How much editing is acceptable?

[jimsphotography]

Re: How much editing is acceptable?

Paul,
I have no phobia or anything like that with RAW images and PP. All what I am trying to find out,for my own satisfaction, is how much editing should an average photographer like me,aim for. The bottom line is that the picture should look nice and pleasing to the eye, and as close to the image that I saw and photographed. This means no blue skies where it was dark and dreary, no sun where it was all shadows. I hope I am not asking for too much.

I take it that what Nat is trying to do here is to provoke a debate not just on processing but also on the value and purpose of major editing eg. replacing dull skies etc.
Am I correct in this Nat?
If that is the case then I suppose the answer lies in what you we trying to do. Are you trying to emulate the scene exactly as it appeared to you, or instead improve on the scene or just being totally 'creative' in the sense that you are not trying to represent the original scene at all but trying construct something entirely new. Personally, I don't think it really matters as long as you keep your own integrity and present your 'art' in an honest and open manner.
One last point - I do wonder if in 100 years time if somebody looks back at the photographs taken today & then comes to the remarkable conclusion that we all lived in a time of wonderful sunrises/sunsets, very dramatic day time skies, that people all wore red jackets when walking alone down a country path, that towns had no vans or cars parked in them, that our countryside was so tidy it had no litter at all in it & things like electric pylons didn't exist at all to ruin country views.
James

[AlexR!]

Re: How much editing is acceptable?

One last point - I do wonder if in 100 years time if somebody looks back at the photographs taken today & then comes to the remarkable conclusion that we all lived in a time of wonderful sunrises/sunsets, very dramatic day time skies, that people all wore red jackets when walking alone down a country path, that towns had no vans or cars parked in them, that our countryside was so tidy it had no litter at all in it & things like electric pylons didn't exist at all to ruin country views.
James

This made me chuckle. To be honest, I think it has already happened in that when we look back at all those original stiff sepia portraits of people we could easily think that no-one ever smiled, and they all wore their sunday best all the time. But, I suppose equally we think that our kings, queens and gentry only ever looked like how Holbein painted them.
I suppose the saving grace nowadays is that all of our carefully constructed images will be lost amongst the billions of images taken on cell phones and lodged on Facebook, twitter and instagram, none of which have gone anywhere near photoshop, and which show us all in our very real natural surroundings.

[jimsphotography]

Re: How much editing is acceptable?

Very good point Alex
James

[Nathaniel]

Re: How much editing is acceptable?

[QUOTE=jimsphotography;250295]I take it that what Nat is trying to do here is to provoke a debate not just on processing but also on the value and purpose of major editing eg. replacing dull skies etc.
Am I correct in this Nat?
If that is the case then I suppose the answer lies in what you we trying to do. Are you trying to emulate the scene exactly as it appeared to you, or instead improve on the scene or just being totally 'creative' in the sense that you are not trying to represent the original scene at all but trying construct something entirely new.

I would like to thank all the members for their comments which I have noted with much interest. I would also like to make it quite clear that I do not take offence for any negative comments. What I wanted was an honest opinion. Perhaps James has come close to what I wanted to know i.e "emulate the the scene exactly as it appeared to me with some improvement". I am not one to create something that was not in the original image. I hope that makes sense.

[kelly200269]

Re: How much editing is acceptable?

An interesting debate
We had a visiting speaker to our local photo club a few weeks ago, who did a 'live edit' in front of us. He took an unaltered raw file, and edited it in LR. Prior to LR changes, it was a flat, boring snapshot of Tower Bridge in the morning that I would have dismissed in a second. Afterwards, and with some choice changes, it was worthy of a magazine cover.
Seeing that has made me realise that post-processing is as important a process as the original capture.

[Nathaniel]

Re: How much editing is acceptable?

Kelly, I fully agree with you. My question was "how much PP one should do?" I do edit many of my images by lifting shadows,cropping to get a better composition, sharpening a bit where necessary..... etc. From all the comments I have received, it appears that PP and how much one should do is entirely at the discretion of the photographer. That is good enough for me and I must thank all the members for their comments,which has been very helpful to remove the cobwebs in my mind.

[Tigger]

Re: How much editing is acceptable?

An interesting debate
We had a visiting speaker to our local photo club a few weeks ago, who did a 'live edit' in front of us. He took an unaltered raw file, and edited it in LR. Prior to LR changes, it was a flat, boring snapshot of Tower Bridge in the morning that I would have dismissed in a second. Afterwards, and with some choice changes, it was worthy of a magazine cover.
Seeing that has made me realise that post-processing is as important a process as the original capture.

I enjoy the PP process Kelly and almost takes me back to the days of darkroom work - Photography is a two process, the taking and processing and sending time processing your images can be just as enjoyable as shooting as you try new ideas and learning processing skills to make your end image something your happy with

[Sarawak]

Re: How much editing is acceptable?

