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Scotjimland said"This is often the intent, to fool the viewer that it is an 'untouched' photo.. when the raw image may have been underexposed/overexposed, badly framed etc"

Artona said .. I totally understand where Gary is coming from but I think digital photography has in a way destroyed the straight photograph if it ever existed. "

Thankyou you two this is where I am coming from Wink

Gary

Texas · Last edited by Texas on Thu Dec 20, 2007 8:48 pm; edited 2 times in total

Texas

Thank you all for your replies, there's a lot to explore there.

My Son (who is computer literate) is coming up over the holidays, so I will enlist his help in looking at the sites suggested by your good selves, with the view of adding them to my PC.

Merry Xmas to one and all, good luck and good health for 2008.

I look forward to the 2008 photo competition on this friendliest of sites.

Texas Very Happy

Texas

homenaway

An interesting discussion.

I wouldn't claim to be more than an average amateur photographer but "we" have always tried to enhance images - from early days of black and white using yellow tinted filters, to polarising and graduated filters with colour film as well as special effects like rainbow and starburst, with plenty of examples in the photography magazines and articles on how to achieve that award winning sunset. It was also possible to crop prints with selective enlargements - at a price Smile

Moving to digital I've found two opposite thoughts:

with 35mm I was always aware of the costs and generally took half a dozen films on a holiday and with considered and conservative composition before pressing the shutter, would get a success rate of maybe half to a third of the developed prints being "good enough" for the album.

Now with digital and low cost "processing" using Paint Shop Pro v7.04 I can easily take around 600 photos on a 2 month trip and try several shots of a scene to be more creative and experimental.

I probably select about 200 images and adjust them, normally cropping to improve composition and changing brightness and contrast which is often needed for printing, very occasionally using other effects like unsharp mask and the recently discovered Photoshop plugin for removing purple fringing (Google that for in depth discussions Laughing

). I upload these to Photobox to get good quality prints the next day which we still enjoy mounting in a real album to browse in the dark winter months!

Paint Shop Pro used to be shareware (or free for older versions) but Corel bought them up and now I think it's a comparable price to PS Elements and I've stayed with what I am used to Smile

Steve

sersol

Texas said"There have been occasions when I would have liked to darken or lighten certain parts of my pictures, indeed some of my pictures are fairly good, but some have telephone wires, odd stumpy trees etc, included in them which detracted from the shot, and which I found impossible to eradicate in composing the original shot. "

But in my book this sort of thing is what makes a winner (getting the near perfect shot" without any of the "odd bits" or just another enterant.
I have to admit that most of my snaps are just that "snap of something" at one moment in time. Don't get me wrong I'm not against "playing" around with photo's for fun BUT in photo competitions NO WAY. Shocked

Gary

DABurleigh · Last edited by DABurleigh on Fri Dec 21, 2007 12:37 am; edited 1 time in total

I recall having an intense conversation over Photoshop on a long road journey with a dear photographer friend, sadly now departed. I concluded people held quite differing passionate views, often couldn't understand at all others' stance, yet in truth no-one was right and no-one was wrong; just different.

He entered photo competitions, and clearly got his biggest kick from winning when he had used Photoshop a lot, but where its use was banned. This seemed to go on a lot, given the comments of judges afterwards. Well, OK, yes, that was wrong to me, but he got a huge buzz out of getting one over on his peers. For him, Photoshop WAS photography, and he was amazingly skilled at it.

I had long ago committed myself to using Photoshop for all manipulation, despite it being one of the least intuitive pieces of software I had ever come across. But I knew that whatever I might want to do, PS could do it, so it was worth investing the effort. I spent one entire Christmas holiday retouching for an Uncle an old crumpled b&w photo (it had lived for years in a wallet) that had huge sentimental value. I don't think any photo I have been associated with gave me more pleasure than that I enjoyed seeing his reaction.

Personally I don't enjoy at all "arty" PS work, but if I admire someone else's photo and they subsequently tell me they used PS a lot on it, it doesn't bother me one jot. Conversely, when I have used PS on my own photos, whenever I look at it, I have the disadvantage of knowing exactly where its falsehoods lie, and it will NEVER be a good photo to me, even though it is more aesthetic to others.

For me, photography is basically about capturing reality, whether as a memento, or for its intrinsic inspiration/ interest. Yes, there are some aesthetic guides to follow. But then everything else is art. And for me, the most impressive art is that which comes closest to reality, and I simply wonder at the amazing skill involved that I will never possess.

But each to their own. Viva la difference!

Dave
Edit: sp