just curious

[txfirebug]

Is this a board for showing off what the Canon cameras can do or what you can do with post processing ? I do post process, but only to crop and get the picture down below 100 KB for posting.

[lefturn99]

Both. Depends on the situation. Do you mean you consider post processed pictures less valid or something? My goal is to use the tools Canon and Adobe have given me to make the best picture. I admit that as my photographic skills have grown, I have used less "agressive" post processing, but most pictures can be fine tuned.

In my opinion if you NEVER post process, you are leaving something on the table.

[Bryan Bedell]

I agree, people shouldn't be posting photoshop collages or and presenting them as GX photos, but many of the tools in photoshop are based on those available to darkroom photographers when making prints, such as color balancing, channel mixing, contrast and level adjustment, sharpening/blurring, cropping, resizing, tinting, dodging and burning, etc...

I would think just about any film photo you see in an art gallery or coffee-table photography book uses at least some of those tools, so I don't know why digital photographers shouldn't take advantage of them. In my photo classes in high school and college, we were never graded by our negatives, we were graded by our prints.

I'd say rpolitsr's clown/soldier shot, for instance, where he 'faked' the depth of field, would be a very difficult effect to pull off in a darkroom, so that's maybe beyond what I'd choose to do for a challenge, but it certainly did improve the photo, and he was honest about it, (and he was kind enough to share his technique with us in great detail) so in a case like that it'd be up to the judge, I guess. The judge has some flexibility, so maybe they should make their stance on postprocessing clear when they post the challenge.

B.

[lefturn99]

Now if we are talking contest, that's a different story. I didn't read the initial post that way.

Txfirebug, so you would rather let the camera's processor make your decisions for you when it processes a JPEG? As Bryan said, post processing has been used since Matthew Brady. I'm sure all of Ansel Adams beautiful pictures were PP.

Even in a contest, I'm thinking "global" adjustments are acceptable.

Txfirebug, there is a certain amount of pride in looking at a perfect out-of-camera shot. The reality is that not all will be perfect, and even the perfect ones can be made "more perfect".

[txfirebug]

I do admit, I sometimes use PSP's unsharp filter on my shots. You make some good points, I was just curious as to how much post processing most are using. We had a similar discussion in a Corel newsgroup and it was finally decided to create a new group for those that were going heavy on the processing. I never really thought about it but when I go to a photography site I have always assumed the photos were right out of the camera. This explains why theirs always look so much sharper and clearer than mine, I am going to have to learn some of the techniques.

[rpolitsr]

The initial question of this thread has been answered in the previous posts, in my opinion, but I will put the things this way:

From the very beginning, light tricks, optical filters and chemical products were among the tools for post processing film in the dark room, and skilled photographers used them to their limit.

Now, the darkroom is a computer, and the tools are the countless programs that in one way or another can alter the original digital data. Digital photographers will certainly use those new tools to their limit.

Of course, if you enter a contest, you must carefully follow the rules.

I am quite new to this forum, and I participated in the last 15 POTN speed challenges during this year (2005). About post processing the rule is simple:


4. Post-Processing -- do whatever you like and the host will decide if it works.


If the rule changes, some post processing may be forbidden, but the control of whether a picture adders to the rule or not will be a very difficult task.