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katbel

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Aug 19, 2009
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I just admired the photos in this contest
International Garden Photographer of the Year
I'm asking till what point a photo is still a photo when clearly several got "some" work on photo apps.
Is this the norm? Or does still exist a photo competition where a photo must be just
the creation of the photographer and his/her camera apparatus?
I'm curious to know your ideas
 
I think it just depends on the competition, I was curious also (after looking at the photos myself) and found the IGPOTY master rules and found this rule.

"4.4 Post-capture processes by software such as Adobe Photoshop is allowed, except for the purpose of claiming an artificial subject to be natural. All shortlisted entrants will be required to declare the extent of any post-capture techniques used. Digital manipulation is allowed. We will ask shortlisted entrants for details of the manipulation used. You are not allowed to claim a subject to be unmanipulated if it has been."

So it seems for IGPOTY basically anything goes as long as it is addressed upon entering. I did see that the following is the only thing not allowed..

"4.5 For the avoidance of doubt - IGPOTY does not accept any images of taxidermied animals, or that have been photographed using live bait, no captured animals, nor use of animal models."

I think it just boils down to the competition as I have seen some that no manipulation can happen, and some only basics can be done and usually is specified.

Edit: https://igpoty.com/igpoty-rules/ Figured I should add the link from source
 
You'll get a wide variety of answers here. I tend to take a fairly liberal view of editing. Every photo ever taken has been edited. It's just that for most of history, photographers didn't see the editing because they sent their photos off to a lab to be processed, so someone else edited for them.

Every decison you make about a photo before you click the shutter button affects the end result. Your choice of settings (long or short shutter speed), your aperture (shallow or wide depth of field), your ISO (particularly with film - do you want grain or not)...your choice of lens and body. Are you adding a filter over your lens? Everything adds up to a specific artistic choice by the photographer. You can put two people in the exact same spot and give them the same gear, and they will each approach the scene differently.

Those of us who shoot raw MUST use editing apps, as the native file is largely unreadable by non-photographers. Lightroom and other raw editors are the digital companion to an analogue darkroom...and decisions happen in both areas that impact the final image. To say darkroom editing is allowable and digital editing not would not hold the same standards. There is little done digitally now that couldn't be done by a skilled darkroom photographer, it just takes way less time now.

As long as no one has broken the rules of a competition (which does happen, and people have titles revoked), then to me, anything goes.
 
The winning image has what seems to be a bokeh overlay on it, but the photographer stated they are raindrops (she could have used a spray bottle), which indicates it was done in camera. Her choice of white balance is artistic, but it isn't an inherently difficult frame to get (assuming you can find the butterfly).
 
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Some types of photography are considered as art (in which case anything goes, except plagiarism), whereas others like photo-journalism are expected to accurately reflect reality. The latter is an impossible goal, as the mere act of cropping a photograph can alter its content and meaning, by taking a portion of the scene out of context.
 
Thanks for all the interesting answers, links and point of views.
cthompson94 I checked the contest you mentioned, but even there, nonetheless the rules , "art modification" is happening
There is at least one photo in their album , under Intimate and Abstract, that has the rain drops looking a little too artificial. Just an example to show that probably image editing it's too hard to keep it out once you have the tools and the capacity of doing it.
And editing well is an art too.
Fascinating!
One more question: why would you use expensive lenses like lensbaby velvet when you could have similar results with an app, if you are able do it?
Is it a challenge to do it just with the camera, I suppose?
 
Are you talking about the drops on the fall leaves looking too artificial? The second photo on the page you linked? Those don't look artificial to me at all.

One more question: why would you use expensive lenses like lensbaby velvet when you could have similar results with an app, if you are able do it?
Is it a challenge to do it just with the camera, I suppose?

Why would I use an app when I can do it in camera faster?

I guess part of it is the challenge, but it's much cleaner and faster to do it with a lens. I have yet to find an "app" (speaking in terms of a mobile app, not full Photoshop or Lightroom) that masks well and looks natural for this type of thing. Apps tend tend to get smudgy edges and weird halos. Sure a lens costs more money, but there is value in spending time with it and getting it right in camera, rather than fussing with editing it on an app. At least to me there is. That also puts it closer to pure photography, spending time with the major tools.

I recently picked up a vintage Fuji lens (and film camera body) that has a remarkable similarity to the Lensbaby Velvet line. It's actually quite uncanny that they render similarly. If I tried to get the same look in post processing it would be difficult and look very artificial.

