Hi all,

I just want to point you to some interesting examples of how an image can be changed by manipulation work.

http://www.halsemann.de/SimpleVor Nach 1/

Don't miss to view his portfolio.

I have to say that I like a lot of his work :-)

Peter

An impressive work with tones and tones of patience and skills and I like the images and respect that but not my cup of tea when talking about photography. I regonize too that in some cases with such quality work I will hardly difference which image is real if I had not the real one to compare, and that makes me think and helps me to positinate myself with the ones who love to take photos instead create them on PS but again I have nothing against creative edit, is just another field.

Very enlightening in fact remarkable what is possible in image manipulation. I personally love the outcome & recognise that it takes a clever creative temperament to achieve such convincing results. Thank you for sharing.

A beautifull example how postprcessing can change just a 'good' image' into a strong one.

Great examples of what can be done if one would rather sit at the computer than go out and shoot...takes skill for sure, but what's the point, really?? If it has commercial value, and I assume it does because we see plenty of it in the commercial images we are bombarded with as we walk around our physical and virtual worlds, then more power to him. Just not what impresses me these days...

If you choose to look at it like that Clyde, then what is the point of anything?
An opinion just for the sake of having an opinion?

Well, Alex, I didn't really just leave it there. I did acknowledge the skill it takes and the commercial value. Beyond that, yeah, it's just an opinion...

photos + that postprocessing manipulation = image and not photography

A guy who take terrible photos and create good ones in postprocessing never will be a photographer, but a good artist and photoshop operator.

Can´t be more simple ... offcourse that ones good artists and good photoshop operators will disagree from my opinon because they want to be photographers to.. whatever ! :)

This guy is great with photoshop but way below the average with his camera. Look at his original shots, he doesn't even know where to place himself to take just a straightforward, simmetric architecture shot...composition? What a mysterious thing.... photography? Oh yeah, I photoshop !

Its actually very depressing looking at such extreme manipulation...... Almost makes me want to give up photography!

Whatt ? Glen, why ? It´s two diferent things. This chat about pure photography x manipulations is so old as photgraphy himself. But now is more actual, because in past if you want to do manipulation you must have a deep knowledge about photography and darkroom. Actualy you only need a PC, software and some photos to manipulate. But there is two diferent worlds. I don´t need to give up photography because world need people who show the true. If everybody quits photography because others do manipulation, soon nobody believe in images ;)

Rui, "...soon nobody believe in images"
That´s a point, nowadays nobody believes in images, because everybody knows how easy PS turns a dull images into something more or less attractive. Now the audience when watching a nice image inmediately asks how much PS is involve on it.
OTOH Ansel Adams segregated his three basic books in camera-eye, negative and copy an entire process where darkroom techs were fundamentals, these techs are the PS basics of today. This is photography. But the public doesn´t know how much postprocessing is needed to make a difference between photography and creative edit.

Some of the results are interesting and pleasing to look at (at least for me). I personally don't care how they were created.

The manipulations are done very carefully and certainly creates wonderful images that looks quite unreal... you cherish the crispness, color contrast and the pure unnatural character of the image( not photograph ). Wow at the first sight, good at the next few and then feel NO... its not real, there are no emotions you can relate to, this is so superficial and there it looses the charm. So IMO processing a photograph without loosing its original characteristics is a good one but to make it completely different and unreal is not a good idea that can be enjoyed for long.

The 'before' and the 'after' shots are both boring. . . Sometimes I like boring, but this is the wrong kind of boring. . . imho of course.

Interesting (like a two-headed dog), but not photography.

...here we go again:-(
A little respect for other minded people, is welcome here!

*I* respect you, Ben.

Ben, you are one of the great artists in 1X, i sayd you many times before i love your artwork and i´m your fan.

Is unrespect you if i said "artwork" instead "photos" ? :)

I think it is fair. Artwork, nothing less and nothing more. And nothing wrong with that - as long as viewers can make difference between such artwork and a non-manipulated photograph (which I believe is no more true since long, and that is a problem isn't it ?). If you take a photograph and use it as a material for a collage, it is a collage. Same here, photographs used as mere raw material for something else.

