Enhancing or Defiling: Post-Processing & 'Reality'

[LocalHero1953]

Hi Paul - I read the document and at first glance the definition looks rather arbitrary and inconsistent. While I understand why someone would want to set out the rules, but this really is an impossible mission and in my mind this document clearly shows how difficult this task is and how badly they have failed. Focus stacking is okay, but image stitching is not. HDRI is okay, but IR photography is not.

Hogwash from the highest levels, and in a true bureaucratic fashion, they have failed to avoid putting square pegs in round holes...

I can understand why they made most of the choices they have, for the reasons given by John 2. I suspect they'll have to revisit the IR one, though. I don't see why those who use IR to shoot wildlife at night should not be treated as bona fide nature photographers - I don't think the use of IR gives anyone an unfair advantage. In other forums I've seen the suggestion that such photos properly belong in a "scientific imaging" category, but I disagree.

[ajohnw]

I suspect all of the noises made by all in this area relate to how pp is used and how people tend to view shots. Those that love extreme PP look at it one way and those that don't might even come to the conclusion that none at all is the right way to do things.

I can sort of understand both points of view. A comment that I see from time to time is I just love the colours in that sky. Often it will be nothing remotely like the sky when the shot was actually taken. It might not even be the same sky or might have even have been applied with a brush.

The converse of that one is some one who happens on a wonderful sky and shoots it correctly. Probably more difficult to do in practice even if fairly minor augmentation is used. Then there might be some one who tries to make it as faithful as possible. Again not an easy thing to do.

When the subject crops up I am inclined to remember a video I stumbled on in youtube. Photo of a school. A very uninspiring shot in all respect. First thing that was done - slide the colour temperature setting about - yes that looks about righ - then saturation etc etc etc. End result nothing remotely like the original shot and apart from PP effects still had nothing going for it. The question being asked by some is if this is photography?

Silly examples but this is what the debate is about plus the fact that some have a belief that people are more inclined to judge a shot on the PP rather than anything else and too much can help in that respect. I sometime wonder if in many cases in photographic circles many like shots like this because they can't achieve it themselves and see it as a goal in life. Or maybe they can or can't buy it from Nik.etc. Another aspect.

Really it's all just trying to decide what photography is. It's changed rather a lot over time since it went digital.

Fortunately there are still some people about that do produce good photography from time to time how ever some one looks at it. Others in real terms may tend to go OTT. Tastes do vary in that respect. My own feeling is that it depends on the shot and shouldn't be used to make something out of nothing.

John
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[John 2]

............ I don't see why those who use IR to shoot wildlife at night should not be treated as bona fide nature photographers .............

That's a very fair point.

[LocalHero1953]

I'm a member of the RPS; what I like about their assessment process for LRPS, ARPS and FRPS is that it is based solely on the images as presented for assessment; it ignores both the kit used to take the shot and any post processing - unless, and it's a big "unless", you have clearly not used your equipment properly, have failed to use post processing where you should (e.g. colour balancing) or have used it badly (too much sharpening, obvious stitch joins). Manipulation of images submitted as nature photography to distort the truth is not allowed, but there is no assessment, other than the eyeball (edit: and the expertise of the judges in the category, who tend to be nature specialists and can spot fakes), of whether manipulation has been used.

Basically, if the image looks right, it doesn't matter what pp and manipulation has been done. I find it refreshing, after trawling through so many online forums, that the RPS, often seen as the old f4rts of the photographic world, take such an image-centric view.

[Venser]

Slight deviation from the topic at hand, but nothing grinds my gears more than a photographer telling me their image is SOOC. I don't give a sh*t. All I see is the final product. If it doesn't stand on its own, I don't care how it got there.

Donald and GrumpyDiver touched on this, but it's worth repeating.

[Mike Buckley]

If it doesn't stand on its own, I don't care how it got there.

Agreed. And if it does stand on its own, I also don't care how it got there.

[FootLoose]

Every hear of slide film? That's probably the closest one could ever get to SOOC. but then of course, one would select the film based on its characteristics...

Of course, Manfred, but I as far as I am aware slide film - like the various other media that Mike mentions - requires chemical treatment after exposure. I am suggesting that that treatment is "post capture processing". For the image to be SOOC then the exposed roll of film would have to be removed from the camera, stripped from the canister and put on display without any treatment. I don't think that is feasible, so where Bill said that all digital photography requires PP I am adding that film photography does too.

[Manfred M]

Of course, Manfred, but I as far as I am aware slide film - like the various other media that Mike mentions - requires chemical treatment after exposure. I am suggesting that that treatment is "post capture processing". For the image to be SOOC then the exposed roll of film would have to be removed from the camera, stripped from the canister and put on display without any treatment. I don't think that is feasible, so where Bill said that all digital photography requires PP I am adding that film photography does too.

