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Over the last 5 years or so I have enjoyed using my CMC's and marvel at the ability, through scanning, to digitally "improve" the images that are rendered with my fleet of cameras. Dust & debris are a carry over from "them good old days", but with the computer I can clean up my act & present a finished photo (just like I did when in business) to you, my "client". I do have many gripes about some of the work presented currently in the forum that looks like it was produced from a neg put into the vacuum cleaner. Not even worthy of a newbie in my book. Surely those with the latest & greatest software can learn to spot??88881127_1k81-001-006cebcnpl-horz.thumb.jpg.8e8776aa4ebd17ff6f79e6a8af8984a5.jpg

The above aside, I consider it OK to remove various other parts of a neg that "detract" from a finished print. For years I paid some hefty billings from skill airbrush artist that "corrected" many scene "defects" which spoiled a shooting. Case in point are the two composites I offer. The church was from a road trip late 70's into Canada which until the scan/computer connection was just "blah" with all the power lines here & there, the boat more recent (2013), but still suffering from all the trappings of modern "clutter".

Any one else feel the same, or I am out on my lone wolf limb again? Bill

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Bill, I see no issues--and I am an ardent user of adaptive fill, healing brush, and clone stamp... :cool:

 

We little recognize just how cluttered our vista's have become with aerial lines, poles, signs, lights, and assorted distractions. I have spent hours looking over old photographs in various archives--and marvel at the presentation of "things" standing clean in their environments. When I was still limited to 'wet chemistry' much of the clutter was very laborious to remove or minimize--and whether accomplished at the easel or the retouching board never looked quite right. Digital has opened another world of possibilities--and a window of creativity and expression that is simply wonderful.

 

I have heard all of the arguments about authenticity & realism. Of ethics and deception. Bah. I am a 'fine arts' photographer--a legend in my own mind. If an element detracts, is out of place, or generally changes the impression I wish to convey in the print--it's POOF and out of here! In many of my own I take literally hours working through elements of the frame, including poofing things. The last several responses to Gerald C's Photoshop Challenge have seen automobiles vanish from the frame. I am not quite as careful there, as my goal is to see how much reinterpretation I can bring in a 15-30 minute session. Some things I have cleaned up for my own prints have taken more than an hour to get rid of wires--working with a brush at 4px in some places.

 

The shot below always bothered me. Shot on film, I did my best with it in the darkroom and with retouching brushes. It was never good enough to use and represent publicly. Wires (and a serious batch of them) from one end of the frame to the other, and across the building. Well... ;)

 

lean.jpg.015e16af9162b5bfdf3128d5e418db2e.jpg

 

Or this one. There were a number of car tire carcasses laying about the ground, and an old decaying mattress. Again, power lines from one side to another, and a particularly ugly diamond shaped road sign. Not really attractive. I fissed it!:p

 

reservoir-hill-barn-oblique1000.thumb.jpg.801a1fa2242042d140dbc23df5feab26.jpg

Edited by PapaTango

 "I See Things..."

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This discussion began some time in the 1850's...When I think back to the hours I spent in the darkroom, double-printing, printing in clouds, sloshing ferricyanide all over the place, attacking negatives with blocking-out fluid and etching tools, and the endless print spotting... Digital manipulation was a dream come true. Historically, photographers have used all the tools available to them. Go for it, I say!
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Rick, did you bathe today? PN just threw me over to another screen when I clicked the like button and asked me "Are you sure you want to like this post?"

 

Does PN know something I do not? :p

 

We have had many conversations about manipulation here over the years. I am reminded of the numerous Civil War photographs in which things were moved in and out of the battlefield as was seen fit. Or the Crimea photos. And I still think that Kent State photo (socially sad as it is) makes a more powerful photo with the post gone from Mary Ann Vecchio's head.

 

Now if someone had just edited Stalin out of history and pictures, things would have been a lot better... :(

 "I See Things..."

The FotoFora Community Experience [Link]

A new community for creative photographers.  Come join us!

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Rick, did you bathe today? PN just threw me over to another screen when I clicked the like button and asked me "Are you sure you want to like this post?"

 

Yes, so far as I can tell, I'm fresh and fragrant. PN occupies it's own unique slice of cyberspace, with the slogan "Expect the Unexpected". Thunderbird, my email application, constantly warns me not to access mandrillapp.com... Can you think of any current major US politician who might be better cloned out?

