I知 I wrong or do I just not understand??

[308ME]

I took up photography to take pictures of the world as I see it through the lenses of a camera. I have not posted many things here and mostly have just been asking questions of those with much greater knowledge than myself in the ways of photography with wonderful feedback from all and THANK YOU for your help. With that said I cannot help but wonder what the fascination is with the different types of photo enhancing soft ware is. I do not understand why a person would take a photo then go and manipulate it into something that was not what they really took in the first place then be proud of their great photo skills when it seems to me the skill is in how to use a computer and the above mentioned soft ware. Should not the skills we try to improve be the ability to take the photo in the first place that look like it has been photo shopped?? Without having to manipulate it into what we believe others will approve of. I realize that nearly all photos anymore are retouched or photo shopped in some way but is that what we should be trying to accomplish or should not we be trying to improve true photography skills and not computer skills.     

[JackOfAllTrades]

Here here..   To a point.
 
I was a high school newspaper and sports photographer in the late 70's. I even freelanced for the Tacoma News Tribune for a bit. Black and white 35mm. Everyone had one. But, just as digital photography is manipulated now, we did much of the same on a smaller scale in the dark room by changing the exposure from the negative or fast fixing. Different chemicals could also make or break a photo.
 
I've recently picked up a new camera for some sports photography and I'm sure I'll get into some nature stuff soon. Nothing of the quality that Boneaddict and others present here, but I'm sure I'll get lucky once in a while.
 
I think that enhancing a photo digitally should be left to only removing slight imperfections, but not to enhance scene and given lighting, but the new cameras are capable of so much more than what we could do with an SLR of yester year.  Even with better technology, a truly good photo starts with the person behind the shutter. The good ones, still stand out, well before they've been manipulated. The best photos aren't enhanced at all.
 
-Steve

[Kola16]

Well it helps camera phone "photographers" like me (  ) make pictures look cooler for one. And two, it helps capture what is actually seen in real life.

For example...picture #1:  the ice and the boards are a lot whiter in person, and the jersey is not that dull colored
Picture #2 is a lot closer to the real colors 

Don't you want your end product to be as close to the real thing as possible  If it is not your thing, then oh well, but you shouldn't bash others for it.

[Kola16]

Oh wait!!!!!....since you love photoshop so much, I guess I will show you the original, original 

[RadSav]

Some like Monet others like Bev Doolittle.  It's art.  And all artists have their own interpretation of things they see.

A lot in photography has to do with whose eyes are looking through the view finder.  One photographer might see an elk through the lens standing in a field with fog.  So when developed he can use photoshop to bring out the elk he saw.  Another photographer standing beside him in the same field might have been seeing a meadow on a cold bitter morning where there happened to be an elk gazing through a low layer of fog.  Both photographers are taking pictures of the same thing but each is allowed through photoshop to express their feeling and subject as they saw it.  In ones photo your feel the cold morning air and in the other you feel the warm breath of an elk.

I, myself, absolutely love paintings.  But I'm a horrible painter even after years of classes trying to find some path of understanding.  There are things I'm good at.  Painting just isn't one of those things.  I can, however, take a decent picture now and then if I shoot enough film (frames I guess in the digital age).  I can then allow photoshop or Image Pro do what I can not by turning them into water colors, oils or dry brush paintings.  As the topic of an earlier thread implied, it's one of the stupid things that make me happy   I'm sure many true photographers absolutely hate that.  That's ok with me.  I like what I like and I am who I am.

[Fishhuntmike]

Despite having a couple of modest DSLRs (10mp canons) with lots of "bells and whistles" I still only shoot them in "MANUAL" mode like I did with black and white 35mm film.  Then I use Photoshop Elements to "develop" the "print" for the computer monitor.  I dont see it as being any different than knowing some basic darkroom skills but is necessary for some of the "shortcomings" of an all electronic image capturing device and it's ability to capture what the eye sees. 

I also use resizing/cropping and jpeg compression so the picture files I email are not stupidly huge (as they would be straight from the camera) like some people I know.

Some people enjoy "decorating" their pictures, adding things, removing things, changing things etc and are very skilled at it and it makes them happy.  It's not my kind of thing but to each his own.

[boneaddict]

I pretty much agree 308.   I do VERY VERY VERY little post editing besides an occasional crop and size reduction for email.  I went as far as learning how to put a border around a pic the other day for the players of our soccerteam to create "cards" for them.    Lots of people overuse the saturation button and the sharpness button IMO.   But.....to each his own.