Also with the Edge line, I've never been able to replicate that look in Photoshop. You can approximate, but the blur patterns never are the same. And it's fun to look through the lens and frame what you want through an oddball (whether LB or vintage) and know how it will turn out before you even take the image.
 
Are you talking about the drops on the fall leaves looking too artificial? The second photo on the page you linked? Those don't look artificial to me at all.
I thought they looked artificial because I was browsing photo apps tutorials and they were just showing how to make drops bigger and colorful. Maybe it's just a coincidence.
I guess if you are a master of the app it would be difficult to spot the difference.
Why would I use an app when I can do it in camera faster?
Good point, money wise and out of Adobe kingdom. ?
I guess part of it is the challenge, but it's much cleaner and faster to do it with a lens. I have yet to find an "app" (speaking in terms of a mobile app, not full Photoshop or Lightroom)
I was referring to full computer apps/programs.
Challenges are what make our life interesting and more fun, most of the time and in what we like to do.
 
By the way, this logic applies to all lenses, not just specialty/fun lenses. People will choose a camera brands based solely on lens selection. It is rare that someone has only a single lens forever. Clix Pix switched from Nikon to Sony because at the time Nikon didn't offer a lineup that suited her needs. It's no different than choosing a "fun/odd/specialty" lens rather than do it in an app. Accomplishing what you can in camera is nearly always better.

Some people swear by Leica cameras/lenses because of a look. Others like the creaminess of Canon lenses. Most "looks" can't be replicated in post; there are unique qualities to each lens and brand that make people loyal to them.

Otherwise we'd all be shooting at 35mm f/8 and then adding blur in post. Lenses are probably the most single important thing to the end result of an image. Telephoto? Macro? Ultra wide angle? These can't be done in "an app."
 
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I was referring to full computer apps/programs.
Challenges are what make our life interesting and more fun, most of the time and in what we like to do.
I really enjoy editing, but I'd rather get my base image right in camera from the proper selection of body and lens and then just "enhance" (btw I hate that word in this kind of conversation) than to "fix" or "substantially alter."
 
I just admired the photos in this contest
International Garden Photographer of the Year
I'm asking till what point a photo is still a photo when clearly several got "some" work on photo apps.
Is this the norm? Or does still exist a photo competition where a photo must be just
the creation of the photographer and his/her camera apparatus?
I'm curious to know your ideas

I think when it comes to competitions they fall into the category of :

"My competition, my rules"

Personally, I am not good enough to sell my images so I don't get hung up on whether it is pure out of camera with nothing more done to it than Ansel Adams could have done in his darkroom.

Equally, I don't do composites in terms of fundamentally changing the image. For example, I have no issue removing branches or litter or man made items from images in the interests of improving them. I suppose the easy way of saying it is that subtracting from the image I think is fine

I do think however that adding something that fundamental changes the image that wasn't there in the first place is a different case completely.

Hope this makes sense
 
I tend to think in terms of "digital photographs" and "digital art."

To me, a "digital photograph" is something that the photographer shoots and then sits down at the computer and edits very lightly, with minimal adjustments needed (which they are if the image has been shot in RAW, as Molly has explained above). The rules around some types of photography -- forensic photography and photojournalism -- out of necessity are quite strict and require that an image not be altered at all, but in other kinds of photography that is not the case. Wildlife photographers usually do minimal post-processing and editing, and ditto for landscape photographers.

Someone can shoot a scene and then in the editing phase clone out an offending twig or branch or an object on the ground which wasn't noticed at the time of shooting. Ideally the photographer positions himself and the camera so that everything is perfectly composed but sometimes that just can't happen. There are situations where the scene is otherwise fine, but offending object(s) cannot be physically reached in order to be removed at the time of shooting.

An example of that: the other day in editing one of my shots of geese on the ice, I did a bit of judicious cloning-out of the turds that these messy birds had so generously been dropping everywhere on the ice -- those particular "souvenirs" just did not add anything attractive to the overall image and were visually distracting, so away they went!

In shooting birds, especially a small one in a tree, sometimes the photographer just couldn't get close enough and so will need to crop the image a bit to make the bird more prominent in the scene. Some birds have dark eyes and dark faces, and at times, especially if there are no catchlights in the eyes, a photographer will make an adjustment during editing by raising the shadows a bit, separating the eye more clearly from the face.

