I am new to NPN and relatively new to nature photography. My question is, how much creative license can you to take and still call it a nature photo. Can you add a catchlight to the eye, how much post processing in PS can you do?
This is about as sticky of a question as it gets. My preference is as little as possible. Slight color adjustments (more for white balance), cleaning up dust, USM, contrast, and sometimes cropping. Basically, adjustments to maximize the information in the file rather than serious PS work. I do a fair amount of stock sales, so I can't spend a lot of time on individual images. This is to get the image to about 97% right and generally means no more than 7-10 minutes.
Having said that, for my show stock, I spend a lot more time on specific images. This is means up to 2-3 hours (or more) to get the image up to 99%+ right. This will be attacking specific parts of the image, sort of the attitude to reach 99% right in the darkroom.
In the end, what is your goal for the image, and how is it being represented? That, I think, really should determine what you are doing to the image in PS. I have no problem with people doing heavy PS manipulation if it is for a specific effect or being done for "art's sake." My BW floral gallery comes under that heading, but I also don't pretend that the images are real and prints of these images in more show stock are clearly labelled as digital work.
Posted by Bill Chambers on July 27, 2008 at 10:57 PM
I have a pretty simple view on this. It's your image, and you can do whatever you please with it. You can turn that little bird purple if you want to. In the end you only have to answer to yourself.
Having said that, I find myself trying harder than ever to stay true to what I remember the scene actually looking like, but again, that's my personal choice. If you're talking photojournalism, accuracy takes on a whole new meaning, but with art, let your conscience and individual taste be your guide. Just my 2 cents of course...
I agree with the above statements. In your particular bird above, it looks like maybe a little too much of something was used as there is now a white line surrounding most of the bird. Also, there appear to be artifacts in the background spaces. Makes me feel like maybe the focus was a little soft and you over sharpened it to compensate. On the other hand, some of that may be due to the resizing for sending to this forum using 72dpi. Or maybe this is a close crop of a larger photo. I do enjoy the composition!
I personally feel that PS is simply the electronic version of the darkroom. People did not get upset with creative darkroom use trying to get the best out of their images after having selected a particular film for its particular effect and paper for its particular effect. There were many different films and paper for many different effects.
Many digital images need a little refinement after they have come from the camera and will be used as a print. They also may need a little different refinement for use on a screen. What you see is not always the way you remembered it in the field. The trick is to use just enough to get the right effect without it becoming noticeable. I have saved images that would not work as either screen images or prints. But, they may be perfect candidates for use with filters that will obviously not be confused with an attempt of photographing reality!
Thanks for sharing and keep those questions coming!
I agree with answers given. It's your picture. I like to keep the memory as I saw it and nothing different unless it became a kind of art ( and that is not my part of photography). Little adjustments oke (dust removing, little USM that kind of things), but thats it.
I think it depends on your goals more than boundaries set by others who may have very different goals. Purists may tend towards a more literal interpretation of a scene, while others may have greater appreciation of a creative end product regardless of the process that created it. I agree with Bill that, within reason, you're accountable only to yourself.
Photoshop is often a convenient target for critics of digital "manipulation", but long before PS, film choice was imparting radical changes to the presentation of a "natural" scene. Velvia is often used as an example, but B&W film is arguably the most dramatic manipulation of how things really appear in nature. Both of these are broadly-accepted forms of "manipulation". Whenever I come across someone shooting b&w and lamenting the extent to which PS is used to alter a scene, I chuckle.
I wouldn't hesitate to add catch-light in a photo. To me it's no different than removing certain elements via cloning and cropping. Adjusting color balance, saturation, contrast, etc. are all well-accepted and reasonable uses of PS. I personally wouldn't add tangible objects to my images, but with regards to controlling the presentation of light, I'll take reasonable artistic liberties to present the scene as I saw it in my mind's eye.
In this specific case what is the difference between adding a catchlight in PS or adding one with fill flash? Both can be argued to be artificial as that did not represent the 'real' light. The weird thing is nature magazines accept fill flash as a 'pure' and accepted photo technique but adding a catchlight is manipulation and is unacceptable. Huh??
Same magazines say using a grad filter to keep a bright sky from washing out is acceptable but taking two exposures, one for the sky, one for the foreground and blending them is 'manipulation'. Both techniques try to make a nature scene look the way the human eye sees it but one is considered 'pure' and one is 'cheating' - c'mon....
Obviously this is a sore point for me....
