Photoshop Is Not Photography / Discuss

walter_bean says:

The problem with using the Honor System is that there are few honorable people anymore.

I don't like to use Photoshop but I will if I have to. Mostly I'll use it to brighten the shot up some. I'm still learning though and I'm sure I will use it less and less as time progresses.
Posted 54 months ago. (permalink)

zergtherobot says:

I agree fully, and I think their should be something stating whether or not the images are photoshopped. You can always check the exif data. But I dont care nearly enough to do that. BUt yes photoshop deffinately killed photography.
Posted 54 months ago. (permalink)

amjamjazz says:

Absurd.
Photoshop just made standard darkroom techniques available to all.

It may have killed off a lot of photographers who had too much invested in enlargers, glazers, dryers, toners, heaters, ventilation, timers, thermometers, etc etc etc... to make the change.
But it has been the liberation of photography. Making manipulations and accentuations accessible to all.

No Photoshop, no digital photography. No digital photography no Flickr. No Flickr, no Photoshop Is Not Photography Group.
Posted 53 months ago. (permalink)

zergtherobot says:

I disagree. You can have digital photography without photoshop, hence this group and every picture on it. I am also assuming you have a hardtime taking a good photoshop free image. And as I have said before, photoshop is handy. But the fact is it becomes graphic design and not photography.

Long live photoshop free photography
Posted 53 months ago. (permalink)

Mark Vogel    says:

Yay....I'm happy this group is around also! Recently someone had the nerve to leave a message on one of my photos saying something along the lines of "It's nice but you need to change the contrast and color saturation to make it art!"......A photo should appear as the scene looked in the viewfinder.....but I don't use a digital camera for my actual stuff....good old slide film! I like the idea about being able to mark them as either edited or non...also it should be able to list them as film vs digital...
Posted 52 months ago. (permalink)

jamalrob says:

With some of the truly gross examples of HDR and tone-mapping that can be found on Flickr, I can understand where you're coming from.

However, amjamjazz is right. Anybody who knows about real photography will know that Photoshop just mimics darkroom techniques that have been used for a long time.

The difference is that with Photoshop it's much easier and more open to casual photographers who have much less invested in their work and so have less incentive to be tasteful.

There is a school of thought that says what the viewfinder sees is the only thing that should appear in the final photo. I can respect that, but it's not a new idea: post-processing didn't begin with digital photography and Photoshop.

And what if I turn my picture into B&W in Photoshop - are you against that? Where do you draw the line? Personally, I often adjust contrast, colour saturation, and occasionally sharpness. I can see no justification for rejecting any part of the whole process as it has existed for a century.

The person who develops film, whether it's the photographer themself or somebody at a lab, makes decisions about how the final image should look. How is Photoshop different?

We all know that an un-post-processed photo is not a representation of what the human eye and brain actually see (when we look at the world around us our eyes constantly move, and we have binocular vision), which is part of the reason post-processing exists: a 2D image is supposed to convey information or evoke aesthetic appreciation. Failure to do so is user error. Perception and aesthetics are too subtle and complex for fundamentalism.

Considering all this, don't you think that post-processing has a place in both visual documentation and in the creation of a photographic work of art? After all, it did in the past.

Having a group for unprocessed photos is cool - just don't pretend that it exclusively represents true photography.

EDIT: sorry, that last line shouldn't really have been directed against the group, because the group rules actually say that it's not against Photoshop per se, only its over-use, which means that it's pretty much in line with my own tastes and techniques.
Originally posted 51 months ago. (permalink)
jamalrob edited this topic 51 months ago.

zergtherobot says:

I agree, I dont think photoshop is bad. I am a frequent user of photoshop. I also understand that post processing has been around since pictures were being developped. I just have beef with people removing this, adding that, changing another and calling it original, I still make the argument that you then are not a photographer but a graphic designer. I personally am just much more naturalistic when it comes to photography. I prefer more natural looking images of HDR and fashion like retouching.
Posted 51 months ago. (permalink)

charleswlyons says:

There's an old tongue-in-cheek joke:

Why do women wear makeup and perfume?
They're ugly and they smell bad.

If a photograph can't be appreciated without one "adjustment" after another, then what's the point?
Posted 51 months ago. (permalink)

jamalrob says:

zergtherobot, I see where you're coming from and I'm pretty much with you, although I'd like you to detail exactly where you draw the line between graphic design and photography, because I think you might find it pretty difficult.

charleswlyons: what you get out of a camera is the product of several factors, all of which are based on specific settings, which are either hard-coded or built into the camera lens and sensor / film, and these are the results of decisions that were made by people about how they wanted the images to look. A camera does not reproduce human vision. Neither does it produce anything with intrinsic purity or objectively representative faithfulness.