In shooting portraiture, sometimes the photographer will use retouching tools to gently, lightly, delicately "smooth" the skin or "brighten" the eyes and teeth, while still not changing the overall essence and appearance of the individual. Perhaps there is also the need to smooth out wrinkles in fabric or clone out a spot somewhere.

However, removing moles, freckles or other distinctive characteristics of a subject or "slimming" someone down or enhancing other areas with "airbrushing" is really going beyond the norm in retouching, and would be unacceptably altering the subject too much.

Someone can produce artistic looking images while still doing minimal editing during post-processing. Much of that depends on the subject -- flowers and foliage often lend themselves to artistic imagery, and so do some abstracts. It's more about the lens used, the light and surrounding environment and the photographer's approach to the subject. "Fast" lenses (f/0.95, f/1.0, f/1.2, f/1.4, f/1.8) and macro lenses lend themselves well to this type of endeavor, particularly because of the very shallow DOF.

Props are occasionally used in macro and tabletop work. Sometimes the artist will add something such as a few strategically-placed water drops to enhance the overall scene, or use a mirror or highly-reflective surface underneath the subject. Sometimes a sole water drop itself will become the subject, as they are highly reflective, too, and that can be a fun project. (Usually a mixture of water and glycerin is used when shooting that kind of image so that the "water drop" sticks around long enough for the photo to be created!) Usually the photographer's goal in choosing such a lens is to create a specific effect involving light, colors, shapes and softly blurred background.

Moving on to "Digital Art,".... It in my opinion, intentionally goes above and beyond the norm in post-processing, and includes use of filters, devices to create special effects, total removal of elements of the scene and addition of other elements to the scene (swapping in one sky for another, for instance). The editing app Luminar has a sky-swapping feature (which I've never used) and I think a few other programs do as well.

Composites, while intended to be interesting and usually do result in creating the effect desired by the artist, are another example of this going to extremes, and again are something I consider "digital art." Setting an animal, person or object in a scene in which it never was at all, on a wholly different background or with extra elements in the scene, suggests strongly that an image is a composite. The image may appear to be realistic or clearly unrealistic, but in either case while whatever was initially shot merely forms the base of the final creation, while much was done in the editing/retouching process to create an illusion.
 
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OK, I finally got around to actually looking at the images in that International Garden Photographer of the Year competition..... I'm sure no one here will be the least bit surprised when I say that there were only a few to which I really connected -- I love the first-place abstract of an amaryllis, both because of the shapes and the colors.

IMHO most of them were way, way overdone -- excessive retouching beyond simple editing, and several were loudly shouting "HDR, HDR!" (Overdone HDR is another pet peeve of mine.). Yikes!

Well, that competition allowed "digital manipulation," and, boy, they sure got it!
 
I thought they looked artificial because I was browsing photo apps tutorials and they were just showing how to make drops bigger and colorful. Maybe it's just a coincidence.
I guess if you are a master of the app it would be difficult to spot the difference.

I agree with Katbel that those "raindrops" looked artificial because first of all they seemed strategically placed, positioned just-so, and the rest of the leaves were not wet or damp at all the way they would be after an actual rainstorm. Also those "raindrops" were a bit larger than sometimes we see in nature. Were they pure water or were they a combination of glycerin-and-water? The latter is my hunch. I don't think this was done via a feature in an editing program, but I suppose it could've been.

DXO has a filter pack that I have bundled with my PhotoLab 5 and a couple of times just for kicks I tried the water drops filter to see what would happen. Not realistic, and one would have to be sure that the "drops" wound up positioned precisely where needed, and that doesn't always work out well in a pre-"baked" filter program.

In the end, in this image did the "raindrops" enhance the image for the better? That is going to be up to the viewer; obviously for the artist that was the case or the drops wouldn't be in there.
 
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So where would you sort the application of LUTs in? I mean one can easily dramatically change the viewers impression of a photo by that, still on pixel-level the photograph is completely unaltered?
 
I agree with Katbel that those "raindrops" looked artificial because first of all they seemed strategically placed, positioned just-so, and the rest of the leaves were not wet or damp at all the way they would be after an actual rainstorm. Also those "raindrops" were a bit larger than sometimes we see in nature. Were they pure water or were they a combination of glycerin-and-water? The latter is my hunch. I don't think this was done via a feature in an editing program, but I suppose it could've been.

