dm brown Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 Maybe I have missed it somewhere, but I would really appreciate agallery option dedicated to unmanipulated photos only. I fullyappreciate the skill and time it takes to digitally manipulate imagesand some people can create stunningly beautiful images that way.However, I am keen to try and develop my camera skills, not myPhotoshop skills and think that at least one gallery dedicated to'original' images could only help me become a better photographer.<P>I'm sure someone has mentioned this in the past, but I haven't seenany mention of it and I can't find a gallery. I'm interested to seewhat everyone thinks. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HuskyMason1 Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 Agreed.I have always thought that it would be an excellent category. I like to digitally manipulate most of my images but the one I enjoy the most are those that I don't touch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keith_laban Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 The problem here is that some people, myself included, don't agree with the distinction and therefore refuse to make the declaration. Not all images that are marked as manipulated/unknown are manipulated and I dare say there are more than a few images marked as un-manipulated that are anything but ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bdpics Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 An enthusiastic second to that idea! BD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guyscrivner Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 Only what you see with the naked eye is un-manipulated. All else is manipulated to some degree. The lens, filters, design of one film vs another,and color correction at the local Walmart lab and dark room burning and dodging are all examples of manipulation. It was Ansel Adams who said that great pictures are not taken they are made. One of the very first famous photographers used two blended exposures in the darkroom to overcome the cameras inability to record the extremes of brightness. That was in the 1800's. Perhaps it is just me, but I dislike this move toward declaring if and what post processing work has been done to a photo. I do, however, draw the line with the addition or deletion of items that are not in the original exposure. When that is done, it places the image under the category of graphic art. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dm brown Posted February 17, 2006 Author Share Posted February 17, 2006 Guy, I respectfully take your point, but I think you (as well as others) understand very clearly the difference between a carefully thought out, planned, and executed shot that is caputed on film and can be printed to paper with no digital step other than scanning, and a carefully thought out, planned and executed shot that is scanned and then coloured, stretched, layered, co-mingled, etc . . . <P>The former would be 'unmanipulated' by my definition.<P>Please don't misunderstand me - I have no problem with Photoshop or those who use it. I use it occasionally as well, and completely understand why people use it.<P>Technically, a gallery for those images marked as 'unmanipulated' would be extrremely easy to implement and I think it would be a worthwhile addition to the site for very little effort.<P> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
afs760bf Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 While I really like the idea, since I consider most of my images as unmanipulated, I think I have to agree with Guy on this one. If you want an image to look half-decent on photo-net, some kind of manipulation is necessary, even if some people wouldn't call it manipulation. Even the scanning process, if you use film, is rife with manipulation. Scanner quality, scanner settings, USM settings on the scanner, digital ICE, and all the rest are, or are not, manipulation depending on one's opinion. Is cropping manipulation? Is changing the cropped image to 150ppi so it will display decently on Pnet manipulation? Changing the file compression ratio? Desaturating? I don't know who would be the gate-keeper on those kinds of questions. If you use digital and shoot RAW, you'd almost have to manipulate something or you couldn't post the image. I never mark any of my images as unmanipulated (at least I don't remember doing so) because I don't know who else would find fault with my definition. So I don't find it a big issue, I guess. Best Regards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
afs760bf Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 Should have been "unmanipulated, but" in the first paragraph. Fingers not working today and, of course, we can't edit posts. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HuskyMason1 Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 Instead of mincing the definition of manipulation why can't Brian create a seperate category and see how it plays out? If it becomes problematic delete it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kai_griffin Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 <i>...is changing the cropped image to 150ppi so it will display decently on Pnet manipulation?</i><p>OT, but for what it is worth, changing the ppi value of an image - whether cropped or not - will have zero impact on how it is displayed in photonet, or in any other manner on a computer screen: ppi is ignored. ppi is for printing. So that's one thing that is definitely not a manipulation! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dm brown Posted February 17, 2006 Author Share Posted February 17, 2006 I didn't realise I would create such a stir!