Let's agree to disagree on that one. With the minor exception of push-processing, a reversal film, properly processed is just about as "pure" as one can get. No cropping, no changes in exposure, etc. It's probably even more "pure" SOOC than a jpeg; and with its very limited dynamic range of around 4-stops, a reversal film did not hide the shooters "sins" like a B&W or colour print film. Exposed film had a "latent image", that required chemical treatment to turn it into something that one could see; just like a RAW file has to be turned into a viewable format.

The only time one really had control was when printing using a reversal process like Cibachrome / Ilfochrome; which frankly did not happen all that often. I remember using a slide copy camera to duplicate slides onto print film for printing and this process was deadly on contrast; i.e. the copies were much more contrasty than the originals.

[Mike Buckley]

slide film - like the various other media that Mike mentions - requires chemical treatment after exposure.

Unless you limit photography by definition to the realm of images that are temporary, that's true of all photographic technologies prior to digital technology. That's because all of the non-digital technologies require a fixing agent to prevent the image from eventually disappearing. Considering that digital technology has already been persuasively eliminated as a "pure" SOOC technology in the above posts, what is the practical helpfulness of saying that the only "pure" SOOC technology is one used when the image is only temporary?

[William W]

Side-bar:

Hi Andre . . .

. . . For most reasonably intelligent people it is not difficult to distinguish between fact and fiction. However, most people tend to believe everything that is published and everything that is spread on digital media to be “truth”. People tend to trust that the news channels and publications will be truthful in what is shown to the world. This however, is fiction. The media spreads, mostly, whatever it or its owners and those controlling it wishes the world to believe. . .

That’s an interesting opinion and position to take.

It is your view, that it is not difficult for “reasonably intelligent people” to distinguish truth.
It is also your view that most people (i.e. the majority of people) trust “everything” that is spread on digital media to be “truth” – whereas you deem it to be fiction.

Ergo – you must consider the majority of all peoples to have far less than what you consider is “reasonable intelligence”.

Some might consider this to be an opinion that is being given from a very high pedestal.

WW

[Peeshan]

Peoples do believe what they feel the most comfortable to, but in the "mass" defense, most have little knowledge about photography or post-processing, and so won't always notice when something is altered - even if it seems obvious to someone who know what to look for.
The opposite is also true, the lack of knowledge can lead them to false assumptions that something has been "photoshopped" when there was no post processing involved, because they don't understand how it was achieved. (like the "moon-landing conspiracy", with people still arguing that the flag couldn't float on the moon, so it was staged - while anybody with functional eyes can see NASA anticipated the lack of wind and used a different pole.)

[William W]

^^^

But people do NOT necessarily require ANY detailed technical knowledge of particular topic or endeavour to question and then maybe interrogate, what appears on face value, to not be true.

WW

[AB26]

William,

You seem to keep reading whatever suits your own purposes in whatever I write.

Read your own words and tell me if you can make sense of it?

It is your view, that it is not difficult for “reasonably intelligent people” to distinguish truth.

Let me explain: TRUTH cannot stand on it’s own. You cannot “distinguish truth”. You need to distinguish truth from……..whatever!
There can be no thesis without antithesis and there can be no antithesis without thesis. Do you understand?

Some might consider this to be an opinion that is being given from a very high pedestal.

WW

Some? Whom might the some be - you mean YOU!

Get off your pedestal, William! If only you could read Afrikaans I could have explained to you in Afrikaans what I am saying.

Read what I write and try to understand from a positive point of view!

Kind regards.

[ajohnw]

Of course, Manfred, but I as far as I am aware slide film - like the various other media that Mike mentions - requires chemical treatment after exposure. I am suggesting that that treatment is "post capture processing". For the image to be SOOC then the exposed roll of film would have to be removed from the camera, stripped from the canister and put on display without any treatment. I don't think that is feasible, so where Bill said that all digital photography requires PP I am adding that film photography does too.

All digital images are post processes - numbers into images. This is akin to processing a film where a development regime might be chosen to enhance certain aspect of the results - only a few of them actually. This has a strong relationship to the camera curves used to translate the numbers in the cameras colour channels to images.

If a film image is printed dodging and burning can come into play. These have the same effect as the same adjustments in a PP package that might call them something else - fill light, highlight recovery etc. Colour film printing involves the use of colour filters, more or less equal colour temperature correction. Paper grades relate to contrast. Print exposure times are a form of exposure compensation.

