Whether an image is “too” photoshopped, or overly retouched is a huge issue for both photographers and non-photographers. We’ve talked about it many times on our forum. It’s an issue for photographers because our medium is in the midst of a dramatic change. Photography has gone digital. Everyone has a digital camera. Every image is fodder for manipulation. Many photographers over-manipulate.
The problem is that there is no consensus on how much manipulation is too much. Some photographers say over manipulation occurs with anything over and above basic editing (contrast and tonal control, cropping and some dodging and burning). Others say we are craftsman and that Photoshop is a tool like any other tool, so there is no limit. (Personally I don’t buy this for a second).
Certainly when you look at a photo, you often cannot tell what level of manipulation was done and nowhere is the level of manipulation revealed. Sometimes though, you can EASILY tell when an image is over-retouched or manipulated.
This is less of a big deal when you are creating a photograph for artistic reasons, but it’s damn serious when young girls want to look like models that don’t exist. The models exist of course but their images are over manipulated to the point of fraud. Impressionable girls want to look like these models hawking beauty-cream. They feel bad/sad when they can’t look like these models. Here is just one recent Newsweek article on this over-manipulation (hat tip to AcadieLibre from our forum). If this trend continues, it won’t be long till we’ll be selling anti-wrinkle cream to ten year olds or freckle remover for red headed babies.‚ All it will take is a couple of‚ before and after photos showing the ‘improvement’ in their appearances. Even babies and ten year olds want to feel ‘better’ about themselves.
But people are catching on, they are getting fed up with this manipulation/fraud/cheating. This week in London England, Conservative party leader David Cameron was blasted for a campaign election poster where he looks 20 years younger than he does. Here’s the original poster, a spoof poster and what Cameron looks like on a normal day.
Over manipulation in photography
So what say you? Are you fed up with fake photography.….….?‚ Or am I just whining because I have no Elvis hair to style?
The argument is nearly as old as photography itself. To prove the point, here are a few of history’s most recognizable photographs of scenes that never existed.
The Great Wave by Gustave Le Gray 1857. Impossible to get this photograph in a single exposure in his day.
Fading Away by Henry Peach Robinson 1858. No less than five negatives used to make the photograph.
The Two Ways of Life by Oscar Rejlander 1857. If it had been done in PSxx it would have had as many as thirty layers.
Lets stop with just these three. I mean, they’re from the mid nineteenth century. At no point in time since then have we seen a decline in manipulation by photographers. In fact, it wouldn’t be hard to image that the opposite was true. So, any kind of list would go on forever and ever. (seems funny to frame the argument in the context of todays food, advertising, and fashion photography, so I sure as heck won’t.)
As long as every single element in an image was first filtered though the lens of a camera I’m going to give it the benefit of doubt. You may not like what whats been crafted from beginning to end with tender loving care. That’s fine. I don’t like everything I see that fits the bill. I do, however, make every effort not to throw rocks at photographs that remind me of nothing more than a post card or and image from a student’s text book.
I used to let it piss me off a little for some one to say that something I’ve shown had gone beyond being a photograph and become a digital something or another. Even when it was said in a kind way. Not that they didn’t like it, mind you, its just they couldn’t accept it as a photograph. When that happens now, I just shrug my shoulders and move on.
There’s a couple of things ‘ol Peach had to say about photography that I tend to let influence me to a large degree.
He said, “Impressionism has induced the study of what we see and shown us that we all see differently; it has done good to photography by showing that we should represent what we see and not what the lens sees … “ and he also said that “It is a too common occurrence with photographers to overlook the inadaptability of a scene to artistic treatment, merely because they think it lends itself to the facility, which their art possesses, of rendering, with wondrous truth, minutiae and unimportant details. To many this rendering of detail, and the obtaining of sharp pictures, is all that is considered necessary to constitute perfection; and the reason for this is, that they have no knowledge of, and therefore can take no interest in, the representation of nature as she presents herself to the eye of a well-trained painter, or of one who has studied her with reverence and love. — Henry Peach Robinson
Having all these modern tool’s is good up to a point,being able to remove unwanted objects from an image is great,light touching up just to get what you wanted in the first place,is what its all about,light color changes is fine
Many modern photographers go overboard though with images,there so touched up to the point they are now removed from the real world,they are to perfect.
The image now looks generic just like any other digital image so perfect and so unreal,waterfalls in landscape that look like silk are so stupid,but i see that all the time.
Modern photo tools are really great though for improving old photo images,and thats what i use them for
“HOWEVER‚¦Anselžs level of manipulation and todayžs manipulation is like horse and buggy to car. Ansel never needed a computer processor to finish or drastically alter his work.”
Given that he did the most with the tools he had available, saying he would have stuck with the buggy despite being offered a car is simply something you can’t know. Especially in light of many quotes he’s made concerning using dodging and burning to get the end product you desire.
You don’t take a photograph, you make it. — Ansel Adams
There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs. — Ansel Adams
We must remember that a photograph can hold just as much as we put into it, and no one has ever approached the full possibilities of the medium. — Ansel Adams
He did as much as he could with the tools he had available to him in order to realize his vision.
