OK, this is a fake. It wasn't "shopped" -- I used a very simple bitmap editor that I obtained in 1996.

The interesting aspect, is the summary of reactions that I've received. 1) From mere outdoors people who've been up Lady Mt, or know of the climb: amusement, as they know that a house cat would be unlikely to make that climb. 2) From photoshop users: harsh criticism that I didn't use the obvious features of photoshop to make the cat look more real in that position.

For many people, photoshop manipulation is an obvious step in photo processing.

David Senesac wrote:penninsula >>>"Reread what I have said as appears you have missed my point in what I would characterize as a defensive reply on your behalf. I never made any demands regarding the only path to successful photography."

David ...You should not have used the term "mandatory":

penninsula >>>"Especially if we are talking about art as opposed to photojournalism, manipulation on one level or another is mandatory."

David ...If you didn't really mean mandatory which is what you now seem to be hinting at I can accept that.

I agree, point taken, poor choice of wording. Replace "mandatory" with "inevitable".

So you don't believe looking through cutouts is the same optically?

Correct, they are not the same, helpful perhaps, but not the same. Lens optics, long or wide, do manipulate the reality of what the human eye sees.

You need to study your optics basics. And why resort to an ultra extreme l4mm lens to make a point? Hardly bears on usual 99% of photography.

I know my optics well, thanks anyway, and I know what I am talking about when it comes to their use. I shoot with a 14mm lens (among others), and that is why I use it is an example. Extremes make it easier to understand. I'll digress. When I look through my 2:3 aspect-ratio cutout and then look through my 14mm lens, the two "realities" don't come close! I'd have to put that card well behind my eye, as inside my brain, to come close to seeing what I saw looking through the lens. Likewise, when I come home from a landscape shoot, I am impressed by the telephoto compression in my long-lens compositions, impressed enough that I'm am selling most of my long lenses. They are not my cup of tea when it comes to landscapes, not that they can't be used effectively, but they fail to convey what it is I feel emotionally when shooting a stunning landscape. While the cutout may have helped in assessing graphic elements, the reality of the long lens was far different then the reality of what I saw looking through the cutout. In both cases, long or short, reality is not being reproduced, not even close. I do find the wide angle lenses more effectively convey my emotions for me. That is what I mean when I say the photograph is more about me (my reality) as opposed to someone else's reality. Simply said, the term "manipulation", when it comes to photography, is vastly overrated and and even pointless. That is my opinion as a photographer. You are entitled to your own.

As for the term manipulation its obvious you dislike the term and in order to feel less uneasy about it want to smear its meaning to include every process and creative decision made during capture. That an overgeneralization of the term that a few people tried to push long ago but really doesn't have much a following. We photographers don't use the term like that.

David, I'm not trying to "smear" anything. I am a photographer and "we" photographers are entitled to our opinions. I don't give a hoot whether I am in a minority or a majority when it comes to my interpretation of the term "manipulation," nor my effort to communicate how meaningless it is to use the term in the first place.

Manipulation in photography has considerable history of discussion. NANPA is arguably the most important organization of pro nature and landscape photographers. Kenan Ward is a most prominent photographer speaking in behalf of that organization:

http://www.nanpa.org/committees/ethics/manip_con.php

One could spend all week reading web essays and web discussions online on these issues. The subject is especially explored at the university level today for all involved in media. More general guidelines:

http://asmp.org/tutorials/21st-century-worries.html

http://www.nppa.org/professional_develo ... ation.html

http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester ... ions1.html

http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/r ... _truth.cfm

I'll check the links out, thank you, but for now, it is time to go have a beer.

I don't think this image was taken recently. Looks like to old Glacier Point firefall, a henious practice that was stopped decades ago.

butitsadryheat wrote:

radson wrote:you could read all that... or get the summary from david pogue...

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/photoshop-and-photography-when-is-it-real/

Of course, your answer may be something like, “It depends on the purpose of the photo.” If you’re a news photographer, you (and your audience) would probably be O.K. with tweaks to the color and contrast, but that’s it. On the other hand, if you’re an advertising photographer, you and your audience would probably have no problem with anything on the list above

.

