I think the OP made his/her distinction of what is acceptable or not, in the second line of the question...
I teach photography and 'digital darkroom', and I frequently find myself talking to students about chemical processing and enlargement techniques when discussing PS filters and 'toning'. I have to agree that they are much more the same than different.
Concerning whether we/you/others are changing reality as an intent, I do not know. But what is the difference between photographing someone through a stocking to introduce soft-focus, using a soft-focus lens (like the EF 135mm SF), or applying a 'glamor blur' filter in PS?
Marcus Watts wrote:
Likewise there are those who think that film was and is a higher art form. It's what some desperately want to believe but is in fact pure fantasy.
If you look at the results of professional competitions from 20 years ago to today. Yes some over worked images still get through but for the most part we are seeing a consistency and level of image making not hitherto known.
Isn't that more about technology and technique and to some extend popular culture?
Popular art changes together with popular culture, but there seems to be some forms that somehow become classic art. There are photographic images that somehow transcend their era and become timeless. But still the "art" of photography is perhaps too young to make clear distinctions.
Who's to say what's popular in 50 years as technology only improves. Perhaps those very shallow dof images with "beautiful bokeh" will be be laughed at. Perhaps the highest art will be pinhole lens Polaroids, as a counter to technology?!
Both sides show a narrow pov, one based on conservatism the other the latest technology.
I dimply don't know, but some gut instinct in me prefers (any) tangible forms of art over digital.
A handcrafted stone or steel sculpture over a CAD design and product. The use of "film" and the the materials and techniques of the darkroom over digital and PS. If that makes me one of those with a difficulty to cope with change, so be it (which at my age would be pretty ironic).
Tools change, but that (IMHO) does influence the aura of that being produced, quality at a cost.
Art is about what you can do with the tools and skills. The more tools and skills an artist possesses the more options the artist has and therefore the greater art can be produced.
The more limited the tools and skills the less options so you are forced to work within a certain level and not reach the heights you may have with the extra skill/tool set.
Sometimes those limited thing were all that was needed so the better art is in that case produced but we are talking about consistency here. The ability to make choices is greater than ever before for artist. Better to choose a pin hole camera from a range of options than because you had no option.
So in fact my thought are not narrow. just the opposite. Those who think film is itself the higher art form are narrow due the the above mentioned reasons.
In a sense, it changed photography in a negative way IMO, but it's still just a tool
that can be used well or poorly.
What I usually object to with photoshop is the use it is put to in fashion
photography and other kinds of work where people are photoshopped to
look more like Barbie and Ken than like real people. But that is less the fault
of Adobe than it is of the users of their program.
But of course, that's just my opinion. I happen to like seeing real texture and
some skin flaws in pics of people, because it makes me think I'm actually seeing
an accurate representation of how they appear, but of course this is a continuum.
There is always some degree of artistic choice in how to photograph and depict the
subject, and no photo is ever completely "real" in an objective sense.
On a side note, I admit to not enjoying post processing very much at all, but that's
my own hang-up.
It's a mistake to think that a photograph is ever an accurate representation of reality; you are seeing only a single moment of many in space and time that the photographer has chosen. Therefore, a photograph is completely divorced from its original context in the eyes of the viewer (unless, perhaps, you were there when the photograph was taken). Photography is no different from painting or any other art form in that its purpose is to convey semblances of subjective truth.
Dan1 wrote:
..........
Photography is no different from painting or any other art form in that its purpose is to convey semblances of subjective truth.
I cannot agree, but I do think there is room for this kind of photography.
But some kinds of photography (photojournalism, perhaps) do aim to
get closer to actual events and objective "it really happened" moments
than what you seem to describe.
I find it interesting that whenever I show people a print, they wonder what film I used, and how I printed it (everything I do is digital). But when they see the digital image, they wonder what processing I used, how much I edit and saturate my images. So I wonder how much of it is photoshop, vs. the medium that is used.
I think the bottom line is that talent shows. How an image was arrived at doesn't really matter.
