Images and reality

[laur1]

<p>I know this is not a new topic, but I think it's a good illustration of an old topic. </p>

<p>There is this processing software targeted for portraiture that has a very amusing before and after image slideshow on their web page: <a href="http://www.portraitprofessional.com/">Portrait Professional</a>. Or at least, I find it amusing. And sad too.</p>

<p>Just let the page load and it will do its thing.</p>

<p>I think it gives the best example of the difference between photographs and images. What do you think?</p>

[Spearhead]

<p>The words "photographs" and "images" are used pretty much interchangeably these days, so I don't think it demonstrates that. What it does is give an example of automated portrait processing, which is never going to be as good as quality post-processing by a professional but probably meets the requirements of some markets and some photographers.</p>

[leslie_cheung]

<p>I think this kind of enhancement or retouching, as a whole, isn't doing society much good. It causes unrealistic expectations to say the least. Like the difference between reality tv and reality... </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Those aren't portraits. They are Madison Avenue.</p>

[laur1]

<p>@Jeff: Those images are actually created by professional photographers endorsing the product - check the credits in the corner of the images and look up the names online - you'll find easily the uncommon ones. They are not automated processing.</p>

<p>@Leslie: Exactly: this is what we see in all magazines these days. Whenever I see an image processed like that, I wonder to myself how that person really looks like. The irony is that photographs were meant to let you find out how people look like (once upon a time). This is why I differentiate between photographs and images, regardless of how people mix them up.</p>

<p>@Fred: They are everywhere though and that is how most public people are known to look like. Makes me look at tabloids in a positive way, now that I think about it. :)</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>Laurentiu,<br /> It is an old debate to which extend photo editing makes a photo stop being a photo. Portrait Professional - to me sleezy looking software, any professional in Photoshop can do much much better - is just an example. However, whether or not the use of this software makes a photo into an image, is completely not the point.</p>

<p>Photos are meant to communicate. Be it for documentary, journalism, advertisement or art: the photo sets out to tell its viewer something. And many people like these "perfect smile, perfect skin" portraits, apparently. Having a portrait that perfect communicates some warm fuzzy feel-good feeling (apparently, I cannot really say it does much for me). So, the photos thank to its editing does exactly what it was set out to do. I think you are mistaken when you say "<em>photographs were meant to let you find out how people look like (once upon a time)</em>"... no, they're meant to remove the spots of imperfection. It's not time-travel, it's ignoring that life is flawed (same way many TV programs show <strong>only</strong> good-looking healthy people - thinking about diseases, handicaps, death - it makes the viewers feel bad). The perfect smile is a key part of the message in many photos.</p>

<p>And, frankly, to me, it is no worse than pushing the saturation slider way out on every <a href="../editors-picks/2011/fall-foliage-photography/">fall foliage landscape</a>.</p>

<p>So at the risk of sounding very brisk:<br /> - What you like, and what you feel is correct treatment of an image and how it is presented, is not all that relevant. The creator has an intent of communication, and should edit the photo in such a way that it supports this intent (note: I am not saying Portrait Professional actually does that). You, as a photographer, have an equal liberty. As a viewer, you can like or dislike. But there is no absolute right or wrong here.<br /> - An image is not reality, and not really necessarily reflecting reality either. Selecting an unexpected angle of view may "distort" reality as much as Portrait Professional can do. The image, straight on film or sensor, is not more real than some edited photo.</p>

[jonathancharlesphoto]

<p>In each case I preferred the "before" to the "after" but I think some subtle post-processing of this sort is justified in portraiture because the initial photographic snap often exagerates the skin textures, double-chin effects and other unflattering elements compared with what you see in a "real life" situation.<br>

A good portrait should represent how the photographer/artist sees the subject, often based on multiple views in different circumstances over a (sometimes long) period of time. So, just like drawing a portrait, there are a range of minor distortions that can make the resulting image more "realistic" than the optically correct projection in 2-d.</p>

[john_h.1]

<blockquote>

<p>I know this is not a new topic, but I think it's a good illustration of an old topic... ...What do you think?</p>

</blockquote>

<p><br />That there have been countless good illustrations of this topic. Because its an old topic.</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Centuries of painted portraits idealized their subjects - long before retouching of photographs came along.<br /><br />I worked in a classic pro studio when I was young, and spent hours looking over the shoulder of a master retoucher as she did supernatural things to large format sheet negatives. Removed stray hairs, fixed skin imperfections, etc. The guys doing the printing dodged and burned away to de/emphasize fat-enhancing shadows, bald heads, etc.<br /><br />Just-add-water software like Portrait Professional may be too heavy handed for most (and they do seem to take an odd pride in showing off plasticized faces in their before/afters), but it's not new. And it's got nothing to do with photograph vs. "image."</p>