<P> Conveniently, there is a fairly clear definition of 'unmanipulated' on the photo.net site:<P> "On photo.net an unmanipulated photograph is one that could be presented in a court of law or printed in a newspaper, without dishonesty or perjury by the photographer, as an accurate record of what the photographer saw and the camera captured, with the absolute minimum disturbance of the capture during the processing and finishing stages. A slide processed through standard chemistry is the paradigm for an unmanipulated image, and other types of photographs should strive, within the limits of technology, to be as close as possible to slides with respect to manipulation."<P> That is a direct (though partial) quote from <a href=http://www.photo.net/photodb/manipulation.html> Photo.net manipulation page</a><P> I really didn't want to get tied up in the letter of the law, but more the spirit of it.<P> Also, thanks to everyone who sees what I'm trying to say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keith turrill Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 The website's definition of "unmanipulated" is fairly straight forward. It would be good if a clarification were added concerning the use of borders and frames on otherwise unmanipulated images. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spearhead Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 The photo.net definition of "unmanipulated" rules out virtually every great photograph ever shown. It rules out any print by a great photographer hanging in a museum or gallery or published in a book. It rulse out any great print by pretty much anyone who learned the traditional way of doing photography. Why people would want a category that deliberately dumbs down photography is something that completely escapes me. Music and Portraits Blog: Life in Portugal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
will king Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 There's no extra category needed. There's a small check box you can check if it's unmanipulated. It would cause too much work and make the system cumbersome because you would have to make tow categories for each genre. Landscapes: manipulated - unmanipulated . Potraits: manipulated - unmanipulated . Nudes: manipulated - unmanipulated. etc.... Not a good idea in my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobatkins Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 I's also like to see some way to select images which have been marked by the photographer as "unmanipulated". While as Jeff says, almost every great image has been "manipulated" in some way in the darkroom, there are an increasing number of images being posted here which I simply do not think are photography in the traditional sense. I'm not sure what they are. They're some form of digital art, probably somewhere between photography and painting. If you make a painting of a photograph, you don't call it a photograph just because it's based on one. Similarly if you spend a day in PhotoShop adding bits, removing bits, altering textures etc. I don't think it's a photograph anymore than the painting of the photograph is. Sure there's some sort of fuzzy, ill-defined boundary between a photograph and something else, but there clearly IS a boundary and a lot of images here go over it. Defining the boundary is difficult, but that doesn't mean you should pretend it's not there. Simply offering the option to view only images which the photographer has indicated are "unmanipulated" would be a simple and easy way to start. Let's use the "honor" system and see how far that gets us. Brian has actually offered a definition of "unmanipulated" which people can consult if they are in doubt. My definition of unmanipulated is that no elements have been added to or removed from the image. Cropping is OK, color correction is OK, density correction is OK, but cloning isn't and neither is making a composite of multiple images. Sure photographs have been made using analog techniques where things have been manipulated, but they would be classified as manipulated too. This isn't about digital vs. analog, it's about "straight" photography vs. "manipulated" photography, whether done by analog of digital means. "Straight" photography is a representation of the scene captured by the camera and presented in such a manner as not to deceive the viewer about what was there. "Manipulated" photography is a photographic representation of the ideas of the photographer and is not intended to be a litteral depiction of what was in front of the camera when the shutter was released. Yes, you can nit-pick about the definition forever, but please don't. That's not the point. The point is that we have already a check box for "unmanipulated" images. Let's just use it to allow people to select only those images to view if they so wish. Of course some people will "cheat". That's par for the course, but most people probably won't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
afs760bf Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 Not to get into a contest, but ppi is not for printing. DPI is for printing. PPI is for display. You can display your photo on photonet at 72ppi and it looks great, but you wouldn't want to print it at 72dpi. You need 300dpi for print quality. From Wikipedia: The DPI measurement of a printer often needs to be considerably higher than the pixels per inch (PPI) measurement of a video display in order to produce similar-quality output. I'm not sure why the Pnet display should act this way, but if you have noticed some of the photos when displayed as the most recent photo by a subscriber on the gallery page look terrible, but if you click on them and go to the real photo, it looks great. I assume they're trying to compress all the pixels, but who knows? Best Regards Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobatkins Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 ppi is not used for display. It is in fact used for printing only. You can print 72ppi at 300dpi or at 720dpi. You get the same sized print with the same number of pixels but a different number of ink drops! No dpi, ppi or anything else affects how an image displays in a web browser. It purely based on the absolute number of pixels. If you don't understand, read this: http://www.photo.net/learn/resize/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
