When to clip highlights/shadows, When not to?

I see that some photographers, most of the time Street-photographers, intentionally pump of contrast so much that highlights n shadows are clipped. I understand that they want the audience to pay attention to the shapes, lines, composition and story but NOT small details like texture of e wall, background and etc. IMHO, it works very well and I like it.

There are times when i increase contrast so much for e same purpose I mentioned above but they don't appeal to many viewers.

I'm confused. So in what kind of photos do we do pump up contrast.

It is a matter of taste, and individual interpretation on the part of the 'artist', the photographer's own interpretation of what looks right...there might be many definitions of 'right' from the same person!

If you posted some examples it might help to see exactly the kind of photo you are liking.

Sometimes, especially for street photography, it is unavoidable to clip when the scene itself is high contrast, for example strong sunlight raking across a partially shaded scene.

Wilt wrote in post #12097346
It is a matter of taste, and individual interpretation on the part of the 'artist', the photographer's own interpretation of what looks right...there might be many definitions of 'right' from the same person!

Absolutely, it's your image, your art, and only you can know how you want it to look. There are many artists out there whose work only appeals to a limited number of viewers. Many modern artists, such as Tracy Emin and Damien Hirst, produce art works that don't appeal to a wide audience but are very successful in the smaller group that does see something in it.

You don't have to appeal to everybody, indeed trying to produce something that has mass appeal (for the sake of it) takes away the artistic and creative side of your work. Shoot what you want and process it how you like it, don't worry about those who don't like your style.

There are no rights and wrongs about when to clip highlights and shadows during processing, it's an artistic decision. As the artist, that means that you get to decide, not us.

I would think it's better to err on the side of minimal clipping when possible, unless for artistic effect.

Hope u guys can enlighten me

1st thing 1st, this is an experiemental photo. composition is bad i know.

I actually posted this image 1st in our gallery and i recevied comments that its too heavily clipped. True tt its heavily clipped as i wanted to draw all the attention to the flowing water rather than the details on the rocks.

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Clipping and high contrast are not synonymous. There are countless ways to raise contrast while preserving the black and white points; an S-curve is the most basic and using "blend if..." limiters is another.

It might be interesting to note that after Ansel Adams became successful and started selling a lot of prints he realized that he could sell even more if he accommodated popular taste and in his latter years he printed much more contrasty (although, of course, he never clipped).

Ok, thanks for posting the example.

Often it is possible to darken tones to de-emphasizing them without clipping them. At the same time one can keep tones bright in the highlights. When well done, the photo has a rich range of clear tones and doesn't look murky and overly gloomy.

With your permission, I tried some edits to illustrate the technique. I can remove them all if you request. I used the lighter image as the start.

1: The original image

Very good work Monito... I prefer pic #4

Saludos,

awesome work Monito

ill sure try when im free! thanks

learncanon wrote in post #12115838
awesome work Monito ill sure try when im free! thanks

Thanks. Makes me feel it was worthwhile doing it to show you. Good luck with it.

Shooting with a polarizer would be the easiest way to knock down the glare and highlights on the rocks and save some PP time. If I had to guess by looking at the original, I'd say that a polarizer was not used (and they're usually mandatory for situations such as this)...