editing or not

[flyingPhoto]

The instagram and reddit and twitter have really screwed up photograpy n a large way. No one seems willing to show an image directly from the camera as it was taken. Not even film shooters seem willing to show an image that wasnt scanned and then put through photo shop.


Problem is, I find it funny reading old threads in various forums, about the "pretentious" need for digital shooters to have to put every image into photoshop to make it "worth viewing". Film users general thought was "pretentious to use a pc program to make a photo worth viewing. Why even take the photo in the first place?"

Now on forums and "educator websites" Photography is incapable of being worth seeing UNLESS it has been put through an editing program. And the current fad is to call anyone who admits they post photos without editing them, or admit they DONT edit photos is called "pretentious eletists" and get accused of various evil crimes against photography for not editing anything.

Editing CAN be fun if its your thing, but how much editing do you really need to make a photo a photo of the same thing?

I was viewing a site about hoaxes and it showed one of the earliest publicized black and white photos of the loch ness monster. As it was a scan of a film photo, enlarged on my 32" hd screen, i could easily tell in the image taken on what looked like trix 400 pushed to 1600 was a photo of a person SWIMMING, the BREAST stroke method. Easily solved.

 

[Space Face]

First World problems.

 

[snowbear]

Meh. All digital photos are edited (or manipulated).

 

[smoke665]

I'm always amused by the purist indignation on editing, as if dodging and burning a print, pushing/pulling film, adding filters to the enlarged, etc is not editing. Or how about the colorized portraits from studios of the past? Yeah those skin tones were really realistic.

Editing in photography has always been a part of the process, digital just makes it easier. As to if you need to edit, that depends on what level you want to work. Is the subject of your portrait going to be happy with a zit on their chin? Will viewers find your stunning sunset with obnoxious power lines running through it interesting? Or what about boring flat forest shot? We live in a three dimensional world, but a camera only captures one dimension. Editing allows the photographer to produce an image closer to the original vision.

 

[limr]

I am personally tired of the false dichotomy that editing is either all or nothing, which artificially places people into separate groups that are then pitted against each other. It's a tired, old, made-up "debate."

 

[Ysarex]

The instagram and reddit and twitter have really screwed up photograpy n a large way. No one seems willing to show an image directly from the camera as it was taken. Not even film shooters seem willing to show an image that wasnt scanned and then put through photo shop.


Problem is, I find it funny reading old threads in various forums, about the "pretentious" need for digital shooters to have to put every image into photoshop to make it "worth viewing". Film users general thought was "pretentious to use a pc program to make a photo worth viewing. Why even take the photo in the first place?"

Now on forums and "educator websites" Photography is incapable of being worth seeing UNLESS it has been put through an editing program. And the current fad is to call anyone who admits they post photos without editing them, or admit they DONT edit photos is called "pretentious eletists" and get accused of various evil crimes against photography for not editing anything.

Editing CAN be fun if its your thing, but how much editing do you really need to make a photo a photo of the same thing?

As Snowbear noted all digital photos are edited. You can't take a digital photo that isn't post processed. They are either post processed by the camera software or by the photographer or both.

Historically photos (other than family snapshots) have been post processed. In fact heavily manipulated has been the rule for the most part. Google search "ansel adams monolith" and look at the photo. It was taken during the day. The sky does not record as black with B&W film during the day.

With your title suggestion editing not you're telling me I can only rely on the crude software in my cameras. Why shouldn't I instead be allowed to photograph things as they actually appeared?

I was walking in the park two days ago and my attention was caught by the sunlight on the tree leaves. I was looking into the light and so the scene was backlit. It's not a great photo but I enjoyed taking it and it works for me. I'm partial to that section of the park.

Here's the truly unedited photo. (So you don't see simply a black rectangle I made one concession and set a white point). This is what the raw data looks like unprocessed:

It's dark, flat, and green. It's green not only because of the trees and grass but because the camera sensor has twice as many green pixels as it does red or blue ones. Clearly folks wouldn't be happy with unedited photos from their cameras.

The words edit and process: Edit suggests deliberate changes after the photo is taken and process seems to suggest more automated standard operations. There's some truth to that but only some. All the processing that occurs to take that raw data and make it into the camera's SOOC JPEG is backed by choices that the software engineers made concerning the appearance of the photo.

So here's the SOOC JPEG from my camera. The camera software has processed/edited the raw data.

And photo sucks. It's not what I saw and it's not the photo I wanted to take (dear lord AWB is such an abomination). For one the sky was a clear deep blue and even though I'm looking into the light I saw blue sky. But there's no blue sky in that photo. Why accept the camera software's processing distortion of the scene that I was viewing? Can the camera software be adjusted to capture the blue sky. No -- not in a single photo without giving up the rest of the scene.

The only way to get the camera to record and process blue in the sky would be to reduce the exposure. Trees look pretty dark already and darker than I experienced them. Well, like most modern cameras my camera will re-process the raw file so I put the raw file back on the SD card and had the camera re-do the JPEG with the exposure pulled -1. Here's that photo.

That is certainly not how I saw the trees in the park when I took that photo. AND LOOK -- still no blue sky. But the blue sky is actually recorded in the raw data. I made sure of that when I tripped the shutter.

I'm not getting the photo I took and the photo I wanted to take because the editing of the raw data being done by the camera software is simply not capable of dealing with the dynamic range of the scene. The camera software is not up to the task. If I had to rely on the software in my cameras I'd have to stop photographing half or more of what I photograph or accept distorted versions of reality that are not what I saw. That sucks!

