Too Much Photoshop? (news media related)
dreskieboogie
951 Posts
Its not often you get to see pro photographers raw files but here goes. Both interesting and kinda scary!http://www.pressefotografforbundet.dk/index.php?id=11708Peace,Dress
Comments
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_dynamic_range_imaging
Yeah but if you look at the examples provided, it's highly questionable that the photographer was adjusting "back" to what he saw originally. The contrast levels and color saturation are unlikely to be things he actually "saw" to begin with. That looks heavily post-processed.
That said, I do agree: it's a very slippery slope. Photography has never been just about the camera eye, it has do with with printmaking too so post-processing has its role. That said, I think "news photography" needs to strive for greater objectivity compared to art photography.
the article says the judges were careful to make a statement that photoshop is acceptable but that, "..this example is really extreme". i'm not sure what sort of message that is supposed to be sending. isn't all photography a manipulation of reality in any event? at what point (if ever) is it unethical to use this technology?
the cliche that "seeing is believing" lost its currency long ago...
Well, if a photographer photoshopped in, say, a crying baby into a picture, that would be unethical, no?
As noted - what we're talking about here is inherently subjective and it may depend on a judge's opinion (or several of them) to determine what's fair and what's not.
But if we're talking about NEWS photography, it doesn't make sense to me why you'd allow post-processing that, for examples, changes colors or jacks up contrast to the point where the physics aren't possible.
The main point I concede to the photographer is his argument that RAW doesn't represent a "real" image either and technically, he's correct. The only "real" image, one could argue, is how the photographer's visual cortex originally perceived the image but of course, that's an image we have no way to recover. Nonetheless, I would find it pretty suspect if two images - one taken directly from a camera, one post-processed - are so strikingly different as to literally look like night and day.
That said, I think the photographers went overboard with the saturation in these cases, but who gives a F*ck? It's like arguing that music created with an MPC or software is less legitimate than music created with analog synths and recorded to magnetic tape. If a competition is open to digital photography, they shouldn't be placing restraints on digital processing.
Well, again - at what point is a line crossed? If you're saying "there should be no line" then what's the point in awarding photography as a medium? Why not include CG images in the same competition?
Think of it this way - journalism and fiction both may use storytelling techniques and there's no real such thing as purely "objective" journalism. But in journalism, you can't invent people or quotes to suit your story because at that point, it ceases to become journalism.
So I think, in photography, if you're judging NEWS photos, there should be standards that establish what is allowable manipulation and what is not. To suggest that there shouldn't be ANY restraints on post-processing means that you're opening the door to images that are the photographic equivalent of fiction.
I agree with you, I guess I'm just narrowly defining digital processing as color correction, contrast, saturation, etc. I wouldn't consider adding elements that misrepresent the subject to be processing so much as photo manipulation, which should be judged in its own category.