Has Photoshop changed how you view a picture?

[marc_bergman1]

<blockquote>The difference is in photoshop you execute by pushing around sliders and there's no undo.</blockquote>

<p>How do you make a selection using sliders?</p>

<p>They removed the undo in the latest version of Photoshop? I guess I wont update. That is one of my favorite things.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Leo, it's not an argument. It's a thought about Photoshop. I know you need that stuff in a darkroom, too. I was, in part, reacting to your statement that Photoshop is easy. The darkroom can be easy too. Or it can be a place of love, sweat, tears, and hard work. You get out of it what you put into it. I use Photoshop regularly and the majority of my time is not spent pushing around slider bars. </p>

<p><em>"most would not exist if the photographer had to achieve the same effect in a darkroom."</em></p>

<p>It's not a game of "anything you can do I can do better." Photoshop users don't have to achieve the same effect in a darkroom. Just like painters using acrylics don't have to use oils and photographers using slides don't have to use glass plates and twentieth century pianists don't have to use pianofortes and race car drivers don't have to use horses and buggies and iPod files don't get scratches like vinyl. Time marches on. And with time, craftsman adapt to new tools and artists tend to make creative use of them. </p>

[leo_papandreou1]

<p>Not making any claims for or against digital as art. Digital does not interest me qua hobby because its relative ease and convenience detracts from my enjoyment of making artless photographs. Hence, I shoot film, though if I could shoot glass plates instead, then I surely would. Now, my luddite bias in materials notwithstanding, I do think that 99.99% (at least) of photography is kitsch. Meretricious kitsch if you know what you are doing in photoshop. How could it not be kitsch? Digital is utterly democratic; it is the easiest medium for one to become competent in. However, if a photograph figures among the remaining 0.01%, well then the ease or difficulty in making it does not detract from that major accomplishment.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>it is the easiest medium for one to become competent in</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It's the easiest medium to become INCOMPETENT in.</p>

[patricklavoie]

I do think that 99.99% (at least) of photography is kitsch. ...

 

ah ah ah.. you make me laugh.. good things after a long and hard day of assisting people who made kitsch images.

 

maybe its time to start painting instead if you find it is too easy to do....

[leo_papandreou1]

<p>Virtuouso displays of technique and/or technology are a frequent characteristic of kitsch. <a href="http://www.photography-news.com/2010/01/wildlife-photographer-of-year.html">For example</a>. And in painting --- <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:William-Adolphe_Bouguereau_%281825-1905%29_-_The_Wave_%281896%29.jpg">kitschzilla</a>. OTOH, <a href="http://www.nga.gov/feature/rothko/early7.shtm">not kitsch</a>. Kitsch is not a bad thing. Hipsters like it because it's ironic. Many nice people are desperate for it so that they can have "culture". If it weren't for kitsch no one would get postcards in the mail. Postcards are nice. I aspire to postcards, or anyway a postcard would be a step up for me, should I make one by accident.</p>

 

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Leo, many articles of kitsch are made by Photoshop, as were made in the darkroom. It's got nothing to do with the medium. It's got to do with the maker.</p>

<p>A refined use of Photoshop is not easy. And a refined use of Photoshop can lead to some great photograph-making.</p>

<p>If you labor under the false assumption that using Photoshop is easy, you probably haven't used Photoshop, or at least haven't used it to its potential. (Is that what you mean when you say you have "no interest" in Photoshop?) I'm always suspicious of pronouncements about things by people who claim to have no interest in those things. It sounds to me like a lack of experience with actually using Photoshop may be leading you down a blind alley . . . the alley that tells you its use is easy.</p>

<p>Using a few slider bars is easy but that's not the be-all and end-all of using Photoshop. That's just one view from some postcard-mongers, from some top-rated-photo mongers, and from the outside. It's the same as saying "taking a picture is easy, all you have to do is snap the shutter, anyone can do it." Well, of course . . .</p>

[johne37179]