Which film to use also had it's interesting aspect especially in colour. Many in the UK would use Ilford or Kodak. On the other hand if some one went to Europe in the summer that might switch to Agfa. The colour response of each varies according to the degree of sunlight that's about. Later Fuji started selling a lot of film. Balanced for even more sunlight so inclined to give more vivid colouration. This could also be achieved to some degree on the other makes by messing with development. The main reason that Fuji sold a lot of film here doesn't really relate to this area. It was balanced for Asian skin tones so tended to give people a bit of a sun tan. In the digital world these effects might loosely be related to chromaticity changes - vivid setting etc.

Some could argue that if people want to put themselves in the same situation as people who used this media all the needed settings are in the vast bulk of cameras and can be automatically be applied to jpg's. Many now even include a sort of dodge / burn facility via different tone curves. Sharpening is more or less a digital thing - mostly applicable to larger plate cameras on film as are other things. This is clearly more difficult to do than raw plus pp because people need to decide on the lot before the shot is taken. One odd aspect is that given the shooting conditions that many advocate it isn't that difficult either - other than deciding on the settings. Even HDR shouldn't be needed. In camera HDR from my experience so far isn't of much use when it really is needed and also has it's limitations anyway.

all in all I can easily see why people would prefer the raw plus pp route but does that mean that they should dismiss people who can use SOOC like this or people who think that more shooting should be done this way? If they do many are dismissing there ability to see and shoot a good shot because in real terms they have no idea what they are going to do with it after the button has been pressed and just worry about getting the exposure more or less correct.

Following on from all of this it's easy to see why some might feel that limits should be placed on precisely what PP can be used. RPS are still dodderers, as feeling in this direction are growing in some areas and have been for some time. I recollect mention of some ones winning shot being thrown out because they had used PP. If the rules state that it's fine by me. It just makes the competition more difficult to achieve any success in.

One odd thing about this thread is that many of the contributors do produce relatively straight images most of the time so in real terms all are saying they can't do it in the camera and don't want a harder life. Very understandable but on the other hand no one has the remotest idea if they could work this way and little wish to find out. Some have very fixed idea how things should be done too. Some are more flexible. Basically it takes all sorts so no one will see me getting excited about any of it. I sort of hope it spreads though. Maybe an ISO standard PP package will be introduced some day and of course if that happened all would feel they just had to use it and would look down on anybody who used something more capable.

John
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[AB26]

I'm not sure if I can believe this or not

How many people on this earth only buy a product because it is advertised? Some even believe the product has improved when the packaging changes, others stop buying the product when the packaging changes because they believe it is no longer the same product.

Ask Coca Cola to stop advertising and see how sales drop.

[AB26]

Mastering settings and understanding light are but two of the very basic requirements on the pathway to being a great photographer.

Failing in either one of the two, you fail to ever understand Photography.

[AB26]

The double standards in photography are rather astounding…

It is double standards we should avoid. We also need to understand what double standards mean.

Singing the praises and raving about images, posted by someone insisting to always do it SOOC, and then claiming SOOC is garbage, double standards or not? Just asking!

Is the work of those claiming to post/print SOOC garbage?

Where do we draw the line on double standards?

[Colin Southern]

How many people on this earth only buy a product because it is advertised? Some even believe the product has improved when the packaging changes, others stop buying the product when the packaging changes because they believe it is no longer the same product.

Ask Coca Cola to stop advertising and see how sales drop.

Hmmm. More digital stuff that I'm reading on the internet. Not sure if I can believe this either.

[Colin Southern]

Where do we draw the line on double standards?

For me, that's an easy one: I don't.

It is kinda fun to sit back and eat pop-corn whilst watching the entertainment though

(I wonder how many calories running around like a headless chook in ever-decreasing little circles burns?)

[Manfred M]

It is double standards we should avoid. We also need to understand what double standards mean.

Singing the praises and raving about images, posted by someone insisting to always do it SOOC, and then claiming SOOC is garbage, double standards or not? Just asking!

Is the work of those claiming to post/print SOOC garbage?

Where do we draw the line on double standards?

If the SOOC camera shots are as good as the ones that have gone through post-processing, I have no issue with your statement, Andre. The issue is that they rarely are and often could be improved with a touch of post processing, therefore the photographer is demonstrating one of several choices he or she has made:

1. They can't be can't do it in post, because they don't have the skills. In this case they should learn these skills;

2. They have no interest in post; in which case they should work harder to get it right SOOC; or

3. They are looking at SOOC from a philosophical or academic standpoint, in which case, they should also be looking to get it right SOOC.

Just to add to that statement, there is alway the "good enough" issue. If the image is good enough for my purposes, why bother with post. This is indeed the case most of the time for me, hence most of my images never see post. That being said, those images are generally not being viewed by knowledgable photographers.