[luis_g]

<p>Three-fourths of all girls think themselves ugly. 92% are dissatisfied with their bodies. Small wonder we have software like this. What the paintbrush did with skin textures, photography portrays with ruthless fidelity to the referent. Porcelain skin, a perfect nose, jawline etc. Even if it strips the subject of their individuality, the fiction is preferred by people snared in the conundrum of being bedeviled by the way they look. I was photographing some poets at a reading last night. One of them, a prominent blogger, begged me to make her look slimmer,prettier and use every trick possible to make her conform to the ideal at the expense of becoming a fiction. She will probably be unhappy with my pictures because I thought she was beautiful as she was.</p>

<p>This is the Shadow side of narcissism, the paranoia of being confronted by our own reflection. Part of the allure of being a vampire must be the immunity to mirrors. Like a murder of crows alighting within, the signifiers of beauty enslave us. </p>

<p> </p>

[john_a5]

<p>For a moment, let's look at the tool itself as the results are what the person using the tool ends up presenting. That isn't the case with a lot of plug-ins, but Portrait Professional does actually allow you to control almost every aspect of the software. So, over the top rendering is just that, but it is due to the operator not the software (just like over processed PS or even wet photography-like too much red filter!). I don't use it much but I do own it. At the time I got it, I was doing a lot of portrait work for clients--I don't use it on personal work--and clients don't necessarily want glamour or unrealistic work done, but they do like some retouching. The software can do a lot of things more quickly than I might be able to do it myself and it can be very subtle.</p>

<p>I think it is easy to blame the software for all these different things but it is the person using it and the person who wants what it does that drives the bus.</p>

[alexpardi]

<blockquote>

<p>Three-fourths of all girls think themselves ugly. 92% are dissatisfied with their bodies. Small wonder we have software like this.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I'd reverse this concept:</p>

<p>We have software like this. Small wonder three-fourths of all girls think themselves ugly and 92% are dissatisfied with their bodies.</p>

[alan_zinn]

<p>Poets! Been hanging with a bad crowd Luis. <br>

<strong>VANITY</strong>, <em>n. </em>The tribute of a fool to the worth of the nearest ass.<br /><br /><em>They say that hens do cackle loudest when<br />There's nothing vital in the eggs they've laid;<br />And there are hens, professing to have made<br />A study of mankind, who say that men<br />Whose business 'tis to drive the tongue or pen<br />Make the most clamorous fanfaronade<br />O'er their most worthless work; and I'm afraid<br />They're not entirely different from the hen.<br />Lo! the drum-major in his coat of gold,<br />His blazing breeches and high-towering cap —<br />Imperiously pompous, grandly bold,<br />Grim, resolute, an awe-inspiring chap!<br />Who'd think this gorgeous creature's only virtue<br />Is that in battle he will never hurt you?<br />—Hannibal Hunsiker</em><br>

<strong>THEDEVILSDICTIONARY.COM</strong>,</p>

<p>Arted photos are no different than any other beauty product. People get a kick out of seeing themselves all glammed up. Vanity must be a fundamental genetic trait since we crawled from the primordial ooze. One creature's grotesque is another's beauty. I had a studio portrait made in LA when I was 20 by a friend who was a glamour and actor's portfolio photographer - had a Playboy cover to his credit. I just LOVE that picture! <br>

I started a facial <em>topography</em> series last week - may get bored with it quick. It might have some interesting graphic qualities at least.</p><div></div>

[luis_g]

<p><strong>Alessandro: </strong>"I'd reverse this concept:"</p>

<p>Alessandro, yes, it's all part of the same thing, thus commutative and self-perpetuating. I do not "blame the software", however. It's broader than that.<br>

______________________________________________________</p>

<p><strong>Alan Zinn: </strong>"Poets! Been hanging with a bad crowd Luis."</p>

<p>You have no idea...and you, one of my favorite poets & bad crowdster, live too far away. Incredibly, earlier in the evening, I was talking with the painter James Rosenquist at a party, and at one point he kindly agreed to have his picture taken. He struck a funny, wild pose and thanks to my street-shooter reflexes I managed to get the shot. I'll take a bad crowd any day. Love the poem, and the wildness of poets.</p>

<p> </p>

[laur1]

<p>Just to take one variable out of the equation - I do not think the software is a problem - I just thought that the samples provided with it are good samples of the issue.</p>

<p>And like Alessandro pointed out, the software is there to fill a need. People were retouching photos before they could do it in software, so the software is a result, not a cause.</p>

<p>Regarding the earlier examples of retouching, such process was indeed not invented in the digital era. The point about some retouching needing to be done to compensate for lighting issues, etc, is a good point, but I think we can all agree that when freckles are removed, we get into a different realm of retouching.</p>

