PP Ethics

[Dmitri Monkey]

I understand that post processing can be a large task, but where are the ethical lines?

For example, I don't mind cropping out the stray telephone pole, or tweaking the saturation, things like that. But once I completely added a sky to a photo to replace a boring one. It looked better, but I felt bad about it - like I cheated somehow.

Having done a bit of tutorial reading over the last couple of years I come to the realization that quite a few people do this. And so it makes me wonder - what ARE the boundries?

Is adding a twinkle to someones eye better than adding an entire sky?

[NateS]

I know this will sound rude and that's not really my intention.....but who cares? In my opinion, all that matters is if you are happy with the final output.

To answer your question you need to answer one question....are you the type of photographer who want to capture the scene as close to what you saw, or do you want to create the most impacting image you can by adding your own artistic senses regardless of what the scene looked like. It sounds like you are somewhere in between, but the way I look at it....if you are okay with cloning out a telephone pole, then you are okay with modifying the scene from how it actually was. If that's the case, I don't see why adding a better sky than what was actually there is any different than removing a telephone pole that actually was there.


Oh, and my "who cares" comment was meant to say. Who cares what other people think about what you do to create your final image. If you can make an image that you are happy with and that other people likes, I don't see why it matters how you got there. Draw in a sky by hand if you want....as long as it makes the image look nice.

[Rekd]

I'm with NateS on this. If you were able to take a bad looking picture and make it look good, you should be proud of it.

[Aggie]

I'm probably the most rabid about wanting to deal only with film based photography. Yet I can appreciate the time and effort people on this board go to to seek and accomplish what they see there vision of a picture to be. I also have a grounding and training in several other art forms. The same questions can be asked in any art for. For my own sanity, I just want to deal with nice people who enjoy getting out and documenting their world to the best of their ability no matter how they did it. This place is nice and congenial. No fights. Just sit back and enjoy the ambiance of the Photo Beat and the wonderful people who populate it.

[Mohain]

If you don't feel good about dropping in a new sky then dont! If you feel a new sky will make the previously dull image a masterpeice, and you're comformtable doing it - then go for it! PP is a personal thing. Only you know how much you will want to PP an image.

[ann]

i have a long history of traditional photography and up until recently i would have had a different reply, in fact i have students who can remember when one didn't bring up the word digital in my company.

playing with different pp effects has brought some new interest and enthuasium to my personal work; however, my boundary would be for example; taking someone from my backyard and putting them in Paris and then passing that off as real. Hope that makes sense.

[Fox Paw]

My view is that you're free to do whatever takes the image where you want it, as long as you don't pass the result off as journalistically accurate. I've dropped in skies a few times but I never liked the results; every time I looked at the photo, I was conscious of the processing. So I don't do that. I have no quarrel with anyone who does.

I wrote songs for many years, in some cases about real people and events. Some details got changed to fit the rhyme scheme or otherwise make the song better. Homer did the same thing. That doesn't strike me as ethically problematic. Dropping in a sky is analogous.

[ann]

as i thought more about this, the bottom line, anything i can do in the darkroom i would do on the computer, and changing skies can be done in the darkroom, not as easily, but it is doable, along with some other things that are done easily with a computer.

[ann]

entered in Digital Manipulation class, if i am reading the directions correctly

[Fox Paw]

I was wondering: do those who disapprove of manipulation of images with software also disapprove of fisheye lenses and wide-angle lenses? Some of the biggest departures from reality I've gotten with a camera resulted from use of a wide-angle lens.

Also, I took the discussion of dropping in a sky to mean inserting one that came from an entirely different scene. I've frequently exposed once for the sky and once for the earth and combined the images. That doesn't bother me a bit. It could be argued that the result is closer to what the human eye perceives than any single exposure could be.

[Mike]

Originally Posted by ann

and then passing that off as real. Hope that makes sense.

That is the key.
Do what you want with an image, but it become unethical when you try to pass it off as something it's not.

Maybe not always a black & white issue (pun intended) but that's my take.

[ann]

google Jerry Usleman

if i remember correctly he had 8 enlarger set up in a row all in registration

[Aggie]

What is wrong with manipulations if you also call it art? There is film art and digital art. They may start with film or a digital capture that is photographic in nature, but once you do major manipulations it leaves the realm of pure to augmented. I personally don't mind my efforts being called art! There are people who get upset if you crop an image. There are people who feel they have to darken the corners of their picture yet in classes we learn to even out the skies ot a natural look. For every taboo there is a do. In the end did you get what you wanted from the effort? Just tell the story of your journey to your vision. It is the misleading of those who don't know the back story that gets people's panties in a twist.

[Dmitri Monkey]

Thanks for all the replies. I agree that the final product is what matters, and I have also argued that photoshop isn't cheating because it's (mostly) stuff photographers have done for years in a darkroom.

I guess I felt like it was cheating because somewhere in my head I believed that a great photograph was the ability to capture what one sees in a way that's pleasing to others. I still believe this, but I also hate spending an entire day off at the beach with a boring sky and wishing it had been at least a little interesting

So I doubt I'll do any wholesale sky replacements anytime soon, but I will feel much less guilty when flipping an image or PSing bits. I have to start to think of it as art, as suggested.

Fox Paw: Lens wouldn't matter in my case since it's not Post

[Matt Needham]

Originally Posted by Dmitri Monkey

But once I completely added a sky to a photo to replace a boring one. It looked better, but I felt bad about it - like I cheated somehow.

I think the biggest problem with photographers is that they rarely study the history of photography. Don't feel bad! You have rediscovered the techniques of the old orthochromatic film masters! Orthochromatic film was extra blue sensitive, and the skies always overexposed, requiring photographers to blend exposures.

The more you study the history of photography, the more you will see that while the tools may be fancier, newer, and higher tech, almost all the ideas are old. Once upon a time straight photography was considered too reliant on the device to be art, and manipulated photography was accepted as art.

If you are working as a journalist there are professional standards that you must follow. If you enter an art contest there may be rules you have to follow. A client/job may have particular requirements. But if you are just doing your own creative thing you are under no obligation to follow other folks' rules. Do what you like to do. What's the worst thing that can happen? They might stop calling you a photographer, and start calling you an artist?

Look to the Ansel Adam's biography. They spend over a dozen pages discussing the manipulations that had to be done to "Moonrise, Hernandez, NM" to make the print acceptable. That's his best selling photo (or most popular, or something).