Why so much Post Production?

[Mike Buckley]

Sorry, Andre, but I still don't understand. It's not for lack of you or me trying. The issue that you raise isn't so important to me that I should continue devoting the time and energy to try to understand your position. So, as I bow out of the discussion, I'll simply thank you for your efforts.

[AB26]

Sorry, Andre, but I still don't understand. It's not for lack of you or me trying. The issue that you raise isn't so important to me that I should continue devoting the time and energy to try to understand your position. So, as I bow out of the discussion, I'll simply thank you for your efforts.

Thanks for contributing Mike, see you in other posts. Hope some day you will understand.

[Markvetnz]

Mark, did you read post #89?

NO! I couldn't be bothered trolling through the same old stuff again and again, Like I said this topic comes up every 6 months or so and it gets debated ad nauseum. Nobody is right or wrong. The main thing is that we all enjoy our photography.

[Colin Southern]

Andre,

Putting my thoughts another way ...

If you were to say that "folks shouldn't post-process to compensate for poor camera / lighting technique" then I would agree with you. For me, getting something right in-camera is always my first goal - but - only to the point where it's reasonable or practical.

For example, if a shot is 2 stops under-exposed then I'm going to do something about it "in-camera" before I continue shooting. Same goes for a persistent hair across a models face (etc). However there are things that just aren't possible (or easy) to do in-camera (pimple removal, "helicopter hanging" etc) - and for that there's Photoshop.

[MrB]

In post #108, I included a smiley at the end of the last paragraph to denote "sarcastic", because its conclusions are so obviously ridiculous. However, the important point of reason is that those conclusions follow logically from Andre's original post (i.e. post #1, from which the quotes came), and post #108 thus serves to illustrate the weakness in his claims.

It is my hope that anyone reading my posts will find them to contain well-reasoned contributions opposing Andre's views, so to me it seems unfair if that warrants the description "cantankerous" (#118). Also, when I admit to being a novice photographer, it seems unfair to use that in an inane test of ability to spot a capture fault (#99 + #106), in an attempt to support what began as a call to diminish the status of post-processing (#1).

Mainly from highly respected practitioners at CiC, I have learned that photography involves developing competence in both image capture and image processing to produce a good photograph. I also know that it is wrong for anyone to dictate the relative extent to which the skills of capture and processing are used by the photographer, in the creation of a colour or b&w photograph that will fulfill his or her vision.

Philip

There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs. (Ansel Adams)

[Manfred M]

Manfred, that capture is picture perfect. Can't see the EXIF, why not?

No idea why you can't see the EXIF. Here it is:

[Hero]

No idea why you can't see the EXIF.

I think I do. The image shown in the thread is resized (by the forum or flickr) from the original image. That resized image does not contain EXIF-info. Once you click on the image, the original is shown with exif and all.

[Vrgl]

Wonder how much PP the brain does when an image comes through our eyes?

[AB26]

Wonder how much PP the brain does when an image comes through our eyes?

Don’t think mine does any at all. It tends to process and not post process.

[Colin Southern]

Wonder how much PP the brain does when an image comes through our eyes?

Normally quite a lot.

We tend to remember scenes as having more saturation than they actually have - we tend to find contrast where there isn't (in low-contract areas) and not notice contrast so much in areas where there may be a lot (eg eye make up). We also tend to not notice distractions in real life that we notice when we study a photo (eg show a girl a nice dress in a shop window and she sees a nice dress; show her a photo of the same dress in the same window an you'll see reflections in the window - smears on the glass etc).

[William W]

. . . as well as not noticing what is there, the brain is also capable of making up what isn’t there.
Post Production equivalent of “Cloning and Layers” perhaps?

WW

[AB26]

you'll see reflections in the window

Colin I would recommend trying a polarizing filter.

[AB26]

. . . as well as not noticing what is there, the brain is also capable of making up what isn’t there.
Post Production equivalent of “Cloning and Layers” perhaps?

WW

Bill, perhaps that caused the death of Tom Price in the 1977 South African Grand Prix.
A marshall's brain doing TO much Post Production.

[Brocken]

Photography is a labour of artifice from start to finish. We compose and light scenes, we select lenses showing certain angular views and then control for depth of field, depth of focus, and the duration for which light is to be recorded. We make decisions about the aesthetics of artifacts like bokeh and limitations of the medium like dynamic range. When we are through with all these artistic choices we are left with a latent image, or its digital equivalent, the RAW data, which we then work up using chemical or software processes which we have chosen to yield the outcome that we want. And when we are done with all this we then decide on presentation, on mounting, display, projection, or curation, making further artistic choices, each one of which takes the image further away from its initial state and further still from the physical conditions and properties and time frame of the world to which the image relates. And all of this relates just as much to the pinhole camera as it does to the latest DSLR, as much to silver halide chemistry as to the CCD and CMOS sensors of today.

The idea that there is, or ever has been, any photographic process which is somehow 'authentic,' and captures scenes which are somehow 'out there' and renders them unmediated from four dimensions into two is not well thought through.

[AB26]

Photography is a labour of artifice from start to finish.

Christopher, it is a very interesting perspective you have on photography. To a great extent I will agree with you, if photographs are manipulated to deceive others, photography has become a labour of artifice.

No Christopher, I do not think you are going to convince me that photography is an artifice. To some maybe, not to me.

The Grand Canyon is false and all the pictures I have ever seen of it is not even close to the truth, it is all the product of an artifice??? I hope not.

[bhurley]

The Grand Canyon is false and all the pictures I have ever seen of it is not even close to the truth, it is all the product of an artifice??? I hope not.

