Re: Slightly OFF Topic..when does it stop becoming photography and become post processed 'art'?
- From: "Roger N. Clark (change username to rnclark)" <username@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 20:21:14 -0600
the_niner_nation wrote:
Having bypassed film all together and entered the world of SLR into the very contemporary 'digital' age, I have been looking at lots of people's work posted on line, spectacular photos and amazing visuals.
I oftentimes wonder just how much post processing ( photoshop, etc, et al) are responsible for making a good photograph into a jaw dropping work of art? I reckon probably more often than not...
What are the attitudes of tradional 'film' photogaphers towards photos that have been digitally enhanced and manipulated to the stage that the end photo is a million miles away from the original photograph?
Do 'traditional' photographers frown upon such artifical asthetics and measure a *good* photograph by more 'tradtional' metrics, such as effective use of lighting, camera settings, compostion, etc?
Personally, I think that post processing is a wonderful way of enhancing a photograph in terms of correcting any adjustable 'flaws', but I feel somewhat retcinct to mutilating a photograph to the point where it
resembles nothing of the original exposure....and when i see some of the outstanding photo's in people's online web galleries, i wonder if the photo is a bona-fide photograph with the minimal adjustments
made in post processing or if it is a totally mutilated version of the original...
I like the fact that post processing can genuinly help in making the photos you take look like how you *want* them to look...
but some of the shots i see...well thats just plain old showing off how good people are at post processing and perhaps not as good as photographers ;-)
The problem with these debates is that several physical factors
are usually ignored by so-called purists.
1) The human eye sees a greater dynamic range than any film or
digital camera.
2) The human eye has unusual properties in perceiving color,
having both non-linear and negative response. Both film
and digital do not have negative response; digital is linear;
film is non-linear but different than the eye.
3) Added to #2 the eye's spectral response is different to
some degree than all film or digital.
4) When viewing an image obtained with film or digital,
the output device (monitor or paper) has reduced dynamic range
than most digital cameras or film.
All the above means all images must be precessed in some way
to try and approximate what the eye actually saw, including
compressing dynamic range (e.g. dodge and burn sections of the image),
and maintain color balance, and even modify color balance for
each different output device (e.g. paper is different than a
transparency. is different than CRT, is different than LCD....).
This leads to colort management, which means processing for each
output device.
5) Fixing defects. whether it be dust on sensor/film, light fall
off in the lens, distortion in the lens, all these are something the
eye did not see, but manufacturted by the camera.
Every film is different in color as well as contrast, every digital camera
is different both in color and contrast (and can be changed to
do so "in camera." Just look at slide versus print film for
major color differences, for example.
All of the above requires some processing to make a captured
image similar to that perceived by the eye.
Finally, in my experience, processing can make a photograph
better (or worse), but no poor photo can be turned into a
"jaw dropping" image. You can correct for underexposure and to
some degree, overexposure, but jaw dropping images, in my
opinion are subject, composition, and lighting.
Roger
.
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