<p>I have used both the darkroom and Photoshop. I had the privilege many years ago of spending time in Ansel Adam's darkroom. Those who think Photoshop is simple, simply don't know much about Photoshop. Photoshop does duplicate many, if not all of the tools we have in the darkroom, with one exception I know of -- it doesn't duplicate Ansel's custom light box on the top of his enlarger. Photoshop also offers other tools that are amazingly complex and potentially spectacular in the hands of the artist.<br>

What Photoshop really does is expand the creative potential for those who can grasp it -- not an easy task. I have literally spend hundreds and hundreds of hours learning about Photoshop. I'm now on my third version of the software (CS5) and don't feel competent with half of the available tools.<br>

There are a lot of failures using these tools and people share them -- some to learn and some because they don't recognize them as failures.<br>

I think using Photoshop well may be the most challenging thing available to the photographer. I will say it again -- great images are made in the mind -- not in the camera or computer or darkroom. That is a lesson I learned from Ansel long ago. His term for it was previsualization.</p>

[matt_needham]

<p>When I look at a photo I'm mostly concerned with whether I find it intriguing or not. I find myself less and less curious about the process; mainly because after asking photographers about process for 20 years it seems to me that we are all using similar techniques. I chose to go into the darkroom because I didn't like dropping my film off at the lab for someone else to finish. I wanted as much control over my images as possible. Photoshop just gives me more precise control, and I don't have to mop the floor or temp chems. </p>

<p>"It is rather amusing, this tendency of the wise to regard a print which has been locally manipulated as irrational photography. This tendency which finds an esthetic tone of expression in the word faked: a manipulated print may be not a photograph. The personal intervention between the action of the light and the print itself may be a blemish on the purity of photography. But whether this intervention consists merely of marking, shading and tinting in a direct print, or of stippling, painting and scratching on the negative, or of using glycerine, brush and mop on a print, faking has set in, and the results must always depend upon the photographer, upon his personality, his technical ability and his feeling. But long before this stage of conscious manipulation has been begun, faking has already set in. In the very beginning, when the operator controls and regulates his time of exposure, when in darkroom the developer is mixed for detail, breadth, flatness or contrast, faking has been resorted to. In fact, every photograph is a fake from start to finish, a purely impersonal, un-manipulated photograph being practically impossible. <strong>When all is said, it still remains entirely a matter of degree and ability.</strong>" -Edward Steichen</p>

[gordonjb]

<p>The short answer is no. The technology used has no effect on either how I view photos or my own vision when creating them.</p>

<p>This image was created 30 years ago. Paper negative, pinhole camera, wet darkroom.</p><div></div>

[gordonjb]

<p>... and this image was done last week. G10 , Lightroom, Photoshop</p><div></div>

[alan_zinn]

<p>Looks like most everyone is of a similar opinion that it's not good if post-camera techniques are obvious. Funny that, as-photographed, "truth" isn't A big deal either. I have friends who use film, un-sharp masks and insist that method isn't obvious. Maybe to a non-printer it isn't. HDR techniques tend to jump out but with time they will seem normal. I do PS plug-in art treatments - getting older and artier! A pet peeve is that PS <em>collages</em> in exhibitions are the same as if cut and pasted up and should be labeled as such. That is irrational, I know. I made a triptych of me, my son, and grandson on first bikes. My snap is BW the other two are color. Six-year-old grandson's comment was "Didn't they have color ink back then?" His other thing is that he expects slide shows to have music.</p>

[alan_zinn]

<p>I did a bunch of junkyard work knowing I'd go plug-in happy with it. I did it 'cause I could.<br>

NIK SilverEfex: <em>Antique plate </em>always looks cool.</p><div></div>

[alan_zinn]

<p> '</p>

[leo_papandreou1]

