Does Photoshop affect Photography?

It's a tool to "develop" your digital images. Think of it as a darkroom for film.

It can make a good picture so much better, and puchier, but alot of people really dont know how to use it and end up with bad looking pictures. I say think about the light and subject rather then spending time with photoshop to make a bad picture better. So much terrible photography out there these days.

All these washed out effects ++ you see often in portraits are getting really old. I think its refreshing to see pictures with minimal photoshop work, and good attention to details and light.

Like my contact: http://www.flickr.com …artisticasianin​fatuation/ Look through the galleries. Many beautiful portraits..

Gatorboy wrote in post #11821135
It's a tool to "develop" your digital images. Think of it as a darkroom for film.

This is the most correct statement anyone could come up with. Those who shot film had to develop (no pun intended) their darkroom skills over time. They practiced, failed and practiced some more. Then they honed their craft. The same is true for Photoshop. Most people can't just pick up PS and create magic. It takes time to learn your way around PS and to learn what does what. Unfortunately, people have turned to PS as the cure for poor photography. The concept of, "I'll fix it in post," is crap. What separates a pro from an amateur (besides their ad on Craigslist) is the fact that they get the shot right in camera and can produce the same results time and time and time and time again. The amateur will will take a crap photo and beat its brains in through PS. If you're using PS to enhance your photos, that's one thing. Using PS to cover your inadequacies is another.

Photoshop changed the photography game forever. You must learn it or you cant compete in the industry.

And Asyin2leads-- you are 100% correct. Once you get it right in the camera, photoshop is your friend and will enhance what a good photographers skills can get to print. while i am continually WOW'd at what some of these guys can do with photoshop ( actually im jealous and need to spend more time on the graphic and painting side of PS), the best work is accomplished with a great lighting. And thats where the photographers skills come into the mix. I know enough to get by, and i would rather spend and extra 5 mins getting the lighting right and paying attention to the small details, than 20 mins fixing it later in photoshop.

Gatorboy wrote in post #11821135
It's a tool to "develop" your digital images. Think of it as a darkroom for film.

Right. It doesn't do anything that we couldn't do in a darkroom or by farming it out to a pro lab. The big difference is that it doesn't cost an arm & a leg & we get to see the results right away, instead of in a week. And we don't have acid fixer fumes to wake us up in the morning.

PhotosGuy wrote in post #11821773
Right. It doesn't do anything that we couldn't do in a darkroom or by farming it out to a pro lab. The big difference is that it doesn't cost an arm & a leg & we get to see the results right away, instead of in a week. And we don't have acid fixer fumes to wake us up in the morning.

Oh, you know you miss it, Frank.

PhotosGuy wrote in post #11821773
Right. It doesn't do anything that we couldn't do in a darkroom or by farming it out to a pro lab. The big difference is that it doesn't cost an arm & a leg & we get to see the results right away, instead of in a week. And we don't have acid fixer fumes to wake us up in the morning.

I'll have to respectfully disagree with that statement. One that drove me nearly insane back in my pro lab days was prints from internegs, a spot of dust or something imbedded in the slide emulsion was black on the print, impossible to spot. If you wanted to spend a lot of money to have it airbrushed it could be done but it was still visible. That's just one of many I can think of. As Damphyne and I are fond of saying, digital set me free.

Acid fix? Pffft, that smells great compared with Cibachrome bleach. Never found anyone who liked the smell of sulphuric acid. I've never suffered a skin condition from color chemistry using photoshop either. Screw the old days, long live digital and photoshop!

I get it so right in the camera, even the dust spots remove themselves by the time I open the image up on my PC.
Photoshop is a cheater's tool. I want to keep things genuine. That's why I stick with MS Paint.

Agreed. As someone that started out digital I have to (embarrassingly) admit that my original workflow was "shoot shoot shoot shoot, pray over my camera, then fix it in post". Thankfully, I had a few people smack me back in line and teach me to let Ps be a tool for tweaking, not a crutch that allowed me to suck at the camera level. It's more personally rewarding, and I'm not spending hours and hours and hours trying to turn a turd into a silk purse.

Hmmm.... I only did a single photo course in grade school where we did our own developing, but I have a very different view of Photoshop than is represented on this thread. Perhaps it's because I missed the subtleties, but I see TONS of stuff in photoshop that I believe was not available before it (or similar digital process). Virtually all of the filter tools, for example - sharpen being a big one, but turn something into a "watercolor" or other such things. How about actions, allowing processing on many photos at once? How about tools to make a gallery or web site? All very handy tools that have changed photography.

Dave

alabama1980 wrote in post #11822347
Agreed. As someone that started out digital I have to (embarrassingly) admit that my original workflow was "shoot shoot shoot shoot, pray over my camera, then fix it in post". Thankfully, I had a few people smack me back in line and teach me to let Ps be a tool for tweaking, not a crutch that allowed me to suck at the camera level. It's more personally rewarding, and I'm not spending hours and hours and hours trying to turn a turd into a silk purse.

Believe me, that attitude didn't start with digital photography. One of the reasons I had to leave the lab was trying to fix errors made by professional photographers. People who shot film and sent it to be processed were probably unaware of what we did. Sometimes people who persisted in that practice were given a contact sheet of their latest debacle and asked not to come back. The contact sheet resembled a chess board.

So often people will comment, I shoot Raw because I can correct exposure problems so much easier. That just seems like a lame excuse, getting it right in the camera should be given to anyone who wants to be called a photographer.

nicksan wrote in post #11822250
I get it so right in the camera, even the dust spots remove themselves by the time I open the image up on my PC.
Photoshop is a cheater's tool. I want to keep things genuine. That's why I stick with MS Paint.

And that's why we're not worthy to be in your presence, Nick.

nicksan wrote in post #11822250
I get it so right in the camera, even the dust spots remove themselves by the time I open the image up on my PC.
Photoshop is a cheater's tool. I want to keep things genuine. That's why I stick with MS Paint.

Is that you Ken?

PhotosGuy wrote in post #11821773
Right. It doesn't do anything that we couldn't do in a darkroom or by farming it out to a pro lab.

Did you ever apply an unsharp mask in the darkroom? I never tried it, but reading the procedure makes it sound like quite a chore...

-js

In my opinion, saying that Photoshop is cheating, is like saying $20,000 worth of top end camera gear and glass is cheating. Cameras are computers with sophisticated software installed. The more you spend, the better they work, just like the more you spend on glass the better it performs. I believe photographers should use all the tools at their disposal to achieve the image they want. The measure of a good photographer is the quality of the finished product, and the judgment of their work should not be mitigated by what tools they used to achieve it. That's just my opinion.