Straight from the camera

[vStiles]

Photography is a personal talent, like playing an instrument. Many genres, many ways you can articulate your art.

You certainly don't have to do anything they way anyone else does it. With photography, it's fully encouraged to find your own path, and that means you can edit, or not edit your images all you like.

There's nothing wrong with not wanting to edit your photos. You WILL find, however, the more you learn, the more you grow, the more you WILL want to edit your photos some. Even just some simple things like colour balance adjust / a little dodge and burn here and there / some exposure tweaks.

No great photo is unedited. Even top pros like Lee Frost / Helen Dixon / Ross Hoddinott edit their photos - even just a little.

Your analogy causes me to think it is just as there are many different ways to explain a point via verbal illustration, also, and I thank you for it.
I have read many comments over the past many months which point out the same emphasis you have. However, for some reason, your little description hit the mark in my understanding in a clear way that other well-stated comments have not:
- "personal talent" -- Not everyone has talent to play an instrument. There are widely varying degrees of talent (and experience) among those who are talented instumentalists.
- "many genres" -- Not all genres appeal to all people.
- "many ways you can articulate your art" -- The absence or lack of sufficient talent to enable someone to fulfill a desire to suitably accomplish expression of an art, may determine that person's role is to be only an appreciater of the art of others, not an artist.
I may forever be only a wannabe, if I lack the basic essentials in the realm of talent.

You are most welcome. I've always equated the camera to the guitar. Everyone learns different, and everyone likes different genres. Once you get an understanding of the basics ; you're on your own for discovering your way, and it's all your vision after that. I'm glad my point helped you. Always more than willing to extend a hand / advice / experience.

 

[Original katomi]

I find that I am plagued with rubbish or someone in bright colours when I do panoramas,
I can almost be certain that if I do a beach pano that there will be a can, bottle, chip wrapper or a baby nappy
In the shot, all of which have to be taken out in PSE

 

[petrochemist]

I like to do as much as possible in camera, but will usually have to clone out dust spots, tweak contrast saturation etc and perhaps crop.
There are times I'll combine multiple shots to achieve an effect my hardware wouldn't permit (increasing field of view, depth of field, signal to noise or dynamic range). I very rarely selectively adjust parts of the shot (other than dust removal) but don't have any issues with this being done & wish my processing skills allowed me to do it more.

When shooting infra red there's no such thing as the right colours so I have no objection to playing with the sliders to get something that looks good.

I've seen a few of my Grandfathers glass plate images from around 100 years ago which were double exposures, (I think done in camera but possibly via an enlarger) I'd class those as photography too.

Cut & paste operations like dropping in a different sky, adding pictorial elements etc I don't consider to be photography - It's graphical art.
Collages can be very good but whether done digitally or with film, glue or ink it's a different field IMO. For the record my Mum's first job was photo-retouching for a magazine probably about 70 years ago now so I have nothing against graphic art.

 

[wannabe photog]

Photography is a personal talent, like playing an instrument. Many genres, many ways you can articulate your art.

You certainly don't have to do anything they way anyone else does it. With photography, it's fully encouraged to find your own path, and that means you can edit, or not edit your images all you like.

There's nothing wrong with not wanting to edit your photos. You WILL find, however, the more you learn, the more you grow, the more you WILL want to edit your photos some. Even just some simple things like colour balance adjust / a little dodge and burn here and there / some exposure tweaks.

No great photo is unedited. Even top pros like Lee Frost / Helen Dixon / Ross Hoddinott edit their photos - even just a little.

Your analogy causes me to think it is just as there are many different ways to explain a point via verbal illustration, also, and I thank you for it.
I have read many comments over the past many months which point out the same emphasis you have. However, for some reason, your little description hit the mark in my understanding in a clear way that other well-stated comments have not:
- "personal talent" -- Not everyone has talent to play an instrument. There are widely varying degrees of talent (and experience) among those who are talented instumentalists.
- "many genres" -- Not all genres appeal to all people.
- "many ways you can articulate your art" -- The absence or lack of sufficient talent to enable someone to fulfill a desire to suitably accomplish expression of an art, may determine that person's role is to be only an appreciater of the art of others, not an artist.
I may forever be only a wannabe, if I lack the basic essentials in the realm of talent.

You are most welcome. I've always equated the camera to the guitar. Everyone learns different, and everyone likes different genres. Once you get an understanding of the basics ; you're on your own for discovering your way, and it's all your vision after that. I'm glad my point helped you. Always more than willing to extend a hand / advice / experience.

Thank you for your kind encouragement!
It may come in handy at times when frustration threatens to develop into discouragement.

 

[vStiles]

I find that I am plagued with rubbish or someone in bright colours when I do panoramas,
I can almost be certain that if I do a beach pano that there will be a can, bottle, chip wrapper or a baby nappy
In the shot, all of which have to be taken out in PSE

Yes, the garbage everywhere is a bummer. I see a LOT when I'm out in the wooden areas scoping for streams / brooks. In those instances, I'll actually 'garden' the area instead of using software. I do the same for errant branches / twigs and stuff in the water as well. I would assume on a beach, that might be harder to do without leaving foot prints ; wrecking your shot.

We're lucky here in the Maritimes ( Canada ) Provinces where the people really care for the beaches and they are always clean and free from litter. Again.. the woods are a different story. We have huge ATV / Offroad communities here and they, unfortunately because they are on the move constantly, are far less likely to clean up their garbage. See a lot of FB posts from other ATV people complaining about those that don't clean up.

 

[smoke665]

I find that I am plagued with rubbish or someone in bright colours when I do panoramas,
I can almost be certain that if I do a beach pano that there will be a can, bottle, chip wrapper or a baby nappy
In the shot, all of which have to be taken out in PSE

Here along the Gulf Coast many of the municipalities/counties have fleets of tractors and machinery that rake the sand, and pick up trash at the same time. A half dozen or so of these rigs stretched out side by side can cover a lot of miles in a hurry. So if you go early in the morning, you'll find squeaky clean sand....later in the day, not so much

 

[Original katomi]

I have seen that beach clean here in uk on the bigger beaches
I will sometimes pick up rubbish, but draw the line at picking up dirty nappies

 

[Mike Drone]

What do you mean this is not an editing site? It says it is OK or not to edit photos in your avatar/name. Photography is beautiful from the eye of the beholder. Do what you like. Always keep an open mind and learn from others but keep doing you. =]

 

[Original katomi]

I see where the idea that this was a no editing site came from
As said above this is a setting we the members can set for OUR photos
Sometimes members will allow others to edit. This could be to help improve an image or to show how an idea would work you will see members ask for CC on their work or will post an image and ask others how it could be improved
At that stage they may opt to allow others to edit
Hope this explains

 

[Geenphoto]

My understanding of the original post is whether one should or should not edit their photos. My response is that is entirely up to the photographer. I used to be one of those straight out of the camera (SOOC) guys long ago before I started developing my own film. That is when I learned that I could improve upon my images by making them darker, or lighter, or dodge and burn. I could make the image better during the development phase, which I see as a continuation of the photography.

When I went digital back in 2006, I did not do much editing of images. Again, I had to learn the tools. Once I learned the new set of tools, I began those improvements once again. Recently I went back through some of my old NEF files and re-edited them as my skill improved since then. I was able to make some pretty mondain images pop in the editing flow.