[Bob33]

It's virtually impossible for any photograph to accurately reflect what you can actually experience first hand while viewing a scene with your eyes. To me a photograph is a "reasonable facsimile" of the real thing. If someone alters a photograph to the point it doesn't look at all like what I would see, then it's not as appealing but is still art. As was pointed out, Monet created art that didn't look like the real world but many like it.

[uplandhunter870]

ill second what bob33 said, a camera digital or film is never to going to capture the same thing that the human eye does. our eyes are still far and beyond better at seeing things than any camera will ever. to me photo editing software is the new dark room, yes digital images are printer ready right out of the cam but sometimes it helps to adjust the sharpness or exposure or contrast/saturation just ever so slightly. for me i use lightroom and i use soley to try and match what the camera capture to what my eyes actually saw as well as cropping and size adjustments. yes some people take it to the extreme and their photos look more like paintings (namely HDR shots) and to me yeah its a cool looking picture but not a photo of what was actually there. i much prefer true to life shots over the fantastical pictures some people create but thats just my personal taste.

[Don Fischer]

Don't know what to say, every body has their own reason. I just like to take photo's of things I enjoy. I don't kid myself that I have photo art and I can't post process worth a hoot. Sometime's I read what some people have to say about other's photo's and haven't a clue what their talking about.  I start taking it that serious and I think I'll give it up. That is not to say that there aren't guy's doing really great stuff way out of my class that I don't like. But at my age, trying to become that good seem's like a lot of work and I'm retired!

[huntnphool]

yes some people take it to the extreme and their photos look more like paintings (namely HDR shots) and to me yeah its a cool looking picture but not a photo of what was actually there. i much prefer true to life shots over the fantastical pictures some people create but thats just my personal taste.

A lot of it is how the individual uses the available adjustments. HDR is a wonderful tool when not over cooked. Several have mentioned that the camera can not capture what the human eye can, actually it can but just not with a single shot. Bracketing your shots can help bring the experience you had in the field a little closer to reality, bringing detail out of shadows and clouds for instance.

Where HDR gets a bad rap is when people jack up the saturation and luminance.

This is a HDR image, bracketed +/- 1 full stop, yet its not what people think of when thinking of HDR images.

[Bean Counter]

I don't like editing when it it made to look antlers bigger or women look fake, unhealthy, unrealistic, and unattainable. This doesn't necessarily have to be a digital editing issue. I think long arming a downed buck or bull  is talky.   

For scenic landscapes, macro, etc I have no problem at all with digital enhancements. Filter this, saturate that, do whatever. The eye will never look at a two dimensional image the way we look at the real world so its an apples to oranges comparison to say that images shouldn't be manipulated.

Great conversation 

[wildweeds]

I'm an idiot with techno anything,I use a shoot and snap digital and leave them as is,I think I get pretty good shots.It's been my experiance with pointing dogs while hunting as my subject that about 5 in 100 are worthy of printing or internet posting.





The missus with her first rooster,she chunked the rizzini down in the rocks and dirt to run and beat the dog to her first rooster!

[Alchase]

A good example of post processing software, Saturday our family had a Easter egg hunt/potluck. If you read any photography books, the only time to shoot should be at dusk and daybreak, lol. In real life you do not usually have that choice. Saturday was a beautiful sunny day. Horrible for taking pictures because of the extremes from light to shadows. It did not matter where we were in the yard, the light conditions were brutal for good pictures. So you shoot in RAW, then use the post processing to tone down the extreme exposures and shadows, and walla! You have gorgeous pictures of your grand kids chasing bubbles around the back yard, that before would have been washed out to poor lighting conditions.
I took over 400 pictures Saturday. While trying to get six grand kids to all smile, not pick their nose, or dump bubble stuff on their sister's head, let alone sit still long enough to get the picture, lol.
With Lightroom I was able to crop the "uncompromising" portions of each picture and keeps the little gems that can be hiding in a pic of many people.

In other words, post processing can make a good picture into a great picture. And the best part of shooting RAW and post processing, is the original RAW is left alone so you can try different variations with out effecting the original shot.

[Alchase]

I forgot, plus the organization ability of some software (Lightroom) would alone make it worth buying even if you did no post processing.