<p>Fred.</p>

<p> </p>

<ul>

<li>I didn't say digital photography is kitsch, I said most photography is kitsch, and that it didn't matter how a picture was made if it wasn't kitsch. Granted, most photographs are digital photographs, but do I think digital qua medium drives kitsch? Maybe it does and maybe it doesn't. <em>I didn't say</em>. Maybe technology and its consumption dominate digital photography, funneling art into narrower and narrower directions, and maybe they don’t. I don’t know, didn’t say, don’t care, and it wouldn’t matter anyway, because even if everyone else did it, the universe does not cry out that Bob, too, should apply auto-levels to a sunset. You reply as if I wrote digital entails not-art. Do you think I am a complete boor? Of course it doesn’t. Yes birds-in-flight are a penny for the dozen <em>because </em>the technology is so good nowadays. Yes digital enables a dispersed yet mass production of clichéd imagery and image quality. No that does not mean Fred G is going to inflict yet another bird-in-flight on flickr. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Or if there is, then I certainly don’t care.</li>

<li>Every time someone on this site questions the influence of photoshop on their appreciation of photography people answer the same way: working in photoshop is no different than working in the darkroom, as if both were abstract labors. People make that rubbish argument as if to cling on to traditional photography’s prestige, such as it may be. By using photoshop you are just like Ansel Adams. Well, no. Photoshop is a game-changer for the reasons that it is successful, namely, it <em>liberates </em>one from the darkroom and <em>transcends </em>the darkroom’s limitations. Those are valid reasons to appreciate photoshop or to not appreciate it. People’s values and preferences vary. I am not judging those things. I am pointing out the obvious fact, for readers to make of it what they will, according to their values and their preferences, that with photoshop you, me and she can very easily accomplish what Adams did in the darkroom. <em>I am talking about process here, not results, </em>which in the darkroom and in photoshop depends on intangible art. I am saying that with photoshop millions of people do things every day to photographs that they could never have accomplished in a darkroom. <em>I am talking about process here, not results, </em>which in the darkroom and in photoshop depends on intangible art. I know that art is difficult to accomplish regardless of the medium. It is not something I need for someone to patiently explain to me as if I were a child.</li>

<li>I value film over digital. This is a preference for process as well as photograph and basically it’s non-negotiable (not that a sane individual should be impelled to negotiate a stranger's preferences in pictures, but in case there are some crazy people reading this, don't bother.) I’m well aware of digital’s advantages, in fact I dislike digital for those advantages. “Dislike”. I don‘t actually <em>dislike </em>my canon point and shoot, we have the same relationship as I have with my phone. Anyway, many people on this site will find my preference for film over digital incoherent. Apparently it’s the “final image” that counts, not the tools. Yeah, well, if that were true, then everyone would shoot film, because film records final images. Obviously the final image does not determine the choices we make in media. But more importantly, I’ll see a gazillion final images before I die, each one will be interesting for a fraction of a second, and so much for that. I have the same attitude towards the final image as I have towards the final telephone conversation.</li>

</ul>

[Spearhead]

<blockquote>

<p> if that were true, then everyone would shoot film, because film records final images.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Most bizarre explanation I have ever seen for film fanaticism. Polaroid is the only film that ever recorded the final print. One can look at slides naked if one wants, but most slides were projected or printed.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Obviously the final image does not determine the choices we make in media.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Exactly, which is why the final image is what matters. I don't care about someone else's choices in media, I care about the final image they show me. I'm not looking at their film canister or their memory card. If I was, I would be a fool.</p>

[leo_papandreou1]

<blockquote>

<p>Polaroid is the only film that ever recorded the final print.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>? Christ. Not only am I a fanatic for stating a preference, I'm one of those fanatics who thinks film processes itself. Nice. Did you miss all those references to a darkroom in my post? Did you miss the scare quotes around final image in the sentence immediately preceding? Let me repharase the offending fragment, then, by putting the scarequotes back around those two words whose importance I disavowed: if that were true, then everyone would shoot film, because film records "final images". Better? Do you know who lacks the capacity to read charitably for meaning? Fanatics.<br>