afs760bf Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 Whatever you say, Bob: <a href="http://www.spsu.edu/cit/manuals/graphics-ppt/sld003.htm"> but you could look here </a>. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnicholson Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 One question: Are push-processing and dodging and burning with an enlarger "manipulating" an image? I say the check box is enough. I like what Guy and Jeff have to say above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobatkins Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 Barry - it's wrong. Don't believe everything you read on the web. ppi COULD be used for image display, IF you knew the size of the monitor and the pixel pitch, but it's not. Web browsers do not adjust the size of images based on the characteristics of the monitor in use. You can set ppi anywhere from 1 to 3000 and you'll get exactly the same image display in a web browser. Not just a similar display, EXACTLY the same display. Same colors, same size, same resolution, same compression. The web browser totally ignores any ppi settings for display. If you put all the monitor characteristics into an image editor that understands the relationship between the monitor specifications and ppi it is possible to select a display mode that displays an image with a size is based on the ppi setting, but web browsers do not do that. Most image editors don't do that by default either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bdpics Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 There would not have to be seperate "manipulated" and "unmanipulated" categories for each subject (nudes, portraits, etc.) just a catch-all category/class. Personally, I would prefer that all "manipulated" images to be put into their own grouping where people who want to look at manipulated images can do so and the current categories would be for "unmanipulated" images only. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bdpics Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 Just to follow up-- While there is the current checkbox system designating an image as either "manipulated" or "unmanipulated" you have to click on the image and then click on the image details in order to discover this. Personally, I do not place a whole lot of value on manipulated images (unless they clearly fall into the digital art/creation category--and there are some AMAZINGLY gifted artists here on Pnet in this genre) and I'd just as soon not waste my time looking at/wading through the manipulated images. If I go into a jewelery store I'd prefer the diamonds and the cubic zirconias to be readily segregated..........mixing them only weakens the diamonds IMHO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James G. Dainis Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 <center><img src=http://www.geocities.com/dainisjg/01000dpi.jpg><BR> 350 x 260 pixels saved at 1000 DPI<P> <img src=http://www.geocities.com/dainisjg/0dpi.jpg><BR> 350 x 260 pixels saved at 0 DPI<P></center><P> DPI and PPI are used interchageably since "a small displayed/printed pixel looks like a dot". DPI should only refer to the number of ink dots that a printer sprays out per inch, but it is too late to change that. The DPI is usually a fixed mechanical feature of the printer. Software that indicates the number of DPI to print (as many do) actually means the number of PPI to print. A printer capable of 300 ink dots per inch, if told to print at 10 DPI will print ten pixels to the inch, each composed of 300 ink dots to the inch not ten blobs of ink to the inch. It would take a very strange printer, indeed, to have a spray nozzle capable of shooting a 1/10 inch drop of ink. James G. Dainis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rcox2 Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 If we do that, then we need another for film shooters that don't use a darkroom. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a. a. Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 I agree with Bob regarding un-manipulated images. For film photographers, if you scan the image, you simply can try to recreate the quality of your "on hand " print, negative or slide in the digital format. That should be a good enough measurements for it...have a look at your print and a look at monitor if they look the same then the image is un-manipulated. You might need to sharpen the the scan result, clean the dust or darken/lighten the image a bit, correct the colors (if the scanner is hot, cold, old, new etc. those all effect the result), but once the result is close to the original then you have it. Anything beyond that, is manipulation in my opinion. How often do we see models/babies with plastic like skins or older people with leather or cardboard effect skins while their eyes are so sharpened that seems like laser rays coming through them? They look more like animation. Of course it's a personal sentiment of mine and I would understand and respect people who disagree with it. Cheers M.H. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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