How much Photoshop is to much Photoshop?

[Blitz55]

Well let me give you a small bit of background on me. I am just starting photography, but I have been using photoshop since about 1997, mostly for painting drawings and such. So not as much photo manipulation or post production on photos.

So, how much Photoshop is to much Photoshop?

First off, I am not looking to take just MEH photos and try and use my photoshop skills to enhance them, that is not my aim. My aim is to be able to take great photos using my knowledge of the camera and my imagination of what to shoot.

But I had this image, it was a real quick hand held shot I took and I just wanted to see what I could do with it in PS. I am not sure how normal it is to edit your photos and how much is considered over the top. Or is it all about the final product and how you got their not as big a deal.

Anyway, enough of me blabbing.
Tell me any thoughts you want on this. I can take crits no problem. Just wasn't sure what to think of this image after I was done and thought id share for what its worth.

FINAL

Steps from original photo.

 

[lyonsroar]

It's personal. It all depends on the person.

If I can use Photoshop, LR, DynamicPhotoHDR, etc to make a bleh photo pop, I'm going to do it. That's just me.

Some are purists and won't touch Photoshop.
Some will do anything to make it a better photo.

It's just important to remember that Photoshop cannot help poor composition (except by cropping if you want to call that "photoshopping...") and can only help lighting to an extent. It can't fix everything

 

[Blitz55]

Yeah,
See I just don't know enough about the photography scene so I wasn't sure if it was taboo to just PS the hell out of a photo to make it look good or not. Or if, like you said it is just personal preference and depends on your own line of thinking.

I wanted to try and make clear that I did understand that there is more to taking photos than what Photoshop can do for you. It's the same way in painting. You can do some really cool things in photoshop, but if you don't have your basic illustration concepts down and things such as composition and such, then its just not going to work out as well as it could.

 

[Novux]

Too much Photoshop is when the photo stops being art and starts being tasteless.

IMO.

Your image looks great, FYI.

 

[Blitz55]

Thanks Novux.
I guess the other part of this thread is any thoughts on the photo.
Is this something I could post in the Landscape gallery? I feel like I should wait to be a bit better haha but maybe I am just being to critical of myself.

 

[SlickSalmon]

I don't want to sat much about the photo, because I've gotten chopped up in the past for saying too much about photos. But, I would like to say something about Photoshop. The camera doesn't see what the eye sees. You see a scene and it makes you feel a certain way. You look at the unedited photo, and that feeling isn't there. So you use Photoshop to bring out the elements in the scene that evoke that feeling. In the scene you've presented, you obviously felt the power of the clouds over the mountain, and you've brought out that aspect of the photo. If you're happy, that's enough.

 

[Blitz55]

I don't want to sat much about the photo, because I've gotten chopped up in the past for saying too much about photos. But, I would like to say something about Photoshop. The camera doesn't see what the eye sees. You see a scene and it makes you feel a certain way. You look at the unedited photo, and that feeling isn't there. So you use Photoshop to bring out the elements in the scene that evoke that feeling. In the scene you've presented, you obviously felt the power of the clouds over the mountain, and you've brought out that aspect of the photo. If you're happy, that's enough.

I think that is well said SlickSalmon. I had not thought of it like that, and perhaps with more time, a tripod and a filter I might have got the image closer to what I saw. But you are right, the clouds were really awesome that day (All week really) and the original photo they just seemed to get washed out.

 

[KmH]

Too much Photoshop is when the photo stops being art and starts being tasteless.

How can it stop being art? Who decides what is tasteless?

 

[Trever1t]

IMO it's too much when it's obviously "Shopped", it's just right when it's so good that people wonder.

 

[mortovismo]

I don't want to sat much about the photo, because I've gotten chopped up in the past for saying too much about photos. But, I would like to say something about Photoshop. The camera doesn't see what the eye sees. You see a scene and it makes you feel a certain way. You look at the unedited photo, and that feeling isn't there. So you use Photoshop to bring out the elements in the scene that evoke that feeling. In the scene you've presented, you obviously felt the power of the clouds over the mountain, and you've brought out that aspect of the photo. If you're happy, that's enough.

That right there is the nail on the head.

 

[mortovismo]

IMO it's too much when it's obviously "Shopped", it's just right when it's so good that people wonder.

I have seen work that is blatantly and obviously photoshopped but still loved the image.

 

[Trever1t]

IMO it's too much when it's obviously "Shopped", it's just right when it's so good that people wonder.

I have seen work that is blatantly and obviously photoshopped but still loved the image.

as have I and there's no denying that mastering PS is as much an art as anything else but my comment was directed with the implication dividing photograph from image....does that make sense?

 

[clanthar]

Too much Photoshop is when the photo stops being art and starts being tasteless.

How can it stop being art? Who decides what is tasteless?

It can't stop being art. It can however be bad art; bad art is still art. Who decides if it's good/bad art?

It can be technically bad which is easier to nail down than good art versus bad art.

Taste? Taste is another word for fashion. Sir Walter Besant: A man of great common sense and good taste, meaning thereby a man without originality or moral courage.

Rudyard Kipling: And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his (Adam) mighty heart. Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves, "It's pretty, but is it art?"

Joe

 

[Marj]

This has been discussed by many in the past on this list and others and it seems that we have many different opinions on how much is too much in Photoshop or other photo software. The truth is that before digital people working in the dark room with chemicals did much to change an original image on film. Now in the digital era we have the opportunity to change an image from the camera into anything we like. Artists have done this since we developed the apposing thumb - what the eye sees or imagines can speak like a fiction or nonfiction book.
Personally I think the time has come when we can no longer worry about being purists although there is room for that too. If you look at the many settings on a digital camera you have already gone beyond the film camera. Sometime you can get much agreement on your choices in the digital dark room, sometimes it is only you that really likes what you have done or not. Artist have the same dilemma. Look at Banksy's work, he tells a story on a wall and people either want to spray paint it over of cut it out of the wall and sell it.