A good photographer has individuality, and this encompasses how and where the photograph was taken (including such "adjustments" as shutter speed, aperture and compositional framing), and how it was processed. To fetishize the "unprocessed" image, or the photographer's moment of capture, is arbitrary. It has no special claim on the crown of "true photography", but if that's your taste then fine. In general all you can say that matters is the artistic or documentary worth of the finished photograph, seen through the filter of taste. Because many have bad taste is not the fault of Photoshop.
Originally posted 51 months ago. (permalink)
jamalrob edited this topic 51 months ago.

Rhett Redelings    says:

I'd venture to say that it's not photoshop that is killing photography but the photography industry, by way of digital cameras, in combination with photoshop, that are killing photography. Craft is no longer required. It's all being made to seem easy so that everyone will buy into it, not just enthusiasts and/or serious photographers. You don't need to be an artist, you just need the latest and greatest gadget with the latest software and you're "good to go". No skill or talent required. And, what's worse, is that digital photographs don't actually look all that great, so you almost have to add a little something with photoshop.

But it's not just happening with photography. Everything modern consumer culture is about speed and convenience. When was the last time you sat down and listened to a CD (not an MP3)? And by "listened", I mean just listened, not doing anything else?

Photography, like any craft, takes time. Time to learn and time to do. Photoshop is an amazing tool. But it is not photography.
Originally posted 49 months ago. (permalink)
Rhett Redelings edited this topic 49 months ago.

zergtherobot says:

I agree,
but I have grown to love the argument that no tool will allow you to be great at any artistic craft. Has teaching people how to read and write made millions of great authors? No matter how many people call themselves photgraphers, artists etc, in the end the only thing that matters is the art itself and if you can only produce generic art that is the same as everyone else, then you will not be noticed and fade away. Its the creative thinkers who don't even have a box to step out of, they will pave the way to creative goodness.
Posted 49 months ago. (permalink)

jamalrob says:

Rhett, was the art of painting killed when acrylic paints were invented? You say that 'craft is no longer required.' Required for what? Taking a photograph? That's true, but it is required for taking a good photograph, as zergtherobot points out. Craft is not required to draw something with a pencil on paper, only to draw it well. Nobody complains about the affordability and ease-of-use of pencils.

And so it all depends on the discernment of those who judge the resulting works: they must be able to tell good from bad. And this is where there might be a problem, as you suggest in your complaints about 'consumer culture.' I sit down and listen to long pieces of music, both on CD and mp3, every couple of days, in just the way you describe - sitting down, doing nothing else. I do no other listening. I realize this is quite rare (though whether it's rarer than it used to be is questionable), so that maybe the ease with which you can produce some inoffensive wishy-washy music in Cubase is a bad thing in a world in which people can't tell the difference between good and bad music.

But really, it's not Cubase or pencils or photoshop or cheap cameras that are problems - it's bad taste.

But hold on: what are people so anxious about? I actually hadn't noticed any a problem with photography. Is there one? In what way is it being 'killed'?
Posted 49 months ago. (permalink)

sarendipityphotography says:

I NEVER use photoshop. I get so angry about the people that get so much credit for their amazing "photography" when all it really comes down to is photoshopping skills. That is NOT photography. I am in complete agreement with you, so I joined this group and a few like it because I'm so glad to know people agree with me. I want to tell everyyyyone, "Stop giving "photography" recognition to photoshoppers, please!" because it is just not the same.
Posted 42 months ago. (permalink)

jamalrob says:

sarendipityphotography, you are mistaken. Was Ansel Adams a true photographer? Who would deny it? He, like all of the great film photographers, developed his own photographs or employed people to do it. He had complete control over darkroom processing.

With digital photography, Photoshop is the equivalent of this, ie. it's your "digital darkroom."

Essentially:

1. Developing in the darkroom has always been part of photography

2. With digital, Photoshop is one of the best digital darkroom programs

3. Therefore, using Photoshop is part of photography


If you take JPEGs straight from the camera, you are the same as the film snappers who sent their 35mm cartridges to a high street lab. Is that what photography means to you?

If you take RAW files straight from the camera and do nothing with them, then that doesn't make any sense: RAW files are not finished photographs.

Different people do things in different ways, but if there's one method of digital photography that should be called "true" photography, it's taking RAW images and developing them in Photoshop or Lightroom, etc, to control contrast, saturation, exposure adjustments and sharpening. This maps perfectly to the techniques of professional artistic film photographers.

Read up on the masters of the past if you don't believe me.

You've got some great photos though :)
Posted 41 months ago. (permalink)

amjamjazz says:

zergtherobot Pro User says:
I disagree. You can have digital photography without photoshop.

Everything modern consumer culture is about speed and

Desolate Angel    says:

Also tired of the shopped photos sigh....Here's to photography
Posted 27 months ago. (permalink)

hookmeup11 says:

Photograpy we should net let become a lost art. we should stick to our gun and shun photoshop.
Posted 15 months ago. (permalink)