DXO has a filter pack that I have bundled with my PhotoLab 5 and a couple of times just for kicks I tried the water drops filter to see what would happen. Not realistic, and one would have to be sure that the "drops" wound up positioned precisely where needed, and that doesn't always work out well in a pre-"baked" filter program.

In the end, in this image did the "raindrops" enhance the image for the better? That is going to be up to the viewer; obviously for the artist that was the case or the drops wouldn't be in there.
I like to ask something of the opposite: can the knowledge/educated guess of a certain kind of image processing make a picture… worse? ?
 
So where would you sort the application of LUTs in? I mean one can easily dramatically change the viewers impression of a photo by that, still on pixel-level the photograph is completely unaltered?

If I can take your meaning as colour grading, then I think that is fine. Like I said - if Ansel could do it in his dark room, then it is acceptable this is just my feelings though. I mean skilled film photographers applied “LUTs” when selecting their films right? We just do it after the fact now rather than at the time.
 
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Were they pure water or were they a combination of glycerin-and-water? The latter is my hunch.
Does it make it less real if they were glycerin? If so, how is that different than styling a portrait with a specific look or props? Particularly since the category was Intimate and Abstract, not Pure Nature. By the way, I'm not arguing with you....just wondering out loud.

Aren't LUTs more normally used with videography and cinematography rather than still photography?
You can buy LUTs for Lightroom for color grading.
 
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Aren't LUTs more normally used with videography and cinematography rather than still photography?
I am not sure - most RAW/DAM programs include his function. And it seems that there is a market for presets - which include LUTs to produce a certain look.
I personally have extracted the LUT of a photo taken some interval into the “golden hour“ more or less (???) at the same spot as another, applied it to the other, and I like it much more... “color matching” photos seems to be quite common, or isn’t it?
 
As a mediocre nature photographer, I felt many of those were a bit overcooked. Sometimes it worked better than others, like when the goal was to be more abstract. Personally, I don’t like oversaturated natural environments, as I aspire more to the ”what you see is what you get” approach. When it comes to natural settings and wild creatures, the last thing I’d want to do is to make the ”real thing“ seem underwhelming or less appreciated in real life, as that’s the real beauty to be taken in. Would that grasshopper be as appreciated in the wild if it’s not really that bright green? However, it‘s personal and philosophical and up to the wielder of the camera.

If they followed the rules for the competition, then it’s no harm, no foul. It really comes down to the judge(s), which is why we all call winning the weekly contest here a burden!
 
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If I can take your meaning as colour grading, then I think that is fine. Like I said - if Ansel could do it in his dark room, then it is acceptable this is just my feelings though. I mean skilled film photographers applied “LUTs” when selecting their films right? We just do it after the fact now rather than at the time.
the “Ansel“ point is one carefully to consider - thank you for that.
 
I felt many of those were a bit overcooked
This is exactly what made me wonder if this is the new norm.
It's fine to me if those are the rules for that contest, but when I want to see beautiful garden or landscape pictures I'm looking for the real thing, the one I see and make me wish to go to some places because I saw the photos.
I love art and admire the work done but I think the label "photographer" is misleading.
Art photography would be more appropriate .
Maybe I'm just naive.
 
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Does it make it less real if they were glycerin? If so, how is that different than styling a portrait with a specific look or props? Particularly since the category was Intimate and Abstract, not Pure Nature. By the way, I'm not arguing with you....just wondering out loud.


You can buy LUTs for Lightroom for color grading.
In my opinion (for whatever that's worth), it makes things less real, less genuine, that the "raindrops," whether pure water or water-and-glycerin, were applied to the leaves. In other words, what would be "real" or "authentic" and the scene reflecting what was reality at the time would be actual rain drops and if the photographer had taken the shot very soon after a rainstorm. It looks to me as though that is not the case here, and that indeed the artist "styled" the photograph by adding something in that wasn't really there in the first place in order to achieve a specific effect. That's fine, it is always the prerogative of the artist to do whatever they are going to do with their image.... And, yes, sometimes something like adding a few "raindrops" or doing something else prior to shooting the image does make for a more interesting and compelling image.

DXO PhotoLab 5 includes LUTS but I will have to admit that I've never bothered investigating just how I would use that function (feature?). Somehow, somewhere along the line I did get the distinct impression that they were more related to videography and cinematography than to still photography. Interesting that this isn't the case.
 
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