Judgement Day for Photoshop

[arthurking83]

users!

POTY Denmark discussion

the link above is to an article discussing the over use of Photoshop for manipulating images.

I for one am not a big fan of overly processed images, but as long as the information is available in a single image and can be processed out, without the use of external data.. then to me a photo is a photo. Otherwise just an image.

This Klavs fellow got hard done by in my opinion.

The processing is a bit extreme... but not all that unreasonable(IMHO)

where they talk about the chair(in the third example) about changing the colour to yellow!!.. I don't get it? I can't see the fuss, and as I've already said, I'm not a fan of overly processed photos... that to me looks more than acceptable.. very contrasty and saturated. but from my experience the originals are more than likely not representative of the actual scene at the time of capture.

Of course not knowing how this Klavs fellow processed his images.. whether he'd used selective color to alter a green chair into a yellow chair or whatever(highly unlikely! ) but the alteration of that yellow chair looks like simple dodging and burning techniques.

So(and this is the part that I can't fathom!! ) they voted out his images based on the fact that he's altered the colours too far from the original image.. yet it's quite acceptable to submit black and white images!!

Am I going insane or does that not make sense?

You can take an image with reds, greens, blues and yellows and make it black grey and white.. ie. massive and totally unrealistic wholesale changes to the colour scheme and it's ok... but if you saturate a little(ok!! a lot ) here and there and make colours more vibrant, it's not allowed.

Wrong!! they want their cake and they want to eat it too.

my sympathies are with klavs in this case, and while there are limits as to how much processing should be acceptable, there should be well defined limits and not random and arbitrary selection of personal preferences. ie. adding a totally different sky to a photo to make it look nicer or more dramatic should be disallowed... but pushing and pulling 'lost details' as Klavs seems to have done in his photos should be acceptable.
He got 'punished' for having the most capable sensor in DSLR circles!

curious on others thoughts too.. not just 'acceptable' limits on photoshopping, but of the inequity of that particular award(and how I perceive it's relevance as null and void!)

[ricktas]

I am wading through the discussion, but after a quick look at the RAW file and the resultant photo. He hasnt clone much out or added anything that changes the entire scene into something it wasn't. I think he has been harshly treated.

We have all seen, and probably done ourselves an overprocessed photo at times. It is part of the learning curve of working with digital images and manipulating them. We could all be guilty of it, I am sure.

Just how much processing is to much? Well that argument has been going on since before digital photography, even darkroom techniques pushed the boundaries at time.

The statement "Some years ago the committee behind the contest - which is identical to the board members in The Danish Union of Press Photographers - changed the rules of Picture of The Year. Photos submitted to Picture of The Year must be a truthful representation of whatever happened in front of the camera during exposure", is really what this argument is all about. When you take the above statement on blind faith, interpret it literally, then maybe Klav has over-processed the photos for entry into THAT competition.

He could enter the same processed photo into another competition and be lauded and applauded for his work.

I don't think we will ever find a solution to this discussion, that has been going on for years with Digital Photography, before that with Film photography and even earlier with Artists depiction of scenes. Take Leonardo Da Vinci's, Madonna on the Rocks. Leonardo painted two versions of this, cause the Catholic Church found the first version offensive.

All we, as digital photographers can do, is read the rules of competitions carefully and chose appropriate entries, based on those rules.

[arthurking83]

AH! as for Klavs' image, it's certainly over processed.. that's for sure.. but if they allow black and white images captured with a color digital sensor.. surely that's even more 'over processed' (that was more to the point).

Sure....fill up a roll of Ilford, scan the images it and digitise them.. but to capture an image with a modern digital sensor and convert them to black and white is much more highly processed than any over use of saturation and contrast.

I reckon 80% of what Klavs did with them images could easily be done with the onboard processing power of his D700.

Try it!

set the camera to Neutral -3 contrast and -3 saturation and ADL set to On, and then capture the same image with the settings Vivid +3 Sat +3 Contrast and ADL to off.. see how much different the image turns out.

His other issue is the use of ACR, which doesn't recognise the Picture Control processing.. yeah? had he sent in the RAW image and altered the in camera settings via ViewNX to something much more contrasty and vivid.. he'd have been fine!
(hence the title.. Judgement Day... )

.. anyhow.. if my images appear overly contrasty and overly saturate(yeah, I know they do) don't blame me! Blame Nikon and their in camera PC settings

I'm not trying to open another CoW's (Can o Worms) with a debate as to how appropriate the (over)use of photoshop is... it's more about the guidelines used to define over processed.

[Analog6]

I disagree. I am with the judges on this one. It was a PRESS photographer award, not an Open or Artistic award. To me a press photographer, by definintion, records facts. The first image, the landscape, is almost surreal in comparison to the original, and so is the second one of the woman in the slum.

I have long been appalled at the licence allowed professional photographers and the awards they win for massively photoshoppped/manipulated images. I have one in a magazine here where the original image was a very flat landscape of the White Cliffs of Dover. Once the photographer had added 21 photoshop adjustment layers and totally changed it from a flat landscape to a very oversaturated dramatic stormy one it won first prize in the landscape section. Frankly, to me it is cheating.

I feel many of the photographers on this forum are ghouing the same way, almost every POTW winner is , IMHO, oversaturated. I have been mentally compso9ing a thread about it for a week or so and am glad you have opnened a discussion on this topic.

[arthurking83]

...... It was a PRESS photographer award, not an Open or Artistic award. To me a press photographer, by definintion, records facts. ....

by that definition then B&W images should be disallowed.

.... I have been mentally compso9ing a thread about it for a week or so and am glad you have opnened a discussion on this topic.

Oh! I always do

the point is not really about colour as he hasn't really processed colour in there that isn't available in the RAW image data(from what I can see).