<p></p>

<blockquote>

<p>Exactly, which is why the final image is what matters to me.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Fixed that for you. You're welcome.</p>

[alan_zinn]

<p>Jeff, <br>

A <em>final image</em> is film. The exposed negative is immutable, unlike a digital image that is infinitely variable. That is an important distinction.<br>

John E. <br />I think pre-visualization applies to particulars in a scene not a frame of mind or philosophy. I say "Sliders on stun. We're going to ART the crap out of this baby!"</p>

[Brad_]

>>> A final image is film. The exposed negative is immutable, unlike a digital image that is infinitely

variable. That is an important distinction.

 

Huh? Why is that important?

 

By that definition, then for me, my final images would be my RAW files - similarly immutable because they are never modified. And equally useless until they are rendered in

a manner that I choose.

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Leo, what I found ridiculous was your claim that Photoshop is easy and a matter of pushing around slider bars. Your saying that warranted a response and a careful explanation of why you are so wrong in that assessment. That's all.</p>

[leo_papandreou1]

<blockquote>

<p>A <em>final image</em> is film. The exposed negative is immutable, unlike a digital image that is infinitely variable.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>True, but not the meaning I had in mind actually. My fault. I sloppily used the word record when really what I meant is make. Let me disambiguate. If the final image was drving people's preferences, then you wouldn't expect digital to dominate film, since film is just as capable of <em>making </em>final images as digital. But in fact, in the real world, digital utterly dominates film because some people prefer to make their final images with digital, while others are fanatics. So that's why the final image is what truly matters.</p>

 

[sjmurray]

<blockquote>A <em>final image</em> is film. The exposed negative is immutable, unlike a digital image that is infinitely variable.</blockquote>

<p>Having processed and printed film for many years, I find that the digital raw image is much like a negative: both can be manipulated quite a bit and both have their limitations. Hence, a digital image is not infinitely variable and a negative is not "immutable."</p>

[AlanKlein]

<p>These are some wonderful responses to my OP question. If you may indulge me a little, I'd like to pull the thinking back a little and fine tune my question. First, my original question was not about photographs that are obviously manipulated such as a couple shown above. No one is going to confuse those kind of pictures for what was snapped originally in reality. Post processing changes are apparent. Like a painter who starts with a blank canvas, and draws what he may have seen and converted in his mind's eye, no one asks the painter if it depicts what was really there. Everyone assumes, well, it's not a photograph! So that's the point. We are not painters, but photographers. Or on the other hand, maybe we all have become painters now and not photographers. Painters of light. (I digress).</p>

<p>My question relates to photographs that present themselves as reality. Not photos that in the end look and are presented as manipulated. Yes we all know about Adams but most people just took photos before. And the average person thought that what they saw was truth even if some were not. Today that isn't the case because of the relative simplicity of the masses to make such radical changes afterwards. </p>

<p>What consideration and judgments to you make about the photographs that present themselves as reality because you don't know if they are reality? Do you judge photographs differently in that light and find that something is gained or lost because of it? Do you miss the true representation of what a photograph use to give you?</p>

[Brad_]

>>> And the average person thought that what they saw was truth even if some were not.

 

From further up above: This quote probably pre-dates Photoshop - Every photograph is accurate. None of

them is the truth. - Richard Avedon

[Spearhead]

<blockquote>

<p>What consideration and judgments to you make about the photographs that present themselves as reality because you don't know if they are reality? </p>

</blockquote>

<p>Reality is the photograph. That's it. Lots of photographs have no "reality" in them, and it's been the case of years.<br>

<br />I have a photograph that elicits tremendous response, they see a photo of a religious woman in Mexico promoting her beliefs. Nobody has ever questioned the photograph, which was, irrelevantly, taken on film. It's a photograph of a Cambodian woman in California playing a role. But the photo is what is real, people get the point. And it's a lie. People who have actually studied the history of photography will understand that, without even seeing it.</p>