# Post processing - Is it fakery?



## DonaldG (Aug 23, 2007)

> ....might be right about faking it a bit by resizing the vertical whilst keeping the horizontal the same however I go more for truth than fakery and I think, as a layman, that without any photoshop trickery it's a superb photo .. I'm jealous ..




This is a contentious subject.

What is the truth with respect to photography? 

The absolute truth is that *every* photograph is a fake! Your camera, as well as mine, tells a lie, every time we press the shutter release. By not doing some post processing could be seen as propagating that untruth.

A camera, no matter how big or small, inexpensive or the most expensive, can duplicate the image as seen by the photographer's eyes (or their mind's eye). There are many short comings with cameras and image displaying methods and differences in the concept of vision between different observers.

No film, print, display or digital camera can reproduce the dynamic range of the human eye. Even high dynamic range (HDR) photographs cannot reproduce the dynamic range of the eye.

To cover up some of these shortcomings, it is very common (or even essential) for photographers to perform digital adjustments to their images to bring out the concept of the scene as they saw it. That is not fakery or telling an untruth. This is exactly the same as 'wet process' photographers do in their darkrooms with their papers and chemicals. Dodging and burning in was applied to every print. Composing & cropping is not trickery or giving an untruth. Doing all this digitally is far healthier, versatile and quicker too.

Every photograph taken will be closer to reality if some sort of post processing is applied to it. (made lighter or darker or contrast adjustments being the most common needs)

Where is the 'trickery' and untruth when that image is so adjusted when the camera was incapable of or failed to capture the scene as the photographer envisioned it to be or as the human eye saw it? Is it faking when we expose for the shadows or expose for the highlights when the camera film/sensor cannot do both at the same time?

Referring to HDR again, in an attempt to capture the full dynamic range of the human eye to reproduce the brightest of highlights and the darkest of shadows, HDR exponents usually take between 3 and 7 RAW images bracketing what would be considered as a 'normal' exposure. Without going into the full technical details of RAW, suffice to say that generally raw is a 16bit image, whereas a .jpg is only an 8bit image.. That 8bit .jpg has had some sort of in camera processing too. (Opps, did the camera tell a lie even before it stored the image on the storage card?)


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## WereBo (Apr 5, 2008)

The way I see it, post-processing pics (contrast, HDR, cropping etc') is 'Enhancing' the image so the viewer can see what the photographer is trying to capture - Fakery is when parts are actually changed, added o removed; fashion-photographers who remove blemishes from faces or 'tweak' the model's waistline (or other 'assets' :grin, even changing the background from a studio wall to a beach or woodland scene etc.

There was a major row about Reuters, a couple of years ago, when photos released to the world-media were so obviously cloned and cut-'n'-pasted, an extinct dodo could see it - *Link*.

I don't see any problem with 'enhancements', but fakery opens a whole new can of worms.


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## DonaldG (Aug 23, 2007)

Those in your link are not just fakes - They were fraud with intent to deceive. A good press photograph is worth a minimum of £250. If it gets into a national add another nought to that. If it is a half-page on the front - then it is in the tens or hundreds of pounds, depending on the exclusivity and or subject. The plonkers tried to up the dramatic effect with the attempt to defraud the news agency.

In 1965, as a jobbing photographer, I took a great series of photographs of Selfridges, Oxford Street well ablaze - one frame from my Leica 35mm showed a fireman on a fully extended ladder being surrounded by flames and smoke. In those days, a photographer hailed a taxi, gave him the film and told him to take it to the newspaper offices if choice. They paid the taxi fare. (Mine was the Daily Express, then in Fleet Street)

I thought that I was on a winner - good shots of a famous shop etc...Got to be published in a 'national'... Unfortunately, that was also the day that Sir Winston Churchill died. His death killed off all other news! :sigh:


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## zuluclayman (Dec 16, 2005)

Enhancing an image by using either the digital or wet darkroom is what has been done forever - as Donald so rightly says "Your camera, as well as mine, tells a lie, every time we press the shutter release." This is because the camera is very limited, seeing only a portion of what we see both in terms of light & colour and in scope - even wide-angle lenses don't have our peripheral vision.

My aim has always been to show not only what I see physically but how I see it from my sense of aesthetics - to show what it could be, what I see in it, what it means to me. This holds true whether the image be a landscape, portrait or group of objects.

To achieve this I will use whatever means are available to me - in the darkroom it may be the old fashioned wet way of dodging and/or burning, toning solutions, painting with developer, solarising etc.

