November 2009 Photo Competition: Discussion

[Frank Lopes]

Thread is now open for discussion.

[Southbay]

Swarbees, your shot turned into a wonderful B&W. You must be pleased...I really like that one.

[swarbees]

"my spouse and I have looked at the straight reflections on the beach and I can't figure what it is---
he is convinced it is the birds----???"

Now I see that it must be birds reflected -- I didn't remove any pilings or anything--

Southbay---thank you very much. We were looking at your entry and thought it looked a shot out of The Color of Money---very pensive.

[Southbay]

Originally Posted by swarbees

We were looking at your entry and thought it looked a shot out of The Color of Money---very pensive.

Yes, as I recall it...if you were feeling wealthy, you would challenge that particular gent at the table to a game.

[swarbees]

Phil---nice shot! Is that snow or sand??

[Nasturtium]

heading over to DGrin to see if can figure out how to make an RGB channel after merging split channels...wish me luck

[philbach]

Swarbees. That is snow. The whole area was covered in snow through most of the winter last year. The area is also covered with snow mobile trails. So one can ice fish, or ride snow mobiles or stay inside and watch pro football and drink beer.

The farm in the background has a nice buffalo herd roaming around too. And this road is about 1/4 of a mile W of Lake Michigan. Its nice on these winter walks in Wisconsin to have spikes in ones shoes to prevent slipping.

In the background towards the left there is some lake fog, and the clouds were swirly and the road I was walking on was freshly plowed which presented a lot of interesting photo elements.

[Nasturtium]

spent a day in Utrecht shooting in BW and also tried some auto bracketing. I thought Russell Brown's BW conversion method was interesting
http://av.adobe.com/russellbrown/CS3Color_To_BWSM.mov

but in the end I used something I saw on DGrin....can't find the thread...but the guy used gradient map on those gold horses in Venice and it was a Wow! conversion

[philbach]

Gary/ Stress

Hey that was an interesting photo. What is the guy doing? He does looked stressed out. But he is wearing gloves. Nice photo but I would like to know a little more background.

[Algarve Images]

Erm!.. it's a girl Phil lol
She was taking part in a 200 Km cycle ride with her father along with two little Chihuahua's who were being towed along behing the bike in a type of luggage carrier on wheels! This was taken during a well earned break.. i guess the stress of the day was showing a little..

[Kraellin]

frank, i have a question regarding the rules, specifically, this one:

This is NOT the forum for photo art filters or art programs and this is NOT the place to showcase your abilities with layers, masks, collages or overlays of multiple images.

does that mean absolutely NO retouching, touch-ups, dont-go-near-photoshop, etc? or does it mean more 'dont get too heavy on the use of photoshop' ??

i do realize this is a photography contest which implies photos not retouched in any way, but this being a retouch site and with photoshop and other programs being so closely tied to photos now, it's almost a synonym when you say photo you also are saying photoshop. and, if we also say that the old darkroom artists used to do things sort of photoshop like, do we again allow that sort of retouching or no?

so, which is the case here, just absolutely no retouching of any kind, or keep it mild and such that it still looks like a photo?

[Algarve Images]

Kraellin has a good point,
a lot of us around here can quite dramatically alter an image seemlessly and in high contrast black and white there will be major use of the "channels"...

[CathyH]

When I was looking for B&W information at the beginning of this contest, I found several sites were they suggested you take color pic then convert them. So this is what I did.
My feelings is that photoshop can be used but just to make adjustments to contrast/sharpness/small cloning. But not turn it into a painting, or add a texture.

[Southbay]

Yes, this has become a very grey area.

From Darkrooms of the past to Photoshop techniques of today, photographers have honed their production techniques to present their vision as they see it.

Ansel Adams wasn't as much a great photographer as he was the dean of the darkroom. Does this negate the authenticity of his finished work?

Today, HDR is all the rage. These are not "pure" photographs. But rather images that capture more closely what the human eye is capable of seeing. Should these be discounted as not being real "pictures".

