Photoshop filters VS lens filters

[Conk]

I had a guy in a camera store not to waste my money on a polorizing filter if I had photoshop.
I didn't think applying filters in PS was quite the same. I always thought that the least amount of editing to a photo the better.
Can someone help me out with this and tell me the pro's and con's?

[Roger_Cavanagh]

As far as a polarising filter is concerned, I don't this is 100% true. One of the main reasons to use a PF is to cut down reflections and it's would be too late in PS. You could, of course, use PS to get deeper blue skies that the PF gives. My assessment on the opinions that I ahve read is that a CPF is a must.

Editing images does cause reduction in quality, but then so does adding extra glass in front of the lens.

There has been some discussion on this topic on Fred Miranda's forum. One guy said that he had not used neutral density graduated filters since he learned the appropriate PS technique. OTOH, Galen Rowell's "Inner Game of Photography" arrived from Amazon this morning. One of the early plates was a sunset over Machu Pichu where Galen said he used 5 stops of ND grad, which even combining multiple images in PS I don't think you could get to work as well in PS.

Something seems to work well in PS. B&W filters for example, OTOH, the IR simulators don't produce the same effect that we see in Don Ellis' great IR images that he posts here.

Regards,

[Conk]

Thanks Roger. I thought as much. I kinda figured to filter an image inPS would be too late ecpecially with glare.
It seems to me that the guy in the store wasn't as knowledgable as much as he was trying to be. At least thats the impression he left me with. I'll listen to people with hands on experience before a retailer anyday.

[ken-w]

Conk wrote:
I had a guy in a camera store not to waste my money on a polorizing filter if I had photoshop.

The guy in the camera store is wrong - he is only thinking of the polarizer's effect of apparently increasing saturation (by removing scatter and glare). However, by removing glare in the original photo you see much more detail which post-processing in photoshop will not easily reveal.

An example is a photo I took a few weeks ago of a building with sunlight glinting off the side. Without the polarizer the side window was just a big glare spot - with the polarizer and the glare removed I could clearly see the curtains in the window. Photoshop could have helped to reduce the glare - but it would not have revealed the curtains.

A major goal of photography is to deliver the highest quality original to the post processing stage (i.e. wet or digital darkroom). So ... buy a polarizer :D

[Conk]

Thanx guys. I figured as much.