Photography, as most of us see it, is an art, not a science. News, science, advertising, and similar photography should obviously not be tweaked to the point of deception– when the purpose of a photograph is to provide *an accurate visual description* of a person, place, event, species, or product. But *art photography* is just that– art– and every artist has equal right to do what they can to make their vision come to life.
However, I think what might be the best thing for the industry is to define a separate branch for digitally manipulated photographs, so that both consumers and other artists know in general how much reality there is in the photograph in front of them.
While I’m personally also rather fed-up with having to see grossly over-manipulated images, I do believe that the artist has the right. If I thought otherwise, I’d have already started a campaign against those ghastly tone-mapped “HDR” monstrosities that are ever-so-popular these days.
I do minimal editing of my work, if any at all. These days EVERYTHING is being manipulated. There was that famous video on YouTube showing a larger woman transform into beautiful skinny model… for me that is not photography; and like mentioned above, that is DIGITAL ART. There was a recent photojournalist competition where wedding photographers submitted all kinds of images and top three final images looked surreal and overly manipulated. I guess that is where our industry is headed.. Imaginary world. I don’t know, I’ll stick with the traditional editing, basic dodging, burning, flashing, filtering and etc… I still need to embark on my first HDR image!
Thanks for the comments! This is a very provocative topic and for many, we are going to have to agree to disagree.
I would like to reply to a few things though;
Ryan — “I fully support a photographeržs right to do anything they want in photoshop and not be looked at as cheating. Like you said photoshop is only another tool in the box and what matters is the final product. Nothing else.
If you believe photoshop is cheating than you also have to agree that all modern benefits of a DSLR are as well. You shouldnt be using things like Bracketing, Auto-Focus, Metering etc as those are all digital tools used to augment a photographeržs skill (like photoshop). I have heard many …œhard-core‚ photographers really denounce such a level of photo-manipulation, however, if you think about it, unless they are walking around with equipment like what Ansel Adams had, they too are …œcheating‚ by their own definition of the term”
There are many people that will agree with you Ryan, but not me. Here’s why;
You cannot control how others think of your photography. If they think you are are cheating, there is zero you can do about it…except wonder why they think that.
I support the right of photographers as well do do whatever they want in photoshop (it’s their work). At the extremes though (like running the glowing edges filter over the whole image) for me, what they produce is NOT photography. It’s mixed media or digital art.…but that is NEVER written anywhere.
Metering (which of COURSE Ansel did) and bracketing is WORLDS away from using the liquify filter to pull in a waistline. One you can do with the primary photographic instrument (the camera) and one you cannot.
In terms of Ansel being a total purist…not true at all. Ansel and many of his peers also engaged in some level of darkroom manipulation (bleaching etc). HOWEVER…Ansel’s level of manipulation and today’s manipulation is like horse and buggy to car. Ansel never needed a computer processor to finish or drastically alter his work.
and it’s this COMPUTER manipulation of photography that has also manipulated the mindset of our generation for the worse. We no longer know what is true and what is pure bullshit…and that’s why some of us are fed up.
Ideally my goal is do as much in camera as possible.
I am okay with a certain level of Post production. Removing a branch or fixing my son’s snotty nose.
I often am appalled by the general sloppiness of photoshop work in the pictures of aspiring pros.
On Flickr, you can usually spot the applied blur by looking at particular parts of the image that hadn’t been masked properly..
I fully support a photographer’s right to do anything they want in photoshop and not be looked at as cheating. Like you said photoshop is only another tool in the box and what matters is the final product. Nothing else.
If you believe photoshop is cheating than you also have to agree that all modern benefits of a DSLR are as well. You shouldnt be using things like Bracketing, Auto-Focus, Metering etc as those are all digital tools used to augment a photographer’s skill (like photoshop). I have heard many “hard-core” photographers really denounce such a level of photo-manipulation, however, if you think about it, unless they are walking around with equipment like what Ansel Adams had, they too are “cheating” by their own definition of the term.
However, yes I can see the side of it this does not like the way the media has leveraged photoshop to manipulate the sexuality of models but it is the nature of the territory and ultimately it sells magazines so i doubt it will go away anytime soon. Perhaps even it is a good thing for the models as it becomes less important for them to destroy their bodies trying to stay at size 0.
I beleive that all adjustments to be made should first be done with the set up and shooting of the said subject. Post image editing is and has allways been done whether in film or the digital format. Negatives have been retouched in the darkroom and now with digital we have tone mapping. One has to blame the “fashion industry” for the airbrushing of their models. The ad exec’s too are to blame. Unfortunately we live in a society that takes what is to be perceived as “beautiful” to the extreme. Retouching the photo’s taken to the extent that all imperfections of a model have been airbrushed out only to reveal a flawless model ( I have yet to see a flawless person).This in turn sells a product to the masses.If you are selling make up, do you want to convey a famous model with a pimple? No! you will have it airbrushed out. Food photographers do this pre shoot adjustment all the time with Raw food , burning meat “just right” and then glazing it over with automotive clear spraypaint to make it look as delicious as possible. None of us will ever make chicken look that good when we cook it. I do however disagree with posting an image of yourself looking younger than you are. That IS FALSE ADVERTISING!