When digital imaging became mainstream and software such as Photoshop became readily available all that changed was the location the manipulations took place in and the degree of control we had over our images - all to our benefit I feel - much safer chemically though I'm sure my eyesight has deteriorated and my posture weakened by hours of Photoshopping :grin: 

As for substitution of backgrounds and other more extreme manipulations - if it gets you the resulting image you want - go for it! If I were to do these and then claim it was "realistic" then there may be a problem but if the resulting image is "tricked up" and makes no claim to be real then I see no problem.

Neither way is right or wrong - just different!

rant over - I'm tired now :laugh:


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## WereBo (Apr 5, 2008)

Hehehehehehe.... Yep, as you say, it's the intention that makes it either OK or not :wink:


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## DonaldG (Aug 23, 2007)

zuluclayman said:


> ..... much safer chemically


I remember when I worked for Beagle Aircraft in the South of England, I often use cyanide to bleach out the image after one of our artists did a pen & ink over drawing on a matt print.

Imagine dissolving a cyanide 'egg' with hot water in an enclosed darkroom! What would health & safety say to that - No risk assessment in those days...


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## yustr (Sep 27, 2004)

Me thinks that there’s a big difference between what the photo-artist (to use the term loosely in my case) and photo-journalist should do regarding manipulating images. I believe that the journalist’s first responsibility is to report the truth. If he happens to capture an image that achieves both an accurate report and is artistic – he’s got a winner. OTOH, we “artists” :laugh: can add drama, hide distractions, etc. without care because we’re not trying to get it accurate; we’re trying to capture what our minds eye sees in that scene. Then there’s advertisement - obviously, all of it is intended to manipulate us into thinking a certain way about a product. Do you really believe everyone who visits a resort looks like the family in the photographs?


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## Will Watts (Jun 18, 2008)

Journalists in my opinion (although often not theirs), have a responsibility to make truthful statements. In general, a large number of news organizations seem to be a bit liberal when deciding fact from fiction.

A picture of David Cameron having dinner with Henry 8th, under the news report "CAMERON DINES WITH TUDOR MONARCH!" - is fictitious. 

That however isn't the fault of the photograph, or the person who created the photo. Photo's do not show reality exactly as it is, they are representations of it.. My aim when I take Photo's, is to create a good Photo. If I change the background, clone out a table, or change the levels, it's fine. The aim is to make an artistic photo, and something I want to show.

If I then photoshop Hitler into a photo, it's also fine. Photo's don't show reality as it is, the trouble is how you display them. If it's something controversial that could be taken as fact - then you should make sure people who see it know it isn't real.

If we portray a photo as reality, thats our fault, but it's no argument against editing images even in the most absurd ways.

After all, even if the photo doesn't lie, how do we tell whats real and whats not?









Photoshopped?


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## Will Watts (Jun 18, 2008)

... and just because I love this picture:










Art isn't reality, it's what the artist wants you to see. Not all photography is fine art, but it still what the photographer wants you to see.


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## Done_Fishin (Oct 10, 2006)

Did I open a can of worms ??? :laugh: Sorry didn't mean to .. everyone :smile: has their own ideas of what true and false are .. some people go deeper into the "principles" than I do and we have had this discussion many times and probably will many more .. :laugh: if i use the term fake it just means that the picture has been altered to a large extent from the Original .. it's no longer what the photographer was able to capture understanding how his equipment works but has been altered to suit his own taste or his viewers .. I mean no harm or illwill by my terminology .. it's just the way "I SEE IT". For most of you it's a daily routine and considered quite normal.. It's not in my daily routine so I consider the opposite although I do not criticise anyone for doing it .. Some of you guys are making art out of photos and making a living at it .. I have it as a hobby, collecting images of things I have liked or places I have been. I show what I see and only do minor cropping and rotation (so as not to offend other peoples feelings by sloping horizons .. ) 
My apologies if you think I am making derogatory or accusatory remarks,since, just like my photo's I am just expressing things the way I see them .. in the easiest possible form.


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## DonaldG (Aug 23, 2007)

Hi DF

No, you didn't open a can of wriggly thingies. I certainly didn't take any of your comments as derogatory. It was a great lead in to an interesting subject that virtually everyone has an opinion on. Indeed, I thank you for triggering it off. :smile:


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## Will Watts (Jun 18, 2008)

I didn't think anything you said was derogatory, but I agree it's an interesting subject :smile:

Everyone is free to take photo's however they like, it would all be a bit pointless if we didn't do that.


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## WereBo (Apr 5, 2008)

:grin:

As Donald says, it's an interesting topic for debate and I haven't read anything derogatory in it :wink:


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## Will Watts (Jun 18, 2008)

My personal favorites are however the extraordinary non photoshopped unrealistic images. - Probably because they are more extraordinary than a photoshopped picture.