I had a job a while back where I had to light a subject on location with flash and the rest of the shot was an entirely different colour and couldn't be filtered.
So I did two RAW conversions with different white balances and combined them in PS. It made an impossible situation possible. It was quick, relatively easy and the results were super.
PS doesn't ruin art it just gives us some fab new weapons in our arsenal
My own way of dealing with it is to say that as a rule of thumb I will allow myself to digitally alter an image if I could have done something similar in the darkroom. Photoshop supports my work, it is not however the place where my images start. Adams famously said something like "the negative is the score, and the print is the performance". Well that approach holds true in the digital age, "the capture is the score, the final file is the performance" or something like that.
That's my personal approach, out of an infinite range of possible approaches, you are fully entitled to disagree with me. However I think people overestimate the ease of making a beautiful image just using manipulation. To me the photographer's eye is still crucial, whatever process is later used to refine and direct that vision. Photography with the camera and later the computer is still about selection and then the refinement of the photographer's feelings and vision. If you don't HAVE any vision to start with you can Photoshop till the end of time, and produce very little of interest.
To produce interesting work again and again requires talent, and it doesn't much matter whether that talent is expressed "realistically" or via manipulation.
I think Photoshop has been a wonderful tool for photography. It allows the photographer to complete their vision. I'm very much with the Ansel Adams school of thought: The photography process isn't complete until you have the final print. Making those adjustments to get the print you want is a crucial part of the process, whether it be in a darkroom or Photoshop. Also, for color work, Photoshop allows photographers control over their images, since when you shoot color film, most of the time, you just have to trust the lab guys to do what you would do. I don't like to give up that control.
Most of my photoshop work is minor: curves, local contrast enhancement, saturation, etc. Sometimes I'll really work over an image...it depends. I have found Lightroom an indispensable tool for helping my workflow, though. It's fantastic. I can make about 98% of my adjustments in Lightroom and only a select few things need to be done in Photoshop, unless I'm doing some heavy work that requires multiple layers.
To me, using photoshop inspires me and makes me want to take a few extra shots that don't really work under normal circumstances. Mainly because I simply love the technical aspect of playing with techniques like HDR, although my friend told me how she used to do that with masking exposures (paper/cardboard masks) in a darkroom :P
Yes it depends whether the actual physical manipulation of dodging, buring or toning a print for example is regarded as different from a computer manipulating an image. Personally I don't think it matters at all, we just work with the tools we're given.
It's the old film v digital debate all over again. I just wish digital had been around in the 'old days' when getting anything retouched meant spending a fortune, so you had to get every speck of dust removed, or every prop or support perfectly hidden.
Using PS properly is an art in itself IMHO, I learn new things all the time
It turns my crappy photographs into better crappy photographs. (mind you when I started I made contact prints by holding the negative and paper sandwiched together in a frame up to the bathroom light. Certainly easier with a computer.)
Skill will do if you prefer, but clearly now photoshop has replaced the traditional darkroom skills that we all learned (those old enough ) there is an art (or perhaps a skill) involved in getting the most out of your digital image.
I see the use of PS as 'the next evolutionary stage on' from the wet darkroom and feel none the less of a pro photographer because I'm achieveing the ends by slightly different means (and I am certainly no PS expert AT ALL)
Photoshop is just a tool and what people do with their tools is really their prerogative. It's not like Photoshop is a magic "make great art" one button solution, though in proper hands it can look like magic.
However, the time you take to learn PS is the time away from actually shooting so opportunity cost still applies.
jcolwell wrote:
Having good PS skills enables artistic expression.
Does it? I think (as I said before) talent will just show through.
I suppose it depends where you are starting from, PS can create images quite happily without a digital image ever even being involved. I have seen some terrific stuff done in PS literally from scratch. In the hands of a talented user PS is the most phenomenal tool.
I just use it to try and get what I consider to be the best out of my shots and that is more 'refinement' that any kind of artistic target. I just don't have the skill or talent to go beyond that.