Hello Nat,

I think you should do whatever processing you feel is appropriate. You are taking a picture for your pleasure and if you like the finished product then it is a good picture.

As to competitions!!! I fail to see how a committee of boring old duffers in a self perpetuating oligarchy in London can realistically tell me what I should or should not be doing. They are man made rules with all the problems that brings.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and nobody can tell me what I like, however many unimportant letters they have after their name.

[Dave_S]

Re: How much editing is acceptable?

Hello Nat,

I think you should do whatever processing you feel is appropriate. You are taking a picture for your pleasure and if you like the finished product then it is a good picture.

As to competitions!!! I fail to see how a committee of boring old duffers in a self perpetuating oligarchy in London can realistically tell me what I should or should not be doing. They are man made rules with all the problems that brings.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and nobody can tell me what I like, however many unimportant letters they have after their name.

Dave

[Woolley]

Re: How much editing is acceptable?

I must admit, I'm not a fan of cloning out what was there, and I'm certainly not keen on wholesale replacing of skies and suchlike. I tend to feel that if you're going to do that to your pictures, you'd be better off taking up painting. The difference between processing and manipulation, I guess.

Which doesn't mean people shouldn't do it if that's how they want their pictures, but I probably won't like it! I'd also say that I don't much like 95% of HDR images which generally look like computer generated animations. On the other hand, the other 5% which are done purely to enhance the detail in the image can be pretty amazing. My brain automatically works on the principle of anything that looks like it's HDR hasn't been done right, and if I can't tell then it well done.

[Nathaniel]

Re: How much editing is acceptable?

[QUOTE=Woolley;250606]I must admit, I'm not a fan of cloning out what was there, and I'm certainly not keen on wholesale replacing of skies and suchlike. I tend to feel that if you're going to do that to your pictures, you'd be better off taking up painting. The difference between processing and manipulation, I guess.

This is what I just don't or will not do- cloning out this and that which were there in the original photo plus of course wholesale replacing skies & similar. I must admit that I am not an expert in the field of PP but even if I was an expert, these are things I will not do. Very many of the pictures posted with a bland background gives me the impression that the image has been altered. I may be wrong but that is just my view.

From this thread, I am aware that many members are very happy to clone bits and bobs out and do anything that makes the picture look good. I have nothing against that and PP is very much a personal choice- the amount of time one wishes to spend on an image and the amount of PP one wishes to do to ensure that the picture is to their liking. The bottom line is that from this thread I have resolved my own personal "cobwebs" and fully agree with Sarawark's post. I don't wish to say anymore.

[Fr1so]

Re: How much editing is acceptable?

If you remove a shadow or a grass at a mushroom, that's oke. But when you add things, like example you put a shark or a whale in Lake Windermere. Or you have made a photo of a landscape and you put in a total different sky. That's not oke in my opinion. Then you cross the line.

[the black fox]

Re: How much editing is acceptable?

If you remove a shadow or a grass at a mushroom, that's oke. But when you add things, like example you put a shark or a whale in Lake Windermere. Or you have made a photo of a landscape and you put in a total different sky. That's not oke in my opinion. Then you cross the line.

that i agree with totally 100% ,to subtract something which obscures the prime subject or detracts from it is permissible in my book ,i can say hand on heart i have never knowingly added anything to a photo ,except on one occasion when i added a pic of the sister in laws face to a nude and then showed it to the brother in law for a laugh ,he spat out about half a pint of best lager at the time .LOL

[David Morison]

Re: How much editing is acceptable?

As I've said before, I don't have or plan to learn the skills to add objects to an image or swap skies/backgrounds etc. However I see nothing wrong in others doing this and I decide whether it looks natural or not to the eye and whether I like it. We are all talking about post processing but what about modifying the lighting/background etc before taking the shot, as many do with macro of natural and other subjects - isn't this the same as changing the background later. Let's just accept that photography, apart from record purposes (wildlife etc), is just another art form and artistic licence rules OK!

David

[antoeknee]

Re: How much editing is acceptable?

Post processing is just part of photography and always has been, in days of film you could process the film differently to achieve novel effects. At the printing stage you could change the exposure, either as a whole or selectively, boost/decrease contrast, correct colour casts, add or remove items, tinting e.g. sepia/selenium, etc.

If pp is a concern then perhaps images should be captured RAW. Shooting Jpeg the camera does some post processing, sharpening, noise reduction etc and there could be even more if you've changed some settings.

At the end of the day, as David said, it's up to the creator of the image. Personally I've no issue with pp. Not everything works to my eye but I think people should try things otherwise we'd all still be taking snapshots.