So two days ago in the park I took a photo because I enjoyed the scene and this is what I saw -- the sky was blue. Yes, I opened the shadows and reduced the high dynamic range contrast of the scene. I did that because not only was the sky blue but I could see into the shadows and I saw that tree trunk like it shows in this photo.

I'm not going to restrict myself to the crude editing that the camera software is capable of. I prefer to photograph what I see.

P.S. Just in case someone wants to consider that the camera software has options to help deal with this kind of lighting. That's correct. There are numerous functions more successful or not in different cameras to try and handle different lighting conditions. The camera I used here is a Canon camera and it has a function Canon calls Auto Light Optimizer. So just to be thorough I re-processed the raw file in the camera and turned up ALO as high as it would go -- still sucks and still no blue sky. It did open the shadows some. Here it is:

I was viewing a site about hoaxes and it showed one of the earliest publicized black and white photos of the loch ness monster. As it was a scan of a film photo, enlarged on my 32" hd screen, i could easily tell in the image taken on what looked like trix 400 pushed to 1600 was a photo of a person SWIMMING, the BREAST stroke method. Easily solved.

 

[Photo Lady]

i am kind of going through the same thing.. through the view finder they look great.. when i download somewhat dark.. always have to lighten... but i thought it was just me..

 

[flyingPhoto]

wow guess camera companies wasted their time by putting video screens on cameras and giving something called live view to us all..

 

[Ysarex]

wow guess camera companies wasted their time by putting video screens on cameras and giving something called live view to us all..

Not at all. It's a nice feature to be able to get an advanced view of how badly the camera is about to screw up your photo. Live view or a what you see is what you get EVF doesn't make the camera software work any better. What do you suggest? Only take photos that the camera software can handle? Live with crappy photos?

Seriously, sticking with a theme I was walking home from the park about three weeks ago and I grabbed a snapshot on the way out facing the ball field. Again it's nothing special, it's just my neighborhood seen from the park -- meaningful to people who live there. Here's the SOOC JPEG:

And my Fuji mirrorless camera has a WYSIWYG EVF. The image looked just as bad in the EVF as it does here. The sky is too light and the foreground is too blue and the whole image is too flat. What can I adjust in the camera to solve those problems? Seriously? Should I not try to take the photo because the camera software can't handle it?

 

[flyingPhoto]

ever try using a CPL?

 

[Ysarex]

ever try using a CPL?

Yes, and useless for the above photo in the park. Got any other ideas?

 

[Ysarex]

ever try using a CPL?

What the photo needs the software in the camera can't provide; nor can a filter. So very often the solution is, as it has always been, to address the image locally as opposed to globally. Photographers figured this out immediately upon the invention of photography. Earlier in the thread smoke665 mentioned dodging and burning a print. Ask any good darkroom technician from 50 or 100 or 150 years ago, when was the last time they made a print that didn't benefit from some dodging and burning. They'd likely tell you never or can't remember.

Every so often the lighting condition and subject characteristics come together such that the image can be processed with only global adjustments and no local adjustments can improve it. Every so often isn't good enough. The camera software is not capable of any local adjustments -- bupkiss none.

In that photo of the park: editing or not three local adjustments make the difference. A filter on the lens won't do it. The sky has to be burned in. That's not a function available in the camera. Attempting a global adjustment to reduce exposure and then alter the tone curve will fail because the tone curve alteration required will be opposite another needed local adjustment which is to raise midtone contrast. Not a function in any camera processing software.

The third local adjustment that image requires is to set two different white balances. There's blue visible in the sky. That's sunlit sky and that's daylight white balance. And once the sky is burned in there's more visible blue. But the foreground of the image is entirely lit by overcast light which is blue. The AWB value used by the camera is closer to daylight and the foreground is blue in the SOOC JPEG. Setting and overcast white balance which the foreground requires will make the sky too yellow. The camera software can't set two different white balances for different local sections of the photo -- but trivial in post process.

The photo below can not be produced from any camera processing software because it required local adjustments. The sky is burned down, two different white balances have been applied and midtone contrast has been increased. No digital camera available today can perform any one of those functions. Processing the raw file to the result below however is trivially easy.

And this point is pertinent to the original post: The edited photo below is what the scene looked like to anyone standing there. That's the version true to reality. No SOOC JPEG can capture the scene faithfully.

 

[smoke665]

What the photo needs the software in the camera can't provide; nor can a filter.

A CPL provides a specific function and is as you say global in its effect as does a ND. In your photo above using stacking square gradiants in a filter holder would provide a more localized effect. In B&W film days you generally carried some basic color filters in your bag to increase contrast when needed, and I routinely use a CTO or CTB gell on a flash outside to balance ambient color temperture. If you want to get technical these are still editing choices. The difference with digital is I can apply them post.

 

[AlanKlein]

If you like to do straight out of the camera SOOC pictures, just shoot slide film and project the slides.

 

[Ysarex]

A CPL provides a specific function and is as you say global in its effect as does a ND. In your photo above using stacking square gradiants in a filter holder would provide a more localized effect. In B&W film days you generally carried some basic color filters in your bag to increase contrast when needed, and I routinely use a CTO or CTB gell on a flash outside to balance ambient color temperture. If you want to get technical these are still editing choices. The difference with digital is I can apply them post.

Camera filters have their place and can be useful. I'm just referring to that photo of the park where there's no filter solution. No camera filter can discriminate that tree from the sky. In post process I could.