I don't think that's what he's saying, but it's fair to say that all the pictures you have ever seen of the Grand Canyon "are not even close to the truth," because once you've been to the Grand Canyon I think it hits you that all those photographs still do not come close to replicating the experience of the real thing. A photograph is a necessarily mediated depiction of reality. Some photographers want that depiction to be as faithful as possible to what they remember seeing when they were there: they want to capture some essence of truth. Other photographers want to interpret their experience, or modify it to suit an artistic vision. Or they just want to experiment, follow their intuition, and see where it leads them.

I think there's room in photography for a broad range of aims and visions -- it's like music: there is classical music and traditional music, rock music, pop, hip-hop, and all the genres you can find in the drop-down menu in iTunes. They are all music, as imagined and delivered by people with different tastes, cultures, goals, and abilities. (As an aside, the post-production debate rages equally in the field of recorded and now even live music.)

[Brocken]

'Artifice' - a clarification. Looking at some of the pop dictionaries online, I can see that I didn't choose this word well for an 'international English' readership, where it can simply mean 'deceit'. Using examples from the Oxford dictionary, I meant it to be understood as in "the style is not free from the artifices of the period" and "The sad thing about artificial intelligence is that it lacks artifice and therefore intelligence." I also meant it in its original sense of craftsmanship and invention.

[bambleweeney]

I also meant it in its original sense of craftsmanship and invention.

Which is what I took it to mean Interesting definintion though, craftsmanship and invention which together I think define the image making process. Craftsmanship certainly, if you don't know the craft (and this encompasses knowing how to use your camera and the effects of the various controls as well as an understanding of the effect of light on your subject) then regardless of post processing it's odds on that you're not going to produce a masterpiece. Invention in the sense that you can look at a subject and incorporate your reaction and emotional response to it into an image. The trick for an artist is to produce an image that is more than just a facsimile of the subject, to produce my personal version of reality of you like. With a modern dslr with auto everything reality is relatively easy to capture with a little knowlege of the craft; evidenced by a plethora of really nice but essentially empty images that we see on a daily basis. To introduce an emotional response, to go that bit further, requires a greater knowlege of the 'craft' and a knowlege of post processing to squeeze out every nuance from the output of what is essentially an imperfect, unfeeling instrument - the camera .
This is part of the craft and always has been wether in the darkroom or in front of the computer. Obviously you can go too far, this is part of the learning curve for most of us and post processing being much easier in front of the computer than it used to be in a darkroom most anybody can (over)do it. You take a fairly average picture and with half an hours work in Photoshop you end up with something completely different - not necessarily better, just a different fairly average picture. Convincing yourself that it's much better is easy, you invested a fortune on Photosop, you saw all the videos and applied all of the techniques therein to this particular image and so it's got to be a masterpiece - right? The ease with which you can do this doesn't devalue the process though, it is for example really easy to pick up a pencil and draw something, we don't criticise Da Vinci for doing it though (yeah Leonardo - now do something difficult !!).
The thing is that there will always be and there always have been people at the top of their craft that produce fantastic images because they can both use a camera and post produce appropriately. Then there are the rest of us, some of whom will continue climbing the learning curve and some who will be happy to be where they are. It is as they say what it is. Too much post processing - sure, in a lot of cases. If that's the first thing you notice when you look at an image then, yep, it's not a good one. If the first thing you notice is the image and its emotional impact then the ammount of post processing is appropriate no matter how much there has been.
So, why so much post production? Because we can, because it's accesible to all of us as photographers, because we believe that our images will automatically be better, because what we see on screen doesn't resemble the picture we thought we'd taken and it's the easy fix, because if we know what we're doing (!!!) our images will in fact be much better.

[Manfred M]

Andre:

I think we are fooling ourselves is we think we need to resort to PP to "lie" about our subject matter. Let me demonstrate with two different images how I was able to "lie" with camera angles and using the right lens. Both pictures were take in the Lourve Museum, in Paris, France, in the famously crowded room where da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" is on display.



What's this; Mona Lisa all along with a couple of bored looking guards and someone stretched out on the floor with a notebook and no one else around? Packing an ultra-wide angle lens (11mm) lens I was able to step in front of all of the other visitors and make the room look large and empty.




On the other hand, the room appears overcrowded and packed with visitors. Same lens, a few seconds after the first shot, I stepped back a few steps and got a picture of virtually every one in the room. The ultra-wide angle lens is once again the tool used for the lie. Careful composition, positioning and camera angles, and there are people seemingly everywhere.



In fact, it was a slow Monday in mid-March and the crowd was reasonably small, but by shooting with an ultra-wide angle lens, I was able to tell two lies without having to resort to Photoshop.

Portrait photographers use similar "tricks" using lighting, long lenses and technique. Shooting a person with a round face (short lighting) can make the face look skinnier or less round. Broad lighting on a person with a thin, narrow face makes the face look a bit fuller. Using a long lens will flatten the face and help disguise a longish nose.

Let's be realistic here. The camera takes a three-dimensional object and makes it two-dimensional. You pan PP, but I can tell just as convincing a "lie" through appropriate equipment choice, lighting setup, makeup, etc., be it a landscape, a portrait, or just about any other shot. In fact, I prefer doing so in-camera, as if I can do it there, I can save a lot of time in PP.

Based on your comments, I would assume this is okay by your definitions, because this is what the camera and lens saw.

[Brocken]

Interesting definintion though, craftsmanship and invention which together I think define the image making process.

Quite so! Feu d'artifice (fireworks) does not imply a fire which is somehow false, but fire that comes into being and develops in forms and colours defined as much by imagination as by physics, chemistry, technology, and craftsmanship much like our own endeavours.