evil' or 'cheating'. PP is a tool. Just like any other tool I can bring to bear on a subject. I can choose to manipulate a bright sky by using a GND. I can also choose to manipulate a bright sky with HDR. As long as I get the result I want, what difference to the rest of world does it make? Why should the rest of the world even care?

And more importantly, why should the rest of the world be empowered to change my method?

 

[amolitor]

And more importantly, why should the rest of the world be empowered to change my method?

Well, that's just because you are a bad, bad person.

 

[Patrice]

+1 on shooting jpeg with X100. That's how I use mine. I really like the OVF with the instant EVF option.

 

[480sparky]

Well, that's just because you are a bad, bad person.

Send Mishele my way then.

 

[gregtallica]

Here's an analogy. You, and a lot of people kind of are comparing classic, minimally developed B/W film images and newly processed work using digital post processing is a lot like comparing classic rock albums on vinyl to new artists on a CD. The warmth and awesomeness of analog reel to reel tape recording, vinyl, and rock amps cranked to 10 is your film. Effects, digital recording, the advancements in mixing/mastering, hell... auto-tune (yuck) is the photoshop. You have the purists here and there, those who think they can tell the difference, those who can tell the difference, those who prefer old vs new or new vs old, and then those who don't care becuase the music is the music.

The art is still there at the click of the shutter. It's still there when you play the notes. How you add effects to it is all how you - the artist - needs to manipulate that initial click to allow his onlookers to see his vision.



that was a lot of rambling that didn't really go anywhere.

 

[hirejn]

"Photography" means the taking and processing of photographic images. If you don't process, you don't have a photograph. Yes I know the root meaning as well but this is the dictionary definition. If you're worried about manipulation, don't take a photograph. Putting light through a lens and recording it on a sensor is manipulation. Use a polarizer? That's manipulation. Technically the act of perceiving light is manipulation. There's a sense that certain amounts of processing go too far. Today professionals understand that what's acceptable depends on the purpose. If your goal is to show nature in a truthful way, you don't process images. In fine art, anything is fair game.

Most amateurs look at the work of masters like Ansel Adams and then try to reproduce it in camera, only to get disappointed. They assume these masters did everything in camera and just knocked out great prints left and right. Adams was a master of darkroom technique. He worked extensively in the darkroom to produce the images you see. His images stand the test of time not because they documented the flat reality of negatives but reflected his vision of the best version of the scene possible.

Technically it's not possible to capture a scene 100% accurately. What 100% accurately means is somewhat subjective, but even if you shoot a calibration card with various levels of color and gray tones, the camera won't record it properly and processing is often necessary just to get the calibration target to register exactly how your eye saw it. For example, if you were to take a shot of a calibration card and print it, chances are it would not look exactly like the actual calibration card. To get a print that almost exactly matches the card in reality would require processing. Moreover different cameras will record the same scene differently. Also, few photographers are concerned with reproducing reality. We're more concerned with reproducing a vision we had in our heads. Reality is for scientists.

Yes, we can make great images and do all the time. If you were to look at a pro's negatives for his best images, they'd be not much different than what you see in print. Usually the prints are just enhanced versions of the negative. But as Ansel Adams knew, the capture is only the second step in photography. Working that negative into a print is the third. Nobody wants to look at a negative. They want to look at prints. To get a negative into print requires processing. Same with RAW files. The nature of a RAW file is to be processed because it's unprocessed in the camera, like a negative. JPEGs are processed in camera, and so they're also manipulated before they even get to your computer.

We can get most of the way there in camera, but some processing is almost always required to make a final image. The times when it isn't are when someone lies about not processing or the purpose of the image requires you to leave it untouched.

 

[480sparky]

Back in the days of film, if you really wanted to 'take control' of your images, you got your own darkroom. You walled off a part of the basement, bought an enlarger, got some trays and a film reel & canister, loaded up with chemicals and you would absolutely revelin the total command of the process you had. No more relying on some far-off lab to interpret your written instructions and hope the final image was what you intended. You suddenly found yourself adrift in an ocean of choices and possibilities. Dodging and burning. Paper choices. Cross-developing. Pushing film. Vignetting. Sepia. Solarization. Reticulation.

Someone with a darkroom was considered a dedicated pupil of the craft, not just 'someone with a camera'.











Then along came digital, and suddenly the modern equivalents became 'dirty'.