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I try to do limited digital touch up to my work. The power lines and the homecoming queen's pimples can stay, but if there's a spot or scratch (especially on an old negative I'm on that. I might boost contrast if I have an underexposed or flat negative. Mostly, just develop and scan with resizing for easier upload. Not a fan of sharpening.
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Personally, I think there are two different elements to this discussion: how I would like to present my photos, and the level of editing I feel comfortable with for my photos, and second what I expect of others. I prefer to judge those two independently, as my personal standard sure doesn't have to be anyone else's.

 

Remove dustspecks and similar: as far as doable, yes, always. Removing elements that disturb me: depends a lot on the mood. Sometimes I cannot bother, sometimes I can. I do not believe in the arguments of "purity" and "straight up photography", and have no issues whatsoever with editing a lot, but typically I am rather lazy :D.

 

What others post - I always assume they post the image the way they want us to see it. Whether that meets my criteria or not, doesn't matter. I'll judge it at its own merits. Sure, I do find dustspecks and all that very distracting, and often a pity to present an image that way, and that won't improve my impression of it. But that doesn't change it never was mine to decide how it would look.

 

And frankly - there are plenty "errors" that won't be fixed in editing either that detract at least as much (poor composition, poor focus, bad light etc.). Mine sure suffer from any of these too at times - we're all at different levels of competence, different (creative) views and hunting different objectives, so leaving a lot of leeway for others to post whatever they feel they ought to post to me seems the natural thing, as I know I need plenty of that leeway too.

 

 

___

P.S. I hope this discussion will stay in the CMC forum, to avoid any risk of this degrading to a digital-vs-film argument (are your dustspecks white or black?).

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The moderator is not going to interfere with this thread. Mr. Bowes has been around here for over 1-1/2 decades. I'm sure his intent is to get the opinion of people in this forum who he knows and respects. Most of the old timers here are willing to cut some slack even to the extent of allowing mention of (gasp) more modern cameras. I just sit back and let you guys run your forum unless things get a bit out of hand.
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James G. Dainis
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I concur with one's "cleaning up the picture" as an artistic vision. I hated negative spotting, dodging and burning, but find that things are much easier in the digital post processing world. IMHO, the key is to not significantly misrepresent reality, but rather to improve the image, and that may also include modifying the perspective as a tilt/shirt lens or back might do.
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As long as you're not presenting your photographs as evidence in court or as news in a reputable publication, I would say that you should feel free to edit them as you see fit to make them better. Photographers have been doing this almost as long as there have been photographs, to deal with technical limitations of the medium and to improve their images. The fact that it is easier now to do it with the advent of digital technology is irrelevant. Any photograph is an interpretation of what is photographed, not some Platonic truth.
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I've done, and still do, my fair share of cloning, healing and tone manipulation.

 

However a brush (sic) with Portrait Professional software made me stop and think "This is where I draw the line", and it's not to wire-frame someone's face and have a machine perform a virtual makeover on it!

 

So I think probably each of us has a line in the retouching sand that we're reluctant to cross. But to play devil's advocate: maybe we shouldn't beautify our pictures. Maybe we'd do a better service to society by exaggerating the ugliness inflicted upon us by advertisers, planners, unsympathetic architects and all the other authors of visual pollution making our world one big eyesore?

 

Maybe our line in the sand ought to (have) be(en) drawn in real life and not in our computers?

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Back in the spring, one of my great aunts turned 90.

 

My dad and I ventured out to the house where she was born and grew up with the intent of taking a picture to give to her. When we arrived...let's just say that the house wasn't in the best of shape.

 

I'd intended to wet print it, but decided that scanning it was the correct route. I ended up doing some cloning to take care of the overgrown foliage, and most importantly to hide the toilet on the front porch :) .

 

That's probably the most work I've ever done on a photo-usually my limit is adjusting the levels and curves and when scanning I fix dust and film defects.

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For this site, at this time, I like to stick to the original Classic Camera rules. I shoot the frame, develop the neg and load it into PS. I normally have to adjust the levels and clean up the dust. The dust because I live in a dusty environment, levels because I'm not very good at choosing the exposure and scanning settings, That's about it. I don't do editing people and other items out of the picture. The picture should stand on its own merit.
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"Altering the visual record since we found out we could"

 

An ad in the conspiracy-theory journal Paranoia:

Altering-Paranoia-7.thumb.jpg.48ae3300230048df26595e8a69e68bfe.jpg

Since I first saw this ad years ago, I have gaily edited out ex-spouses, waste paper, and unsightly power lines.

 

Something that is for crime-scene or scientific record . NEVER!

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Now if someone had just edited Stalin out of history and pictures, things would have been a lot better

 

Actually, it was Stalin who edited out the others (see The Commissar Vanishes_ by David King (1999))

 

Before Photoshop, there were air brushes, and before that people who were very skilled with knives and scissors (see LINK).

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