I agree with Jacques, but I would add a personal thought which can of course diverge with what he thinks.
I think that creative edit, photomontages, multiple-exposures, digital art, all belongs to the Art domain, whereas only single-exposured shots belong to the Photography domain. Photographs are instantaneous reactions to reality, not an 'a posteriori' elaboration of it - where you have all the time to decide what to change, what to keep, what to add and so on. Art activities are slow, meditative - drawing is slow, painting is slow, manipulating an image is slow. Taking a photograph takes a fraction of a second, it's instinctive, especially when candid. And, even with staged/studio/static-subject shots where you have a certain power to arrage things, you cannot do it to same amount of detail an artist can. I'm talking of unmanipulated shots, with no photomontages. A photograph is an authentic capture of something that was really before the camera at the time of the shot. It's simple.

You do realize that when you press the shutter on that fancy little Pentax of yours that the sensor is actually capturing 3 images for each pixel one red, one green and one blue. And if you save raw files, the camera records all three. If you save jpeg, then the camera combines all three into one and writes it onto the cards after some sharpening and color balance and tonal correction and saturation adjustments. If raw, then your raw converter does all of those things for you as you adjust the sliders. Or in your case, perhaps does all than and then strips out the chroma and your b&w images are opened in PS or some other software. If you convert to b&w in PS or some other image manipulation software then the chroma gets removed and maybe some final cropping and sharpening and then, of course down sizing to 1x size with some more sharpening and voilà, there is your image to submit to 1x.

Now the question is after all that debayering, sharpening, tonal adjustments, desaturating, resizing, etc. does it "belong to the Photography domain"???

Explain, don't understand...

Hello, BTW, good to see you back in these forums my friend!

Yes, it is! :-)

@RH what did you mean "from the beginning"?

Clyde, my English maybe isn't that good, yet I think I wrote it already:

I don't have time at the moment to present my argument, but I want to get on record that I respectfully disagree with Fabio's statement almost in its entirety.

Eii Robert. Let´s talk only about fiap and psa and forgot "1st page", right ?? :-)

That is my present thought, King, I started with "I think", but I'm interested in reading your argument. I consider myself a student, broadly speaking, I have a learning attitude and I am open to change my mind.

Fair enough...I admire that attitude. Give me a few hours and I will present my counter-argument to a few of your points.

Not only fair enough but completely rasonable. "I think" all us, young photogs have much to learn with the seniors ones, King .

Fabio Giannelli wrote (click for original post):
I'm talking of unmanipulated shots, with no photomontages. A photograph is an authentic capture of something that was really before the camera at the time of the shot. It's simple.

Clyde, I quoted that part of my reply because I specified "unmanipulated shots, with no photomontages". Let's not talk about contrast, brightness and basic processing which everybody has done in the past in dark room and everybody does today via software (inside or outside the camera). I was clearly talking of changing the essence of a photograph, making photomontages, adding exposures, textures, external elements, cloning out things...that is the essence of 'manipulation' for me - to substantially change the original scene that was in front of the camera at the time of the shot.

You guys are both missing my point. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with the kind of things I have stated exist in either of your workflows. I just saying that realize that it is happening, whether you are moving a slider or the software is doing it for you. AND, then don't argue that anybody that does any more than you do to an image is no longer doing photography. It's a senseless argument. It's all about degrees. Much better to just look at the images and if you like them, keep looking and if you don't look at something else. Stop trying to separate yourself in an internet world that tends to blur all the boundaries anyway. OR, if you really want to separate yourself, then just do physical galleries and forget the internet. Then you can righteously call yourself whatever you want and call the rest of us whatever you want...

Fabio, your argument seems to suggest that if an image is Art, then it is not Photography. As Clyde says, it's an old argument.
Photography can be as legitimate an art form as any other, irrespective of genre. It's not binomial (on or off), it's a continuous spectrum.