So if they wanted to make it a fair and reasonable comp(that made sense!) they should have stipulated only unprocessed RAW images only to be entered!

You'll be amazed at the difference the same unprocessed RAW file(Nikon for me, using View NX) can look like just by using the in camera picture styles.

[ricktas]

Interesting that competitions on AP have been brought into this. In the end our competitions are judged by the members voting. If enough members vote for a photo for it to win, then it deserves to win, whether others feel it is over processed or oversaturated is irrelevant.

[arthurking83]

See! I see that as another part of the issue with that 'issue' .. rather than making a fuss about it, they should have simply had a wider range of 'personal tastes' on the judging panel and simply dismissed those images.

That's what makes an award more relevant... what the wider community think of it.. or what the entire community of a specific community(in this case the Dutch photojournalist photographers association, or whoever?) thought of it.

[Pixel8tor]

I think Klavs got a RAW deal...

[Analog6]

Interesting that competitions on AP have been brought into this. In the end our competitions are judged by the members voting. If enough members vote for a photo for it to win, then it deserves to win, whether others feel it is over processed or oversaturated is irrelevant.

That's why I said in my opinion, Rick. I am not making a criticism, or I would have done it in individual photos, many of which are beautiful and attention getting, I am just asking what others think.

Black & White was the traditional tool of press photography, back in the days before newspapers ran colour photographs. This has 'hung over' into Press Photography awards.

Many small regional newspapers still use mostly B&W due to costs. So a press photograph, in order to be useful to the majority of publishers, and get wide dissemination, needs to be able to be converted to B&W.

I am totally with Tannin on this one, and I guess arthur and I will never see eye to eye on it. I am a journalist (BA) and Warwick's dad was a News Limited press Photographer for 30+ years until the early '90s, and this amount of photographic 'unrealism' would never beacceptable to a reputable newspaper.

You can throw in as many red herring technical fiddles as you like but a Press Photogrpahy needs to be represenatative of teh truth of the scene portrayed. I agree the first scene looks wonderful after PP, but he went WAY too far. The second one is not as bad, and the third one (with the chair) almost OK. But none are really TRUTHFUL representations of what he saw.

May be the rules do need to be changed, to specify more fully the allowable maniplation, but for this comp he entered so he accepted the rules as they stand. His work is not acceptable under those rules.

[ricktas]

Would be interesting to know if any of the Danish Press ran these photos before they were entered into the competition.

[arthurking83]

.....

Black & White was the traditional tool of press photography, back in the days before newspapers ran colour photographs. This has 'hung over' into Press Photography awards......

I 'spose it's just too easier to hang on to archaic traditions rather than allow them to evolve as society does... in 50 years time Klavs view of the scene will probably be deemed 'acceptable'

My point is, that they made specific points about how he changed this colour into that and that colour into this, using his original raw file, using the raw files as the basis of analysis.
Then the issue is the program that they used to display that raw file.
We all know that an original raw file is only a rough estimation of what the scene actually looked like, and I'm sure Klavs saw much more contrast than the RAW file reveals, especially in his aerial image.

I think we probably see eye to eye much more than you think Odille, I just hate it when they make the rules to fit a specific genre at the detriment of another.
it breaks the spirit of the rules in dictating how much contrast or colour you can add, where it's meant to really stop the phoney HDR's and layered fakes from distorting the real truth.

I think the rules should be specifically geared to state that the image must be processed form information available in the RAW file, and that's all I see in Klavs images.
Very contrasty, that's for sure, and I'd personally have toned it down by at least half.

B&W is still considered to be the artists photographic medium, and yet you are not allowed artistic expression in PJ photography!

Dinosaurs in a modern world!!

[occifer nick]

Any previous discussions about competitions for photoshopped and non photoshopped images?

Im new to this forum and DSLRs in general so im hoping that I dont overstep the boundaries. I was looking at the photo of the year (congratulations by the way, awesome end result of a photograph and one i would love to have framed on my wall) and came across before and after processing pics and didnt realise that it wasnt one photo that had been touched up. That got me thinking not only do you have to be a good photographer or have that artistic vision but it seems you have to be a guru on photoshop to merge different photos into one. Has there been any discussions about competitions for photoshopped and non photoshopped images? Just as a side note I am not thinking that my photographs are going to be winning any major prizes anytime soon so not thinking about this for my benefit but the general layman hobyist photographer who has no idea how to manipulate images in this way. On the other hand I am not saying that we cant make general adjustments like slight sharpness, white balance etc. Is that wrong of me to think that slight adjustments in areas of white balance are ok but not merging two images and adding 20 layers is too far? Again not having a go at the past winners as I absolutely love the photos and wish that I was capable haha I tried to search for the topic of photoshop and non photoshop comps but couldnt find anything. Probably my lack of ability with search engines so if you know of the link just point me in the right direction and ignore this little rant haha
Again, whatsthatbeeping awesome photo and enjoyed reading your post on the processing. I might learn something and be able to compete one year haha

[ricktas]

Any previous discussions about competitions for photoshopped and non photoshopped images?

Yes and we cannot do it. We have no way of knowing who has edited and who hasn't edited a photo. Even a simple thing like a slight sharpen is editing, but if done well, most of us could not say if it was sharpened in post processing or not. A member could do a levels adjustment, or slightly change the contrast and again we have no way of knowing that. Members could shoot in JPG and adjust settings in their cameras to increase saturation etc, this is processing! Therefore running a non-editing competition is fraught with the issue of having no way to prove a photo was edited or not, so we have not and never will run a 'no editing' competition.

[occifer nick]

Thanks for the reply Rick, I was just wondering thats all.
Cheers
Occifer