Over-Photoshopping

[Gardenarian]

Of course I am opposed to the kind of Photoshopping that is done in women's magazines (women skinny-fied and de-pored) but now I'm seeing this done all the time in landscape photography.

It seems that taking a photo of a rainbow is no longer enough! It has to be turned into a triple rainbow, with an enormous crescent moon over a turquoise ocean and a forest of flaming pink trees. Maybe the photographers feel that their photos don't convey the true beauty of what they saw, and so they enhance them? Take a look at the photos on the Pinterest (http://pinterest.com/) home page. What is real, what is Photoshop?

Will people start being disappointed in reality? Because they'll never see sunsets as spectacular, forests so green, water so blue, as they've seen it on the Internet?

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y75/readaboutit/moon.jpg

Or a moon this big...

[creaker]

Will people start being disappointed in reality?



Definitely - look how much advertisement is completely separated from reality. Basically just eye candy in situations that would never happen in real life.

[Tussiemussies]

That's a reallly good point. I have noticed a lot of photoshop done on Facebook. But you are right a lot of people may expect to see these amazing scenes in nature itself.,,very sad...

[SteveinMN]

Here (http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/photoshop-and-photography-when-is-it-real/) is an interesting article by David Pogue, a technology editor at the New York Times. His question is how image manipulation, sometimes using tools like Photoshop, fits into journalism and even art given the relative manipulation of photographic subjects from, err, the time the first photo was ever taken.


...photography has never been strictly a “capture reality” art form. It’s never been limited to reproducing what the eye sees. From the very beginning, photographers have set up their shots, posed people and adjusted brightness and contrast in the development process. So although you may think that some line has been crossed, it might not be so easy to specify exactly where that line sits.

As a professional photographer, I generally choose not to adulterate the image as taken too much. First, my interest is in the picture, not in spending hours in "post" making the colors look deeper or brightening the sky or removing clouds or pores or telephone lines. Certainly the shots I use as fine art offer more leeway for "artistic license". But I really don't like to add or subtract that much from a picture. As Pogue says, timing and composition are part of the skill of a photographer. If you can substiture for that with Photoshop, then IMHO you're not much more than a software jockey.

[CathyA]

I agree! My DS is a post-production person and is used to "photoshopping" alot of things in films.
But sometimes he sees a picture I've taken and says "Do you want me to fix that for you?"......and I say "No! Then its not the picture I've taken".
Then he says it will make the color better, but it still won't be the picture I took.
I'm not sure where a happy medium is. I do use photoshop, but usually to crop something or get rid of red-eye, etc.
But so often pictures that are photoshopped are just plain unrealistic and imaginery.
Its a very curious thing......to be able to change images like that.

[iris lily]

I read a wedding site, and many of those brides are obsessed with having their wedding photos "blogged" which I think means: showcased on the web by either their photographer of major wedding sites. It's all so competitive and commercial, things must be perfect and then some.

[peggy]

Funny you should bring this up. I do love photo-shop, for those family pictures where I didn't see the garbage can in the background, until I view it on the computer. But, the proliferation of photoshopped pictures bites us in the butt, too.
We just happen to be happily situated where we get the most spectacular sunsets and sunrises. I'm talking rippling blood red, or orange/blue/aqua mixed with pink and green, and all other color blends in between. Really beautiful sun action. Yet few, who haven't been personal witness to them, believes we haven't photoshopped the pictures of them. I guess we just need to have everyone here to prove these are true pictures.
Photo-shop is a blessing, and a curse!

[JaneV2.0]

I don't think anything beats nature, and I never fail to be impressed by it.

[Wildflower]

My DD is a professional photographer. She does alot of weddings and most brides want photoshopping done so that everything looks totally "perfect."

She took photos of me and DH this past summer in a beautiful outdoor setting. We loved them! Then she asked if we wanted anything fixed and I said no, as I want to look at them in 20 years and remember us just as exactly as we were, not something we weren't. She gave me lots of kudos for that, as she said most older couples want to be literally botoxed in their photos. ;)

[SteveinMN]

My DD is a professional photographer. She does alot of weddings and most brides want photoshopping done so that everything looks totally "perfect."
That is one reason I don't do weddings and portraits. There's really good money in that kind of photography, but I have a hard time distinguishing how much you can "take away" from an image (i.e., "clean up") and leave the subject's nature essentially intact.


she said most older couples want to be literally botoxed in their photos. ;)
There actually is software (http://www.ononesoftware.com/products/perfect-portrait/) available (http://www.portraitprofessional.com/) which (http://www.arcsoft.com/portraitplus/) pretty much makes a personal computer a "retouching toaster". Like most automatic or one-size-fits-all options, its success is variable. But it sure is quick. :(