Photoshop is just a tool that many photographers employ and that few master...just as the enlarger, cotton balls, Q-Tips, bleach, toners, dyes, pencils, scrapers etc. were common tools that many photographers employed but few mastered before Photoshop was around. Many famous photographs in museums and private collections have had much manipulation (for instance, the removal of dust marks and scratches) after the shutter was clicked. It's all a part of photography.


Wherever did you get that idea? Before debating this issue, a philosopher would ask you to define "instantaneous" and "reality," but I won't. Read the history of the camera obscura, which preceded photography. Then read what the earliest photographers had to do to capture images on different media. There was noting instantaneous about it and reality changed from moment to moment, photographer to photographer.


I think Cartier Bresson strove to do that between lifting the camera to his eye and clicking the shutter. Critical decisions can often be made very quickly. Even painters, who may spend a long time on a painting, may make quick ("instantaneous") decisions about the next brush stroke.


That is true of the image below, captured on a single piece of film prior to development and before Photoshop existed. Is it a photograph?

Thank you, Robert...I hope you don't think I was fishing for compliments and you know that I have great respect and admiration for your work.

This is just a discussion that I find interesting because much of my 1X.com portfolio pre-dates Photoshop--which shouldn't be a crutch for true photographic creativity, and I think that is your point as well.

here I am, King. Interesting reply as I expected, there are things you said on which I agree, some other didn't really convince me. I'll try to reply tomorrow. Looks this is going to be an interesting thread, maybe not for my part of contribution but more likely for yours. I'm not deep rooted into Philosophy, as it is not my field of study, but I like it much and I'll try to explain what I meant.

I just wanted to reply to this before going to sleep:

I said:
"A photograph is an authentic capture of something that was really before the camera at the time of the shot."

you replied:

It's a really cool image, King, but that is a multiple-exposure shot. It's technically a photomontage, not a photograph.

wiki: "Photomontage is the process (and result) of making a composite photograph by cutting and joining a number of other photographs. The composite picture was sometimes photographed so that the final image is converted back into a seamless photographic print. A similar method, although one that does not use film, is realized today through image-editing software."

You can do it in several ways. You did it in an incredible way, which takes a lot of experience and mastery. Still is a composite image.

@Fabio, if we just stopped right now and said "you know Fabio you are right, that is not a photograph" what have you gained??? It's really a silly distinction you are making and I just don't see the point. You will NEVER find a consensus on this or any of the other 5 or 6 circular discussion that come up here every few weeks. If you just enjoy the process, as I must admit I do, then let's spend a whole bunch of time discussing to no end. If you really think consensus is in the cards, I think you will be disappointed!

Rabert, I can see you smiling when writing this because I'm convinced you know what nonsense this is :-)
Let me add that I'm also convinced that you are aware that I admire your work, especially your strong portraits. But why thinking so black and white? Why reducing the use of ps only for saturation, crop, lightness, contrast and sharpness (btw. these simple adjustments can be done with much more less expensive programs than photoshop ;-)? If you are able to use your camera in a way that the results don't need more ps work, that's great. But let's be so tolerant to let others or not so experienced photographers to use the available tools for achieving what they want.

The discussion is about manipulation possibilities. I didn't ask if it's photography or not. I also didn't ask if 1X shows only few pure photographs but more artwork.
But let's come back to something you wrote above: . How is it possible that people have the expression to do such statements under your photos?
Isn't the answer quite easy? A number of images that went through heavier postprocessing procedures look similar to your images. What you achieve by using ps "only" for "saturation, crop, lightness, contrast and sharpness" often looks damned similar to other portraits that underwent heavy postprocessing. So, when the outcome of using ps saturation, crop, lightness, contrast and sharpness can be compared with other postprocessing results, why condemning ps? I know, because of the image examples I pointed to in the starting message, eh? I know you don't like images that are so heavily manipulated. But also here I plead for being tolerant and look at the results as artwork.