Great link, with common sense questions. Good little read. Thanks

I agree, a nice and easy read, and well said, too. The question at the end of the article goes to the heart of my debate on the subject of manipulation: "What is reality". My answer: Reality is defined by the individual, and one individual's reality is as unique and different as is the next individual's, and it is also a fleeting moment in time.

For me, it is the primary reason I love the "art" of landscape photography; it is uniquely "me" and my medium of choice for communicating the feelings and emotions I experience when standing before an overwhelming scenic vista. I struggled for over 25 years to get a photograph that did the trick, and I finally got one while visiting Lake 11,092 in Kings Canyon two years ago. Whether anyone agrees with my opinion on this particular photograph is not important because for myself, it succeeds in conveying the essence of the excitement I experienced when standing before this remarkably beautiful time and place. Equally relevant is the fact I could never go back and do it again because my reality at that point in time will never again happen. Reality is as fleeting a moment as is the light of day.

Anyway, I get a tad warm under the collar when someone tries to tell me I should or should not "manipulate" a photograph. For starters, as the above article explains, we manipulate by default with the camera. Our choice of how we manipulate continues into the darkroom, be it digital or film, but manipulation, on one level or another, is inevitable. The objective is to have a finished photograph that comes as close to "my" reality as possible. There is no right or wrong to one's choice in how they choose to accomplish this objective. It is the freedom of expression using photography as the medium, and it is a remarkably challenging endeavor, creating a composition with a camera that conveys the excitement experienced while shooting whatever it might be that has us so excited in the first place.

If one becomes accomplished enough using photography as a medium for communication and they can develop this skill into a unique style while managing to do it while they have an audience that is ready to receive them... they become ambassadors to goodwill.

MoapaPk wrote:

Great shot, Moapa. I can't believe that house cat climbed all the way up there!

cp0915 wrote:

MoapaPk wrote:

Great shot, Moapa. I can't believe that house cat climbed all the way up there!

+1 except the mountain holding that cat up looks pretty fake.

On a wall at the school where I work, there is a picture of the girls' field hockey team. The lighting is perfect; the sun is on the players' faces and the skies are dark, like a thunderstorm. You might even look at it and wonder what they were doing so exposed in such conditions.

The other day, I found out from the coach that there had been clear blue skies that day. The photographer, someone who works at the school, had photoshopped the picture and put in that awesome sky to create a dramatic setting. Now I look at that picture and see not a great picture but a total fake, a deception.

I really don't care what people do with their pictures for themselves, nor should I. But I do think it is wrong when people manipulate photographs after the fact and then sell them or share them with the public while passing them off as authentic. David Senesac's view sounds good to me-- that people are free to do what they want but ought to be honest about it.

To me, it's not about purity or what constitutes manipulation; it's about craft with the camera vs. craft with the computer.

The reason I think this is that there is a vast difference between craft with the camera and in the darkroom and "craft" with a computer. Defining art is a subjective thing, I realize. Personally, I do not think color photography is an art, but reasonable people can disagree. It strikes me as completely absurd, however, that photoshopping images is an art. I have all the respect in the world for those who know how to work their cameras and work in the darkroom. They can use all the filters and techniques they want, for what they do takes real talent and skill. It does not take great talent and skill to change colors and skies with a computer; it takes some clicks.

Yes, I do digitally crop my pictures to compensate for the limits of my lenses or for careless compositions. So I am not 100% pure myself in that regard. But what you see of mine, whatever you think of it, is what I got when I pressed the button. Do all my shots accurately represent the actual conditions? No-- in fact, I often use exposures that will produce darker skies because I happen to like dark skies and a lot of contrast, and I used a polarizing filter for a lot of my film shots. But that's what I do before shooting, not after. I don't adjust colors, change skies, or add or remove objects. To me, that's just gimmickry and trying to fool myself as well as others.

