Even in the days of film photography there has always been a need to ‘develop’ your photographs – either by sending your film off to the local lab or in the darkroom if you had the knowledge and equipment. By dodging and burning, adjusting chemical mixes and generally ‘working your images there has always been the ability to create a final image that is often an improvement on the original taken.
There is a lot of debate among photographers about the use of editing software – one side of the fence is that you should capture the image in camera and the only processing should be to make the image viewable by your audience. On the other side there are those that believe Photoshop (and other editing software) have been developed to enhance your images and ‘distort’ reality creating an image that in some cases was not possible to achieve in the real world. The following images were taken by Steve of TipTop Photography on a recent trip to London – the first is what was taken in camera and the second images is the final image uploaded to his portfolio – which is the best shot?
Straight from camera
After CS5
I must admit that I am somewhere in between - I do believe that the skill in photography is capturing your image in camera. There is no substitute for basic knowledge and using your aperture shutter speed, ISO, Exposure Metering and White Balance to make the most of the light and composition that you have available. But there are certain things that Photoshop adds to the image. You can remove items that should not be there, distractions from the subject or unsightly elements of the shot, you can use it to enhance colors and exposure or you can change what was infront of the camera to create a ‘better’ picture.
Above all it is always great to explore new things that can enhance your photography, are new lenses cheating? Should people use lens-babies or filters? I guess that there will always be the purists and I take my hat off to these people. But I also dip my cap to the people who break the boundaries of creativity with whatever means they can.
If all else fails though – Photoshop can certainly make you smile:
**please note these animal pictures have not been created by TipTop Photography Ltd
The camera may not lie but the post-production editor can! But, ya know, truth be told maybe the camera doesn’t always see, or relay the truth either – not as it really is: so maybe I argue that a little post production tweaking lets the image show more truthfully.
Photoshop gets blamed for the misdemeanours of its users – cameras don’t shoot people, people do – Photoshop has the power to offer the benign enhancement, the satirical juxtaposition and downright deceptive. If we stick David Cameron’s head on a turnip we know we are ‘avin a laff but airbrushing women to a barbie-esque male-inspired fantasy just don’t feel good and leaves a legacy of insecurity and distorted reality in a generation of young people.
As a former teacher I’d have loved to teach photoshop to y9 pupils – get them to take photos of themselves, then post-production perfect their skins, flatten awkward features, liquify their imperfections and then they’d understand the falsification that floods the media and contaminates their perceptions of self, and of womenhood. Maybe we should think more kindly towards meeja-studeez, see the value in being media savvy?
As a photographer, my intention is to create images as I’ve seen them in my eye – and if they come off the camera just perfect it tells me I’m getting the whole composition, framing, ISO, F-stop, and shutter speed thang bang on target. If post-production I pull the contrast, the brightness, the gamma on an image then I offer it as I saw it, if I ‘airbrush’ the two telephone cables that hung in front off a beautiful white lighthouse against a clear azure sky, I offer the image as I see it, unspoilt. Would I airbrush wrinkles off a face-shot close-up of myself – not while I have a painting in the attic doing the ageing for me!
BTW – top shot is fave apart from the person in the foreground. Colours are typical Canon.