Oly xz-2, a fav photo and the digital darkroom

I'm the worst person to ask about 'cheating'. I love my Lightroom, I take raw and post-process every single one of my photos.

I really don't see an issue with your photos above, I think they look great. You enhanced the photos, it's really not cheating at all. It's not like you used Photoshop to alter the original intent of the photo in a significant way.

 

Nobody's keeping score, it's not a competition, so there's no such thing as cheating. What are they gonna do - suspend you for using performance enhancing software? Too good a camera? You have to process them the way YOU like 'em. If someone else thinks they're overdone or underdone, that's their problem, not yours. Unless you agree, in which case you can always take another shot at processing them. I like your more processed versions of both color and B&W personally.

The Nik plugins are great tools - enjoy them!

-Ray

 

Well then, by definition you did it right! Turning a "good" photo into a "stunning" one, or even just a better one can NOT be considered incorrect or wrong or any sort of failure - its what processing is there for! If it wasn't good in the first place, it would never become much better with processing. If it is good, you can make it better with good processing. You're just using all of the tools at your disposal (camera plus PP software) rather than just one (camera). But the vision of what the shot should look like is still yours and you just have more ways to help it get there. This is all GOOD!!!!

Enjoy,

-Ray

 

Thats not cheating. Its like saying someone who processes their own film and then chooses softer or harder paper, or paper which will give a higher contrast, or more grain, is cheating. All you are doing is a digital form of developing. You havent grafted a frog head onto a bird body, you havent put a ridicolous swirl in the middle of the shot. You've done what any photographer worth his/her salt will do, and thats try to get the best out of each shot.

Some pride themselves on only doing "straight out of camera" but TBH, most times the shots are flat and boring. Not always of course, that depends on the photographer. Processing is important if you want to get the best from yourself and your gear

 

The idea that "straight out of camera" is somehow purer or more real doesn't stand up to a moment's scrutiny.

A jpeg from the camera has simply been processed according to someone else's criteria rather than the photographer. And a raw file is intended to be processed.

Its an invented snobbery on a par with the idea that an uncropped picture is superior to one that has been cropped.

We all just need to try and see good pictures in the world around. Some will need a bit of work afterwards to match what we saw, some won't. And some you only see in the darkroom - whether wet or digital ...

 

Indeed. In fact I confess to getting really irritable when people say it as if its what everyone should strive for. Sometimes sooc is good for showing how the camera will deal with jpg, but for anything else?... *grumble*

 

Why should it be used in "in moderation" or why should it "never be obvious" ?

These are simply personal rules, a reflection of one's own aesthetic preferences, but they are not universal truths. If you don't like the way someone has PP'd their photographs, then that's a perfectly valid standpoint, but it doesn't translate into some sort of moral imperative about how someone else should or should not have processed their images.

I can't at all understand how an out-of-camera jpeg can be treated as as "reference"; it is no more true or real to the scene than your memory (and visual memory is notoriously unreliable)

The photographer's intent may be that PP should be noticed in order to form part of what she or he wishes to convey, or she or he may not give a flying doughnut whether the viewer notices any of these things.

 

I love those silver efex and color efex programs. I see it a digital darkroom and you are the artist. Don't hold back!

 

That's your taste and you're obviously entitled to it, and to process your photos however you like, and to enjoy others (or not) based on it. But if Tony finds the result of his PP to be "stunning" then it obviously worked for HIS taste. There is no universal standard on this. I personally like what he's done to these photos and that's also just MY taste.

In terms of getting it right in the camera, well we all aim for that. But your allusion to your past as a 35mm shooter doesn't add much to this. Ask Ansel Adams or Edward Weston about getting it right in the camera. Those guys were masters in the darkroom and viewed their negatives as merely a starting point. Obviously they didn't have the tools we have today, but I'll bet if they had them they'd have used them. Whether they'd have "OVERused" them we'll never know and it would be up to each of us to judge anyway. I also don't agree if you're just shooting raw you lose your reference - the whole image is there for you in all of its glory. A jpeg is just a reflection of what someone else thought your processing should look like. With raw you get to make more of your own decisions.

I fully agree that using PP to correct poor technique gets you nowhere, but that's not the same thing as taking a shot you like and making it a shot you like MORE... Even if not everyone else shares your opinion of it. I guess if you're shooting to sell your work, perhaps you'd process it to please someone else's taste, but most of us shoot to please ourselves and so our own taste is the final arbiter, as it should be.

BTW, yes many of us can "spot" PP a mile away (maybe just at normal viewing distances), but so what? I can tell when a photo has been processed (the vast majority of good ones are to one extent or another) but the only question I ask when I see a photo is not "is it processed" or "how MUCH is it processed", but "do I like it"... If I do, the processing worked. For me. If I don't, it didn't. For me. I still assume it worked for whoever created it...

-Ray

 

Lazy. Don't forget lazy. I've read many time that shooting specifically with the intent of processing is somehow being lazy compared to recording a fresh-baked OOC jpeg.

 

Yeah, I never got that logic though. I always thought pure jpeg shooters were just too damn lazy to do their darkroom work and were content to just drop it off at the corner store for processing, as it were... I guess lazy is also in the eye of the beholder

-Ray

 

Opinions are equally valid inasmuch as they may be honestly held and believed by the individuals expressing them; that is not the same thing as to say that all opinions have equal value, or are equally "true".

 

I can spot processing a mile away. Show me literally any image that has ever been taken and I'll show an image that has been processed. There is no such thing as an unprocessed image.

 

Look, I think we all have "faulty technique" at times (or frequently, in my case) and processing is a way of improving that. My question is this: if it works, and the end result is what you want to see, why does it matter?

I'm of the opinion that if people are getting snotty about post processing then they need to get over themselves and stop being precious. Nic is right. All digital images are processed... whether thats by the photographer on a RAW file, or the camera on a RAW file... me, I prefer to see what the photographer wants me to see. Thats surely what its all about?

 

More often than not it turns out that the people who complain most about "processing" are people who have very little idea of how to use software properly. And then they go around brandishing a badge proudly proclaiming they don't process their images. As if their ignorance deserves merit somehow. It doesn't. Learn to use every available tool if you're interested in photography. Right from your camera, to editing software, to proper colour management, to printing, etc. Learning just how to use one's camera, makes for an incomplete modern photographer.

 

I think you're wrong. The most popular, and generally the best reviewed, jpeg engines tend to be based on how pleasing the colors are, not how accurate they are. Fuji and Olympus and Nikon jpeg engines are very highly thought of and well reviewed. I personally like them as well but not for their accuracy. More for their somewhat over saturated colors and punchy contrast. Other jpegs that may be more accurate are not as well liked with flatter contrast and more muted colors. You can't truly capture "reality" in a 3:2 or 4:3 frame and most viewers tend to prefer a small version of reality to have a bit more "pop" to better simulate the impact of the larger reality our eyes take in. Obviously photographers can adjust the settings for their jpegs to be either closer or farther from reality. But I think they're generally judged by how generally pleasing they are, not how accurate they are.

PP is just an extension of the desire to make a photo more pleasing. And everyone has their own definition and criteria, whether or not you find it beneath the "dignity" of a Holga.

-Ray