I dont think so. If photoshop is cheating then so was darkrooming.

Eek maybe photography is "Cheating" better get my pencil and paper out.

Not at all...

     In the early years of photography when film was only sensitive to blue light, some of the great photographers would take separate exposures of clouds, and use those negatives to superimpose clouds on other prints of landscapes. This was because blue sensitive film would have to be used in a long exposure for a landscape photo, properly exposing the landscape, but overexposing the sky (making it white). The negative of the clouds could be used in the printing process placing a "new" sky with clouds on the print. So you would see the same clouds on different photographs.

     Even some of the tools used in Photoshop come directly from the darkroom; the burn and dodge tool to name a few. Don't even start with the amounts of filters the masters used to create their photographic masterpieces.

     What has happened, in my opinion, is a lot of people have become lazy photographers, with the availability of photoshop. Even with that powerful tool there are an over abundance of mediocre photographs. Proof that it takes A LOT more than a computer program, or expensive camera, to take a spectacular photograph. Photoshop is just a tool, like any tool that's been available since photography began.

its cheating perhaps ....... picasso mentions that his art was sometime done by stealing ....

 still i really dont like the type of photomanipulation that was done in stalins russia ,for instance to rewrite history or by popular science magazine and building seven in new york to help hide a crime, some manipulation is done in service of a more perfect art or to achieve harmony or tone... and some to lie about history and criminal acts ....moral men will know the difference  ....i think

that being said i use photoshop often to tweak but never to create a visual lie  ... now if i only knew where one began and the other ended

photoshop can be used to create a better photograph , or an overdone  hdr abomination  or a wild surreal fantasy of meaning and beauty

the hand of the user

I consider it cheating if the purpose is to deceive for a profit. For instance, I was asked to smooth out a model's face for a rejuvenating face cream ad stating that: "the cream would have the same effect anyway, but we can't just force the model to undergo the 3 month process". This happens all the time, open up a girlie magazine and look at the ads. Its illegal too, I looked it up, the fine is 10000$!!. I didnt do it, they refused to pay me for the photo (a months worth of rent no less..) and they wanted rights to the photo. Took me to court, I won.
In cases like that, yeah it's cheating. On the other hand if I shot a sweet 15 (its what we do here instead of 16) and the girl had a bunch of zits because of puberty and I cloned them out and then did a mild surface blur (to make her face poreless); that I dont consider cheating.

I think some people may have glossed over the OP a bit

Adjusting colors, contrast.... I think this is Okay, but I don't like if things are removed, copied or pasted on a picture.

I think s/he's mainly interested in gross fabrications like deleting an entire object or person, or adding one. AFAIK Ansel Adams never got into photomontage  .

I think some people may have glossed over the OP a bit

Quote from: asterinex on January 10, 2011, 02:34:40 PM

Adjusting colors, contrast.... I think this is Okay, but I don't like if things are removed, copied or pasted on a picture.

I think s/he's mainly interested in gross fabrications like deleting an entire object or person, or adding one. AFAIK Ansel Adams never got into photomontage  .

I'm trying to think who it was, Weston or Strand or one of the other famous old timers, that didn't believe in extensive dark room manipulation. The image should be entirely correct in the camera, not saved in the processing and printing.  I wish...    Failing memory here but one of them went so far as to burn his negatives before he died because he couldn't stand the thought of someone else printing and manipulating them.  Photo historians feel free to speak up!

I suppose it's a matter of degrees or intent.  I clone out errant background stuff, especially in my bike or airplane photos, if I need to and it's not a big project to do it.  The goal is a photo that's pleasing to the eye and tells what I want it to, nothing more.   The street photography people or press shooters shoot with a different standard since they are trying to portray reality as they saw it and altering reality makes the story suspect.   Google "fauxtoshop" to see the ones that get caught.   I'd think that landscape shooters would take out a phone line or dead squirrel if they needed to.

 I have to say that when I get a photo that requires little post processing beyond maybe sharpening or a bit of contrast I'm always pleased.   If most of my photos came out of the camera spot on I'd feel like I'd finally arrived as a shooter.

Doug

But when a someone starts to cut, paste, remove objects or apply heavy filters on a picture then for me it is not a photographical picture anymore but it becomes a peace of artwork.

And I think this is a great difference !

Yes, that's a big thing for me, too. I think commercial photography such as lisandra has been discussing is a different context, with its own quite separate set of ethics.

To me, a realistic-looking photograph as an artistic statement ought to be a faithful, literal representation of what the photographer saw when s/he () viewed the scene. If the photo is going to become non-literal, to me it is essential that cues are given to alert the viewer, for example grain or high-key. Where tricks are used but the educated viewer is not meant to be aware of them, to me this lacks integrity.

(But again -- not necessarily true in commercial context, as long as the broader intent is not to mislead even if the picture is a fabrication. For example, in leandra's little girl pic, in any Mom's eyes her little girl is the most gorgeous creature in the world, so any kind of manipulation is permissible.)

Should we go into what HDR is?

Well that's where us old film fuddy duddies can be taken advantage of and I suppose where 'educated' comes into it, all the more challenging as technology moves so quickly  :-[

I was wondering what you think of photoshopping, copy, pasting,...
Adjusting colors, contrast.... I think this is Okay, but I don't like if things are removed, copied or pasted on a picture.
I think it is a bit like cheating. I like the pure shots taken by the photographer.
How do you think about this ?

The camera does all the work of taking that picture, you don't have complete control over the light to begin with, so to me, photoshop/post production is THE ONLY OPPORTUNITY you have to make a photo "YOURS" and have some sense of authorship.  Do what you can to get it right the first time, that for SURE counts for something, but in the end, you can't control everything in your environment. 

I Post Process in the Digital Darkroom, therefore I deem this method legitimate.  As if I were the king...



Jason C

What's the Digital Darkroom?

Post Processing using programs, such as LR, CS, DPP, etc.


Jason C