My understanding of the rules for this friendly competition is that the images have to look like a picture you'd pull from a pack of prints that you just picked up at the one-hour photo.

IMO, how you arrive at that "look" is your own business. If you want to take a couple of annoying birds out of an otherwise clear blue sky, or crop out your neighbor's garbage can, I see no problems with that.

Dodging and burning has been done forever, so that should be fine. Where I feel the moderator doesn't want this to go, however, is much deeper into photo manipulation beyond cursory tonal and hue adjustments.

Should it simply look like "a really nice picture"?

Any other opinions? Are there definable limits? If so, what are they?

Now that the subject has been raised, it might be nice to get a solid consensus.

[Janet Petty]

The term "Photoshopped" has come to mean unrealistic, fake, shoddy, manipulated, liar, and a host of other not so nice terms. I cringe when I hear the derogatory tone and words of someone who has no real idea of the concept "Photoshopped". And what is worse, those people's minds are usually so entrenched in their lofty prison, they can't see how limited their thinking really is.

Yet, when that same person sees a fine art print or an Ansel Adams print, or a James Nachtwey print, or..., they ooh and ahhh not realizing that all of them have been manipulated in some manner.

Photoshop is a digital darkroom (and so much more...for another discussion) that has taken the chemical smell and all of the other darkroom mess literally out of the dark and into the public life of the computer where everyone now can dabble in the manipulation of a photo. It has also taken the hand retouching of past years into a whole new realm. Hurrah for that!

And that, IMHO, is the crux of the matter. Photoshop is out in the world for everyone. Now everyone can use this powerful program. And what is out in the world is often shoddy work. I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination. My work, however, has progressed way beyond what I was when I began. And I'm still learning. Photoshopping something for me is trying to present what I see in my mind's eye.

I don't have any problem taking a photo (not for photo journalistic use) and boosting the colors in certain areas, fixing distracting blemishes, dodging or burning, sharpening, etc. I believe that any art photo straight out of the camera deserves the best I can do with it. In fact, previsualization and predetermination of a subject plays a huge factor in how a photo ends up.

Let me ask a question. Would you rather remember a huge zit on the end of your nose ten years down the road or a blemish free picture that didn't embarass you? Would you rather remember how beautiful the Grand Canyon was on that memorable, once-in-a-lifetime trip or the garbage you somehow didn't see before you snapped the shutter?

So as for this contest and whether or not an image is photoshopped. I say go for it. What I interpret from the rules supplied is that this is NOT an art forum. We don't paint on our pictures in this forum. There is one of those just up the page from this one where we can do all of the painting we want. It is one of my favorites haunts on this site. But I won't be putting that stuff in the photography forum. I'll just be using "darkroom" techniques here.

Thanks for letting me rant.

Janet

[Algarve Images]

I think Janets criteria is pretty good and just about sets the standard, the "zit thing" was funny too he he!
Gary..

[CJ Swartz]

Craig,

Janet's post explains it well, but since the original wording for the rules was inserted by me when I was the moderator, let me also address your question. It seems to be a question that just won't "go away" since it's one that I've read a thousand times since I first joined a photography forum on AOL in the early 1990's when most people still used film cameras and many argued that digital photography was NOT TRULY PHOTOGRAPHY.

This forum was started to give members who liked to use their cameras a place to discuss and share their photographic interests -- apart from their other interests in restoring old photos, retouching photos for advertising or fashion work, creating photo-art or montages from their images -- all which already had their own forums for such interests.

There is much to be said for images that have come straight out of a camera, and for the skills and knowledge that influence the look of an image AS SHOT by the camera and photographer. However, cameras--film or digital, are NOT capable of capturing images that match what our human eyes can see, and photographers have made changes to photos since photography was invented. As Janet so colorfully explained, the smell of the darkroom is gone, and the lab is inside our computers.

