Awhile ago, a friend indicated that either a local photo contest or some local agency was looking for some town photos — but not photoshopped! I don't know what that means, and I doubt whether the organizer knew what it means. I must confess that the lack of knowledge and clarity about photography and photoshop causes me to grind my gears.
What was not photoshopped supposed to have meant?
Did it mean SOOC (straight out of the camera) with no editing at all? Or maybe it meant no adding or subtracting of objects? It's not clear.
What people fail to understand, is that every image is processed. Most people don't edit their photos in post, but that doesn't mean that they're not developed. What it does mean is that they have chosen to let the software in the camera process their images. The camera will make decisions about light balance, colour, saturation, and sharpness. It isn't reality; it is the camera's subjective interpretation of the subject.
If you shoot with a phone, you are often getting a highly processed version of reality. For example, compare my photo of a cadet at the Remembrance Vigil with the version from Sue's phone.
I worked hard both in camera and in edit to get this photo. It is a fair approximation of the dark ambience.
This is how Sue's phone interpreted the scene. It lightened the photo well beyond the conditions as they were, for it was really a pretty dark scene.
It is an splendid result for sure, but it isn't what we saw. In this case, SOOC really augmented reality. I am impressed with the phone's software capabilities. It is truly remarkable. But it exemplifies how much processing a phone can and will do, all on its own. In point of fact, it is a lot more impressive than my version, but it doesn't reflect the reality of the situation. My photo, which was photoshopped (by that I mean edited) is truer to reality.
Phones are most definitively impressive. I recently showed this photo.
It took me quite a lot of work to get that photo. I had to take three images on a tripod to capture the full range of light. Then, I had to blend them together in Photoshop, after which there were a few additional adjustments to be made.
Meanwhile, Sue was able to handhold her phone for a length of time that would have cause my camera to produce a blurry photo, but hers is sharp. The phone took a single photo, saw that there was a huge tonal range and processed the scene accordingly. It is really pretty amazing.
Both version rely on software and computing power. Mine took a lot more steps, but the phone's software is so powerful, that it did it all effortlessly and arguably produced a cleaner image even though it was handheld.
As I have already written, it is very impressive. But nobody had better @ me about photoshop, and mustn't presume that a supposedly unedited SOOC photo is necessarily true to reality.
Addendum; Just to clarify, I have Photoshop, but I don't always use it much. Of course, I do edit photos, but mostly in Photoshop's companion program, Lightroom. In general conversation, as in much of this post, I'll use the word photoshop, just to mean editing.
20 comments:
Such contests need to be much more specific or leave out the photoshop bit all together.
Good thing to think about...editing for clarity vs editing for artistic reasons. For me I like waterfalls that look like water falling, not streaks of white that many photographers prefer. Chocolate or strawberry?
@Barbara: the water thing is tricky. For one thing our eyes see a continual flow, not stop action, so for me some flow is proper. On the other hand, it should retain some texture and not look like milk.
I get very impatient with those guidelines that show a lack of knowledge. I used to run up against this in my early days of using my computer to make art. Early primitive software, too. It was just a big pencil -- I was creating and executing the art. But people assumed that the computer in some way created the art! Doh. I entered anyway and was accepted in juried shows -- the jurors never even realized it was computer generated, because they could see it was original art.
I use photoshop to crop photos only. I never adjust the lighting, etc. And I use a Canon camera, never my iPhone.
You raise some really good points. I tend to gravitate towards photos mostly straight out of the camera. For me, the thrill is capturing the beauty with what processing the camera put into the photo. Although I appreciate pictures that you and others take where you swap out stuff or merge multiple pictures to get a desired result, I look more at it as art at that point. The ones I dislike the most are those taken by others (not you) who pump up saturation points to the level of what a circus on Mars might do for advertising poster.
All of this is to say that my interpretation of "No Photoshopping" would be a single picture with processing only done by the camera and not done by additional software.
I'm not a purist however. I do own a copy of Lightroom and use it to resurrect old photos in an attempt to bring them back to their former glory. I rarely use it on modern photos but have a time or two to eliminate a spot that got on the lens or in the picture to distract from the reason I took the photo. But I would say at that point it has been "photoshopped" by my definition.
I point and shoot with my iPhone and take what I get. Once upon a time I might fiddle with the image, but no more. I like your work, it feels more artistic than SOOC. :-)
this is fascinating, AC. I rarely ever post a photo that hasn't been through the most basic on-computer editing program (or Picassa) just to add clarity or enhance the lighting. I don't change colors or add or subtract things (on occasion with a vintage photo I've scanned, I might do a little/lot more but just average pix, no). But I don't even have photoshop -- so what would they think of me? Love all the images you shared -- they are excellent examples.
Personally, I wouldn't split hairs about it. For me, not photoshopped would mean not using anything beyond the most basic photo editing program such as we get in Microsoft. Btw, I have Photoshop Elements ... if I could only figure out how to see it (or have the patience). All of which might explain why I'm not much of a photographer. P.S. I'm impressed with all these photos!
They probably have no idea what they really mean to say. I find the camera always seems to lighten things up a bit.
I tend to just go with whatever comes from the phone
How could something get so complicated? I didn't realize that my camera was helping me.
Very thoughtful post! I use Lightroom, but mostly a phone for shooting. My objective in editing is always to get the photo as close to reality as possible.
I just enjoy taking picture.
Coffee is on and stay safe
In both cases I liked your photos better than the phone versions. The phone shots were great to "share" a scene or event on social media, but yours captured the atmosphere and light and a sense of meaning - they were more artistic, frankly.
Good points!
I am amazed with iPhone photo quality. I don't have one.
This is a fascinating post and explains a lot about what happens with photos and photography.
This is a fascinating post and explains a lot about what happens with photos and photography.
My iPhone actually takes better photos than my old Canon now. I use my camera program, PhotoShop and my Publisher program to correct lighting, crop and reduce the file or make a collage to put on my blog posts. You're right though... your camera already does a lot of corrections for you automatically. On the other hand I see pictures on Hawaii TV news where the photos have obviously been Photoshopped so much that it's kind of distracting.
It is true that many of the high-end phones take wonderful photos with little or no effort required by the user. I use both a camera and cell phone and my editing is generally confined to cropping, color correction, and contrast. Years ago, I owned an older version of Photoshop which unfortunately would not work when my PC was updated😕.
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