TO PHOTOSHOP, OR NOT TO PHOTOSHOP

I'm not really a big fan of photoshopping, I like my photos to be as natural as possible and try to make what comes straight out of the camera the final result.

CC on these two, first one is untouched, the second has a moody blues action run over it with some tweaking to the contrast.


http://farm4.static.fl​ickr.com …95967149_cb72c7​bb58_b.jpg

http://farm3.static.fl​ickr.com …96794574_93cc46​0477_b.jpg

I'm not sure on the B&W one, what are your thoughts? Too over done?

Thanks

i think both are winners. I would enhance the color version a bit to get a little more pop.

First one is ideal! Love her face..frame it~

I'm not trying to be rude here so please take these comments as being a bit subjective, but I know there's a lot of folks that feel this way and I really don't understand it. A lot of people seem to think of Photoshop as "cheating" and it's not. Long before PS was around, photographers and artists were enhancing and manipulating images in darkroom and in fact, most of the tools you see now a days in programs such as Photoshop were developed in the darkroom long before computers were even around. As an example, most people would never think of someone such as Ansel Adams as a "cheater" but lets face it, he invented half the tools and techniques that we now see in programs such as Photoshop.

I grew up with 35mm and spend many hours in darkrooms in my youth. Most of what I do in Photoshop I -can- do in a darkroom. The difference is instead of spending days working with scissors and noxious chemicals, squinting my eyes in that horrible red light until my head throbs, now I can knock out an image of comparable quality in less than an hour sitting here comfortably at my computer. The final results are essentially the same, but for me as the photographer and the artist, it's -MUCH- easier...and I see nothing wrong with this at all.

Even when you take your images in to a "lab" to have them processed (via film or digital) you can bet that -something- has been done to them in the process. Now a days a great majority of it is automatic, but there are still exposure/levels adjustments, saturation, contrast, etc., etc.. The final results may "look" as though nothing has been done to them, but to me at least, that's the hallmark of good processing .

To use another example, in the world of film, for years people used (and still use) films such as Fuji Velvia (particularly for portraiture such as what you posted) because it does NOT accurately represent "reality". Why? Because to most people it looks better! The way I see it, unless you are doing strictly a photojournalistic style of photography where you have a duty and responsibility to "document the truth" where your images should represent exactly what you see, then there is nothing wrong at all with using what ever tools are at your disposal to get the most out of your images. Once you get past photojournalism, photography in general is about "art" (in my humble opinion at least) and art isn't about documenting "the truth" it's about creating something beautiful or something that makes a statement.

Just some thoughts for you to consider.

Now to answer your question, I actually prefer the color version of the image you posted, however I also must add that I'm not normally fond of desaturated images. In this case the b&w version does seem to make the little girls eyes stand out a little more, but I think that's really the only positive aspect of the b&w. To me, the color version is much more lively and vivid and the little girls personality really shows through. In my mind at least, children are "colorful" and should generally be represented in color .

Just my $.02 worth!
Jim

I love the first one as I think the color adds more life to the photo. I think the B&W version lost some of that glow.

And that to me is totally unrelated to PS as I am always for taking a RAW image and personalizing it compared to allowing jpg to process it for you.

the b&w one seems too harsh, especially around the mouth

...maybe you should consider some light photoshop though? i mean, it's not like you're cheating anything, colors are relative in real life anyway.

Please don't so any skin smoothing! I say let it be....she is adorable!

Anyone that knows me knows I'm with Jim on this one. I do not like the camera making my post processing decisions for me so I shoot RAW. If RAW is not an option I turn off all in-camera sharpening, contrast, and saturation so that I can do it myself.

If you did no processing out of camera (i.e. download to computer, resize and post) then it would appear that you are shooting jpg using a picture style setting, and allowing the camera to do the post processing for you. The results are satisfactory, but don't think that there is no post processing going on just because you didn't do it yourself.

If my assumption is true, and you are in fact shooting jpg with a picture style setting, then I wouldn't do much in Photoshop at all. If you're starting your post work with an jpg image that has already been processed then you can easily do more harm than good in post.

JakPot wrote in post #5535890
i think both are winners. I would enhance the color version a bit to get a little more pop.

I disagree. Whatever 'pop' may be, it doesn't need any colour enhancing as it's quite natural as it is.

Yea.. I don't think photoshop is cheating or anything else. I love photoshop..

however.. above 1/2 of the pictures are shoot wrong in this forums.. The exposure is off, the lighting is wrong.. and those are things that can't be fixed in photoshop.

It is great that.. mercersmoments.. post an untouched verison of his image, that way I know what and how he is shooting so I can make a good and fair judgement on it.

p.s. the photo looks great.. btw

Roy Mathers wrote in post #5536739
I disagree. Whatever 'pop' may be, it doesn't need any colour enhancing as it's quite natural as it is.

I didn't say to do any "color enhancing." I would just play with the color version for a little more contrast. Here would be my edit: (slight curve adjustment so it doesn't look as flat)

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I still prefer the original. For one thing, it has more detail, especially in the eyes. A case of 'less is more'.

mercersmoments wrote in post #5534657
I'm not really a big fan of photoshopping, I like my photos to be as natural as possible

Photoshop can sometimes enhance the natural look of an image. In this case, I would at the very least remove the square catchlights from the softbox and just leave a more natural looking single round catchlight in each eye.

Of course, this is my personal preference. However, I always find a single catchlight more natural and more effective in my view.

Roy Mathers wrote in post #5537489
I still prefer the original. For one thing, it has more detail, especially in the eyes. A case of 'less is more'.

to each their own, I could have masked off the eyes after the adjustment if I wanted to spend more time to get it right. Just an example of what I was referring to when I commented. Not talking about messing with colors.

I understand what you mean about not messing about with colours and I didn't mean to imply that you were going to. All I meant was that I didn't see anything wrong with the original (and I still prefer it) - I suppose on the principle of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'.