Basically, what I had considered allowable is the same work that would be done by the photo lab if you had dropped your film off to be processed and prints made: dodging/burning or shadows/highlights or Levels/Curves adjustments to exposure of highlights, midtones, and shadows; color corrections, if necessary, which may include changes to color intensity, rendition of hues, and transformation from color to black/white (which can be done in the camera, but is probably handled better in post-processing); and cropping.

There were a few submissions durng the first year that brought up questions about whether the use of photo art filters had been used. I realized that it would be difficult to know for sure, and more difficult to prove, and that hard feelings and arguments were not going to be any fun for forum members or moderators. So I added a few words about NOT using art filters etc. to show that we wanted to rate a photo on the skill of the photographer more than their Photoshop skills.

So, hopefully, members who enjoy using their cameras can agree on limits to post-processing that still shows the skill of the eye and the mind of the person holding the camera/lens.

P.S.
People can use software and their drawing skills to make images that look like photos without the use of a camera --

http://basangpanaginip.blogspot.com/...ector-art.html

Originally Posted by Kraellin

frank, i have a question regarding the rules, specifically, this one:

does that mean absolutely NO retouching, touch-ups, dont-go-near-photoshop, etc? or does it mean more 'dont get too heavy on the use of photoshop' ??

i do realize this is a photography contest which implies photos not retouched in any way, but this being a retouch site and with photoshop and other programs being so closely tied to photos now, it's almost a synonym when you say photo you also are saying photoshop. and, if we also say that the old darkroom artists used to do things sort of photoshop like, do we again allow that sort of retouching or no?

so, which is the case here, just absolutely no retouching of any kind, or keep it mild and such that it still looks like a photo?

[Janet Petty]

My husband read this post and wanted to comment. He said, "Besides this site is RetouchPro and not Camera Raw." Whatever that means.

There are some good comments here. How about moving this editing part of this thread to its own thread? We might generate more discussion that way.

Janet

[Kraellin]

ok, thanks. that's basically what i wanted to know

[sharynideas]

Now I'm going to ask a stupid question. Why were so many entries shot in color and then converted? Is that really better than shooting in black and white to start with?

[palms]

Phew what a quick time for voting less than 24 hours ! ! !

sorry i did not vote, I will not include how i would of voted as i do think that is very unfair
but congratulations to Philbach
and a lot of great images

before i get any answers i have just been and read the rules ! ! ! !

Palms

[Algarve Images]

Originally Posted by sharynideas

Now I'm going to ask a stupid question. Why were so many entries shot in color and then converted? Is that really better than shooting in black and white to start with?

The idea of shooting in colour is that you can then desaturate and manipulate the individual colour channels to taste,
Gary..

Ps well done Phil in this months competition, sorry i couldn't vote, have been stuck over in Spain with car troubles

[philbach]

Thanks everyone. I really do feel honored. So many of the submissions were excellent. I agree that having the voting for a slightly longer period may be better.

[Janet Petty]

Originally Posted by sharynideas

Now I'm going to ask a stupid question. Why were so many entries shot in color and then converted? Is that really better than shooting in black and white to start with?

I don't have that option on my camera. I'm assuming others do not as well. Besides the fact that conversions in Photoshop allow for more manipulation of tonal range.

Janet

[swarbees]

Also---I used a photo that I already had which was taken in color. (taken only last month but not in b&w because the contest theme had not been chosen yet).

[Algarve Images]

Originally Posted by philbach

Thanks everyone. I really do feel honored. So many of the submissions were excellent. I agree that having the voting for a slightly longer period may be better.

I agree,
if one had blinked one would have missed the voting period,
Gary..

[Southbay]

Yes, I'd also support the notion of a longer voting period. Was it just for one day? Why not two, or three days?

[Frank Lopes]

The issue of the voting period has been addressed: for December and going forward, it will be a minimum of 3 days. The last 3 days of the month.

Thank you for your feedback.

[MiningArt]

Congrats Phil on winning. :-))

[CathyH]

Congratulations Phil beautiful photo.