Photoshop and expectations.....:)

Surfsquish

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i'm still new to photography and just basically shoot photos for work since my client always want me to preview houses and send them pictures.

I upgraded the camera and I enjoy taking pictures now...:)

Anyway, I was hanging out at winter park art festival and I met this photographer who was super inspiring. He used film and his images were stunning. Anyway, he told me " What I saw with my eyes is what you are seeing now" It was beautiful work and no technology involved as far photoshop etc

Are photographers setting the wrong expectations when using too much photoshop and technology.

It kinda reminds of this house I had for sale. I hired a professional photographer and he made the house look super stunning. However, when the Buyers came to see the house, they were very disappointed.....
 
There is editing and then there is editing.

Photography is always a 2 part process - be it digital or film

Part 1 is taking the shot
Part 2 is processing/editing the shot

You cannot do one without the other - film has to be processed to produce a negative that you can then work with to produce a print - a digital shot has to be processed to produce an image file that can printed.
Now how far you go with these edits and who does the editing is up for debate. Remember most black and white film can be processed at home, whilst most colour is far to complex and expensive to process at home - so many film colour photographers don't process their own photos. They send them off to a lab who do the processing stage for them. This is somewhat similar to letting your camera shoot in JPEG mode - someone else makes a technical choice on the processing that the photo is to have before it becomes a usable image/negative.

Now however with digital everyone has the option to do the processing themselves from a RAW file from the camera - and when one takes control and learns/applies an understanding of editing they can get far more quality out of their negative than simply letting the automatic codes run themselves.

Of course there is over editing and there is also horrible cheesy childish editing - and then there is editing that allows the photographer to produce the final quality print that they were hoping for when they pressed the shutter. Any photographer who takes their work seriously learns and knows that if they want the final quality result they have to get it right in camera - no amount of photoshop will change that (and I would say if you do take things that far you'd be far better suited to calling yourself a digital artist than a photographer -and be prepared to spend many hours getting there too)



Many people who I meet who say "photoshop is cheating" are really saying that they don't know what/how to use photoshop. Essentially its an unknown to them and something so different from the darkroom that is scares/intimidates them. Mix that with a lot of "oh everythings photoshopped" media chat and they quickly build up a defence against learning about digital editing - when infact most of the processes are direct ports of chemical processes done to negatives (eg dodging and burning).
 
Anyway, I was hanging out at winter park art festival and I met this photographer who was super inspiring. He used film and his images were stunning. Anyway, he told me " What I saw with my eyes is what you are seeing now" It was beautiful work and no technology involved as far photoshop etc
Cough - BS - Cough. It might have been beautiful work...but he lied to you, perhaps unintentionally, none-the-less.

There was all kinds of technology involved, a lot of it being chemistry.

With digital photograph most of the technical work is done post process - after the image is recorded.

With film a lot of the technical work was done preprocess - before the image was recorded, and post process before it became a print.

My Kodak Professional Photoguide (5th Edition), lists 18 different color print films, 21 color slide & transparencies film, 18 continuous-tone, high-contrast, and special purpose films 8 laboratory films, and 12 B&W films. (That doesn't count other film brands like Agfa, Fuji, Ilford, and others. Choosing a film is preprocessing. Using filters on the lens is preprocessing. Pushing or pulling the film ASA rating by using the ASA setting on the camera is preprocessing.

Then there were all the film developing tricks, various developing chemicals, film developing canister agitation techniques, filters that could be used in the enlarger, umpteen different types of paper and even more print developing chemicals and tricky techniques.

Photoshop is just a digital version of a wet darkroom. Un-Sharp Mask, was a darkroom technique long before it showed up in Photoshop, as was dodging and burning, and many other image editing basics.
 

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