Discussion | The aversion to Photoshop?
So many people ask me about my images being "photoshopped" - I know, I've said it before.
Yet sometimes, still, when I see an awesome photo posted on social media, there are always people accusing the photo of being faked or "photoshopped". Does it really matter?
It's said in such a negative way and I thought it worth a discussion. Why is there such an aversion to using Photoshop on photographs?
Photographers like to do a range of things to create a vision - that could be making things brighter, darker, increasing contrast, making a more vibrant sky, etc. For me personally, some things I commonly due to my images are:
Sharpening and noise reduction
Lens correction including removing distortion, chromatic aberration and straightening horizon
Reducing any too-bright highlights, lightening too-dark shadows
Cloning and spot removal - basically removing or changing unwanted elements. E.g. removing people, removing spots on the lens, removing a piece of rubbish I didn’t notice at the time. Removing an extra rock that doesn’t balance the composition correctly, etc.
Targeting contrast adjustments to specific areas - e.g. just to the sky, rocks, cliffs, water, etc. This means I might end up with 5-10 different contrast (curves) layers.
Adjusting colour balance - I generally prefer warmer images and I shoot a lot at “golden hour”, so I prefer to emphasise warmer colours. In saying that, sometimes stormy, moody light calls for emphasing cooler colours or greys.
I sell my images, and so I often like to think about colour and how an image will look within someone’s decor. Where possible, I like to keep the number of colours to a minimum so a piece will tie in with other decor. I also like to use the principles behind the colour wheel, so I look for colours within an image (at the time of capture as well as in editing), that are either contrasting or complimentary. For example, around Darwin I love the combination of the orange/red rocks against the blue sky and ocean, so I often look to emphasise that colour combo.
Therefore ALL of my images are “photoshopped!” Here are a few examples.
An example of how I might create final image, from two different exposure files.
Lifting a lot of light from the shadows in this example. Usually I prefer to use two exposures instead as the image file is better quality compared with simply brightening (too much).
A more dramatic transformation of mine - I wanted to emphasise a warm sunrise glow so have eltered the colour balance to enhance the small amount of colour present at the time of shooting.
I do not feel this is “too much” photoshop. It’s part of creating my images.
I am interested to hear what other people think though! Both photographers and non-photographers.
In my eyes the images are still true to the scene. I try as best as possible to use only what is available to me at the time of shooting and representing my versions of the true scenes. Sometimes though, as a part of the creative process, I get an idea for a shot but I can’t seem to create it “in real life”, so sometimes I edit differently - to create the vision that wasn’t presented to me at the time of shot.
I have on occasion changed a sky. For example at times I’ve been lucky enough to spot a rainbow and capture it - yet my foreground is not quite right. Or, when I’ve scored a lightning in a similar situation - the foreground is not right. I can count on one hand the number of times I have done this and I’m always honest about these edits where asked.
A sunrise image captured along East Point, where I added the rainbow in later.
The image and the inclusion of the rainbow was inspired by a lady who used to fish this location with her husband who had recently passed away. I shot the location for her and it seemed like a fitting image to include the rainbow in post processing.
I can understand people’s aversion to photoshop - mostly because some people don’t understand it and don’t understand it’s purpose. It’s often assumed that photoshop manipulates reality, and the viewer can often feel deceived. In reality, with most landscape photographers we really just want to display how awesome our landscapes are. And what it is that we’ve seen, noticed, and want to share.
Some photographers like to edit to emphasise something that was a stand out to them, at the time of shooting. For example I might notice the light on a particular rock or tree, and strive to highlight that more during editing. Or, I might notice a dark sky and edit the shot in a way to make that sky look dark and menacing.
We want to emphasise particular things we found interesting at the time of the shoot.
We want to correct and create the best light! It’s not about creating something fake.
It’s about representing the scene as we saw it.
Each photographer will see something different. Give the same scene, at the same time, to 10 different photographers and you’ll get 10 different results. 10 different people will see something different that sparked their imagination, and set their image creation off in different directions.
Even give the same photographer the same scene on 10 different occasions and you’ll get 10 different images - a different vision, different moods, different knowledge…. all create a different result. For example, with these two images below - they are both my images, from the same location around 2 years apart at different tides.
These rocks are the rocks in the dark mid-right section of the next image.
An example of editing an image a bit darker and higher black point, as this mood adds to the mood of the scene.
I also personally have a bit of an issue if the artist is trying to pass off an image as real/true life when it’s not. However, it is still art. Using photoshop to create a vision is still a form of art. An artist has to be able to have that vision and knowledge to crate such a piece. They still have to have had the skill to capture the individual elements of the shot to make up the final piece. They still have to have actually gone out there any “done the work” to be able to create the image.
One example is by using a combination of multiple different elements from different photos. Personally, I think that is an entirely different art form in itself. Not a bad one - I would never dislike something just because it was created digitally, it's just that personally I prefer the "purer" photography. Capturing as much as you can in the camera. Digital artwork is a whole different form of artwork - still a valid one, a great launch pad for developing conceptual artwork, for example.
Commonly, amongst landscape photographers is to take a different sky and match it to a great foreground. Personally, I do not have an issue with this when photographers do this. Sometimes you'll have spent a lot of time planning and getting to a far away location, to spend time there waiting for “good light” for it to never eventuate. Is it so bad to support a great foreground with a great sky - if it was taken at a different time? The photographer has still created both images. The resulting image at the end is more pleasing, and more like the image and piece of art the photographer intended at the time of shooting.
A two image composite from the Devil’s Marbles: one sky and one “marbles” foreground together. This image was inspired by another photographer’s work on film, I loved the reds in it and wanted to create something that captured the essence of the red rock of the outback NT.
It’s not something I do regularly. On occasion I have (mainly with scenarios like that described above). Does it matter?
It’s one of the top 5 questions I am asked at my various retail outlets. “Are these all natural or have thy been photo-shopped”
All professional digital photographers use Photoshop or a similar equivalent. If they tell you they don’t, they’re lying. Image manipulation was occuring in film, long before digital photography and photoshop were invented. The camera cannot capture the same tonal range that the eye can see. There is often a need, in landscape photography, to lift shadows, tone down highlights, etc etc.
I always answer that “yes” all of my images go through Photoshop.
Hopefully this little explanation demonstrates how they are photoshopped. Do the general population think this is OK or acceptable, under the general understanding of being a landscape photographer?
I am by no means the photographer that edits their images the most - I am probably at the very “mild” end of the photoshop world and landscape photographers!
Will people will discount an image because they think it has been "photoshopped"?
In photography, for me the art is not in making something look fake - most photographers don't want to make something look fake. The art is in bringing out the natural beauty that was there at the time. Images that look “photoshopped” haven’t been photoshopped well - it’s not necessarily a bad photograph (although sometimes it is that too), but bad editing.
The camera is never going to be as sophisticated as the human eye. The camera cannot see the dark shadows and bright highlights as we can. The colour can never see the colour the same way as we can. They're good, but never as good as the human eye. The photographer's job is to replicate what their own eye saw.
What do you think?