Now, I do have two or three pictures here where I did play with the colors a little. The reason: the reprints I scanned were inferior to the originals I had, and I adjusted colors to approximate the originals. But I explained that in the caption.

So that brings me back to the point earlier-- It's your camera, your computer, your vision; do what you want with them. But if you're selling it or sharing it and you've changed it after the fact, just please tell us.

With the computer, we can all be Ansel Adams now. And I just don't think that's right.

With the computer, we can all be Ansel Adams now. And I just don't think that's right.

A computer does not make art, it is the person applying the computer, and doing so effectively is a skill no less technical nor artistic then mastering the dials, buttons, and filters on a camera. No one can be Ansel Adams just as technology cannot replace the genius behind it.

Don't get me wrong on the point of manipulating a photograph to the degree it represents deception. I agree that there are limits to effective manipulation, and outright fabrication to point of deception is not for me. But I don't agree there is a difference between manipulations accomplished in the camera as compared to those in the computer.

Are you referring to this one?

You had many nice ones from that trip if I recall. Hard not to in a place like that, but hard to capture as you see it. You did a great job.

Thanks butitsadryheat! Yep, you got the one. You ought to see it in a 20x30 print!

butitsadryheat wrote:

peninsula wrote: I struggled for over 25 years to get a photograph that did the trick, and I finally got one while visiting Lake 11,092 in Kings Canyon two years ago. Whether anyone agrees with my opinion on this particular photograph is not important because for myself, it succeeds in conveying the essence of the excitement I experienced when standing before this remarkably beautiful time and place.

Are you referring to this one?



You had many nice ones from that trip if I recall. Hard not to in a place like that, but hard to capture as you see it. You did a great job.

Thanks butisadryheat! Yes, that is the photo. I have printed it half a dozen times and worked several renditions as I learned to use Photoshop. Mastering Photoshop is no easy task. Adjustment Layers are a wonderful editing tool, but knowing what adjustments to use, the correct order, the correct implementation... it is all very complex. I'll paste the latest rendition and my favorite from the same file:



Is one more "correct" then the other? For kicks, can you find the rock I cloned out of the second rendition?

ontheslope wrote:Some photographers can capture an image better than what it looked like in real life without using software, the manual setting sure comes in handy.

I have done two workshops under highly successful landscape photographers, and I have studied several others; they all use Photoshop, whether scanning transparencies from view cameras or shooting digital. Photoshop has replaced 99% of wet darkrooms. The same is happening with digital sensors replacing film.

Ansel Adams, were he alive today, would have bought every edition of Photoshop and mastered it like nobody's business. He more or less said so when he foresaw the development of digital photography. Ansel Adams was a visionary. It was his ability to extend those finely tuned skills, 120-hour weeks, and no vacations, beyond the camera and into the darkroom that ushered in the new age of photography.

If you want to talk about the cream-of-the-crop digital cameras, the cameras used by increasing numbers of successful landscape photographers, the ones that cost $25,000 and up (their Hasselblad or Lieca lenses not included in that price), they are designed with intentions for a Photoshop workflow, not unlike film was designed for the chemical darkroom. The image sensors, the really good ones, do nothing in the camera but capture raw data. It is the sensor that makes those cameras more expensive, and the bigger sensors are far more expensive. Forty-five megapixel sensors are common in the highest level of professional photography. These amazing pieces of technology are computers in themselves with their own internal software. The best sensors capture the highest range of light, exceeding film by 6 stops. But with all of the tens of thousands of dollars that go into these sensors, they mandate the use of the very best lenses and a high-tech digital darkroom. The digital darkroom starts with RAW conversion software. These RAW-converted files are then exported to Photoshop for fine tuning... color cast removal, dust artifact removal, tonal adjustments, color adjustments, and whatever else deemed necessary before sharpening the image for output (there are as many digital workflow schemes as there are photographers). This is how it is done. The best in the business are most all doing it this way, even if they use film. No one makes a secret of this methodology. It is not "wrongful" just because these manipulations are accomplished outside the camera.