<p>Lying is nothing new. But it does look like we are lying at a different scale today. One just has to look at an old movie or show and compare the people we see there to those we see in movies and shows today. The process is interesting. It starts from marketing, which has little incentive to be realistic, but as people are exposed to it more and more, their appreciation of how something should look becomes altered too.</p>

[AlanKlein]

<p>If someone could insert this program into a pill, they'd make a fortune.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>Apparently reality didn't exist before the invention of photography.</p>

<p>"... it does look like we are lying at a different scale today."</p>

<p>Mmmmm. No.</p>

<p>Look, for example, at the court of Louis XIV. Start at the pointy-toed high-heeled shoes and work your way to the top of the towering powdered wig. And that's just what the <em>men</em> were wearing. If one moves on to the ladies' underwear, <em>now</em> your talking "different scale."</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>Agreed, Julie.<br>

A bit too much "ah ye ole days, when all was perfect" sentiment on display.</p>

[alan_zinn]

<p>Each scene in an "old" movie was lit like a glamorous studio still with the actors barely moving as they did their lines. The problem with some of the remarks about vanity here don't comport with history. Keep in mind that the world is more <em>present</em> than ever. That accelerates change. Photos, in the aggregate are truthful and document change accurately. Change is good.</p>

[laur1]

<blockquote>

<p>Look, for example, at the court of Louis XIV.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I am not sure what the court of Louis XIV has to do with the marketing of today. One had to be physically at the court to notice anything about it. It wasn't broadcast on national television. One side effect of this is that I cannot even look at it, as you suggested - I have to read about it and that already requires a level of engagement and literacy that images don't.<br>

</p>

<blockquote>

<p>A bit too much "ah ye ole days, when all was perfect" sentiment on display.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>No, this is not about old days being better, but about looking at how the present days look like and see if we can learn something useful.<br>

</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Each scene in an "old" movie was lit like a glamorous studio still with the actors barely moving as they did their lines. </p>

</blockquote>

<p>So today they are moving a bit more, especially when they are computer generated. This wasn't what I was pointing out though. You should be able to notice a difference between how people looked then and now and that difference exists today too if you compare American movies with European ones. Even for the same actor, if you can catch them in an earlier role, you might notice interesting changes in how they looked before they became famous and after.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Photos, in the aggregate are truthful and document change accurately.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>They are truthful in that they truthfully represent the intent of those that create them and they may intrinsically document the change of attitudes versus photography, but this is pretty much a truism that doesn't make us more knowledgeable about anything.</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>Laurentiu,</p>

<blockquote>

<p>about looking at how the present days look like and see if we can learn something useful.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I answered your question earlier honestly and with the intent of sharing some of the thoughts I have on the point you raise. However, in your second post, I only see lamenting on the current day state of portraits, and no response whatsoever to any of the responses that tried to view the issue from a wider angle than only the piece of software. So, if it's not about the old days being better, then maybe it would be interesting to address the points raised by others and myself, instead - and discuss open-minded.</p>

[alan_zinn]

<p>How can you look for trends without looking at a lot of images? It is not particular truth in each image but consistency over time. <br>

I see self presentation as a push-pull process with actors wanting to look a certain way for professional reasons and popular vanity trends. Nothing new or remarkable about that for last few centuries. <br>

With the HDTV mandate, TV personaliites have to be shot with special filtering that makes them look like they are composed of Silly Putty. Everybody knows that NOBODY looks like that. Even so, when one dies everyone exclaims: "He was HOW old?!" </p>

 

[steve_swinehart]

<p>Like any software, you have to learn how to use it. Portrait Professional works fine and is quite a nice adjunct to Photoshop if you use it carefully. Unfortunately, the examples they show are way over corrected. I've done a number of portraits using Portrait Professional and find it is quite useful for tweaking hair, eyes, lips and providing even skin tonality. The built-in presets are too much, but after you retouch in Photoshop it can be used to tweak the portait.</p>

<p>I did one portrait session where the model wanted 20 images for her portfolio. After building a custom set of corrections in Portrait Professional I could run each image through the software with one mouse click after retouching in PS. I have absolutely NO problem using the software as it's not all that different than classic portrait retouching done on film.</p>

[aanji]

<p>It seems that any technique or software can be over done - as in sharpening, the trick is to stop before it is noticable</p>

[david_dobreski]

<p>The image that was most thought provoking for me on portraitprofessional.com was the image of the mom and her son in a standard photo studio that you'd find in malls, etc. Shifting the perspective off of myself holding the camera, and instead picturing myself in the shoes of the one being photographed, I personally would not want a bunch of images of an ideal me. I am perfect the way God made me. And so are you. I am quite against the whole 'airbrushing humans to look perfect' movement.</p>