In the end I only consider a photo altered or manipulated if I add or remove content from the image that was not in front of the lens at the time I took the photo (e.g adding a moon, removing a tree etc). If you can replicate a technique in PS that is 'acceptable' in-camera, then I do not consider the image manipulated (the catchlight issue). Darwin
Posted by David Senesac on August 7, 2008 at 9:04 PM
Carrol,
Anything you do with a photograph is fine as long as you are upfront and honest about what you have done with your public audience. And that is the part where large numbers of photographers prefer to slither back into the shadows. Thus if you choose to create photographic art much the way graphic pros have been doing for advertising clients for years, no problemo as long as your audience is aware in some way that is what they are looking at. If someone creates a Frankenstein landscape from several images or animal in a natural setting image and doesn't explain such to their audience that is expecting something natural, then they are doing a disservice to our community because it continues to increase public distrust in what we produce in the photographic artform. Other photographers make an unspoken vague list of manipulations they see other peers tending to draw a line and as a community the result has been that over a few years those same photographers are now doing things that just a few years back would have produced criticism. This somehow provides for a rationalization that as long as they are doing what other pros are doing they can keep the public in the dark about what they are doing. Like the public ought to know the game going on. In reality there are already serious pros digititally replacing whole skies in landscapes because competition to make a living is considerable.
Instead one ought to realize this is all a slippery slope. That each person needs to become more open about what they are doing at least in some small ways with their public audience when presenting their work. So to ask what is ok or acceptable is really not going to provide a meaningful answer. Better to define the nature of your own work and be consistent to that style that you openly honestly communicate with your audience.
Discussion
9 repliesCarroll Breaux
Having said that, for my show stock, I spend a lot more time on specific images. This is means up to 2-3 hours (or more) to get the image up to 99%+ right. This will be attacking specific parts of the image, sort of the attitude to reach 99% right in the darkroom.
In the end, what is your goal for the image, and how is it being represented? That, I think, really should determine what you are doing to the image in PS. I have no problem with people doing heavy PS manipulation if it is for a specific effect or being done for "art's sake." My BW floral gallery comes under that heading, but I also don't pretend that the images are real and prints of these images in more show stock are clearly labelled as digital work.
Having said that, I find myself trying harder than ever to stay true to what I remember the scene actually looking like, but again, that's my personal choice. If you're talking photojournalism, accuracy takes on a whole new meaning, but with art, let your conscience and individual taste be your guide. Just my 2 cents of course...
I personally feel that PS is simply the electronic version of the darkroom. People did not get upset with creative darkroom use trying to get the best out of their images after having selected a particular film for its particular effect and paper for its particular effect. There were many different films and paper for many different effects.
Many digital images need a little refinement after they have come from the camera and will be used as a print. They also may need a little different refinement for use on a screen. What you see is not always the way you remembered it in the field. The trick is to use just enough to get the right effect without it becoming noticeable. I have saved images that would not work as either screen images or prints. But, they may be perfect candidates for use with filters that will obviously not be confused with an attempt of photographing reality!
Thanks for sharing and keep those questions coming!
Troup Nightingale
Photoshop is often a convenient target for critics of digital "manipulation", but long before PS, film choice was imparting radical changes to the presentation of a "natural" scene. Velvia is often used as an example, but B&W film is arguably the most dramatic manipulation of how things really appear in nature. Both of these are broadly-accepted forms of "manipulation". Whenever I come across someone shooting b&w and lamenting the extent to which PS is used to alter a scene, I chuckle.
I wouldn't hesitate to add catch-light in a photo. To me it's no different than removing certain elements via cloning and cropping. Adjusting color balance, saturation, contrast, etc. are all well-accepted and reasonable uses of PS. I personally wouldn't add tangible objects to my images, but with regards to controlling the presentation of light, I'll take reasonable artistic liberties to present the scene as I saw it in my mind's eye.
Same magazines say using a grad filter to keep a bright sky from washing out is acceptable but taking two exposures, one for the sky, one for the foreground and blending them is 'manipulation'. Both techniques try to make a nature scene look the way the human eye sees it but one is considered 'pure' and one is 'cheating' - c'mon....
Obviously this is a sore point for me....
In the end I only consider a photo altered or manipulated if I add or remove content from the image that was not in front of the lens at the time I took the photo (e.g adding a moon, removing a tree etc). If you can replicate a technique in PS that is 'acceptable' in-camera, then I do not consider the image manipulated (the catchlight issue). Darwin
Anything you do with a photograph is fine as long as you are upfront and honest about what you have done with your public audience. And that is the part where large numbers of photographers prefer to slither back into the shadows. Thus if you choose to create photographic art much the way graphic pros have been doing for advertising clients for years, no problemo as long as your audience is aware in some way that is what they are looking at. If someone creates a Frankenstein landscape from several images or animal in a natural setting image and doesn't explain such to their audience that is expecting something natural, then they are doing a disservice to our community because it continues to increase public distrust in what we produce in the photographic artform. Other photographers make an unspoken vague list of manipulations they see other peers tending to draw a line and as a community the result has been that over a few years those same photographers are now doing things that just a few years back would have produced criticism. This somehow provides for a rationalization that as long as they are doing what other pros are doing they can keep the public in the dark about what they are doing. Like the public ought to know the game going on. In reality there are already serious pros digititally replacing whole skies in landscapes because competition to make a living is considerable.
Instead one ought to realize this is all a slippery slope. That each person needs to become more open about what they are doing at least in some small ways with their public audience when presenting their work. So to ask what is ok or acceptable is really not going to provide a meaningful answer. Better to define the nature of your own work and be consistent to that style that you openly honestly communicate with your audience.
Pete D.
Guy