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## Done_Fishin (Oct 10, 2006)

Well I am glad to have opened this can of wriggly thingies and thankfully I haven't upset anyone .. some people can be very touchy about their favourite subjects and I suppose I read more into the start of this than I should have .. perhaps it's because I have spent too long in this country of hot heads :laugh:

Everyone has their own ideas about photography and I am really just trying to record moments of time, as close as possible to the way that I saw the real thing ..


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## WereBo (Apr 5, 2008)

I can relate to that, as seen from my couple of 'travelogue' threads :grin: 

Then again, I love experimenting when the inspiration hits, preferably with the camera as I still need to learn lots about it's capabilities - Then again, I sometimes try and see shots purely for playing in Photopaint with :laugh:


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## zuluclayman (Dec 16, 2005)

DF - first up no-one here should have taken any offense - there was none to take :grin:

You have opened a discussion that will always take place - all artist photographers, photojournalists, interested amateurs ( I count myself in that group), travellers & happy snappers have their reasons and their beliefs in how and why they take photographs. In teaching terms we call it the person's photographic practice and it is one of the things that has always intrigued me - I love studying, watching, reading, hearing people talk about what they do and why they do it that way. It opens up endless possibilities for your own practice and informs many choices you may make. :grin:


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## DonaldG (Aug 23, 2007)

A nice scene of the Avon Gorge, Bristol. As from the camera (apart from resizing)












The following version was processed as 7 separate areas. Each area had individual level contrast and colour saturation post processing.









I did this one last year and at the time I was very pleased with it. I guess I still am but if I were to process it again today, maybe I would use a little less saturation. that said, I certainly prefer the PP version compared to the nice but lifeless version.

The 'enhanced' version is closer to how I saw the colours.


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## WereBo (Apr 5, 2008)

Stunning scenery Donald, that's why I love travelling to the SW UK :grin:


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## ebackhus (Apr 21, 2005)

I think that in some cases a little PP makes the image more realistic. Donald's photos are an excellent example. What we see and what the camera sees are very different so working on the photo helps restore it to the way the photographer saw it.


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## Done_Fishin (Oct 10, 2006)

Unfortumately my experiences of the use of Photoshop are more the way that the photographer "wanted" to see it. I see many photos, especially Landscape Photos, where the colours are so nice that i know automatically they have been adjusted to a level to make the viewer want to "buy" the picture or at least the message behind it .. the colours are unreal ..


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## DonaldG (Aug 23, 2007)

By not doing post processing, a photographer is not getting the best out of his image that he/she has bothered to capture

Take the following image I took yesterday. A lovely 300 year old thatched cottage. The scene, my mind, spoilt by modern interlopers - Cars & TV aerials!









OK so I spent a wee time in Photoshop removing:
3 cars, 1 house, 1 garage, a gate, TV aerial and cable

This is far _nearer the truth_ than the first image as captured.









OK, so I missed the contrail ... :smile:


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## DonaldG (Aug 23, 2007)

I make no apology for post processing by enhancing the saturation. I was a beautiful scene, fantastic weather and a lovely day out with my wife and daughter. That was the mood I was in. This image reflects that mood.


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## WereBo (Apr 5, 2008)

Now I'm just getting jealous, having scenery like that! :grin:


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## DonaldG (Aug 23, 2007)

Thanks WB

Anyone: Is this one overly post processed?


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## WereBo (Apr 5, 2008)

It's hard to tell whether it's been processed at all, possibly the contrast and saturation tweaked up slightly?


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## Done_Fishin (Oct 10, 2006)

I agree with Werebo .. that one is difficult to tell since the colouring appears to be normal (to MY eye!!) :laugh: however I find this a rare occurrence ..


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## Will Watts (Jun 18, 2008)

Done_Fishin said:


> however I find this a rare occurrence ..


Careful that doesn't end up as a challenge :laugh:


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## reventon (Oct 16, 2009)

Usually I do not bother with any post processing at all, I prefer using the camera to get effects, such as this standard long exposure shot (unmodified):










However, sometimes I decide that the image does need to be processed to reveal what I saw at the time. The following two pics are based on a photo from 2004 that I recently modified (made grayscale, darkened the horses and lightened the surroundings). I haven't yet decided which crop is better.


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## DonaldG (Aug 23, 2007)

First crop is the better one

As an experiment, try cropping to the rule of thirds. That would mean horizon on the top third line and the dry/wet on the lower third line, and cropping the left out so that the horses sit near or on the right third verticle line.

If the rule of thirds works for this image it will stand out.

However, as it stands, the panoramic crop is certainly the better of the two


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## Done_Fishin (Oct 10, 2006)

I must admit that some post processing work is in my opinion allowable .. like removing the crane in this picture I took on Sunday .. but I am not keen at all on enhancing colouring even when I know that the result will be better or even "more like what I remember I saw" .. I figure I need to try harder to capture the picture as seen on the day .. in other words learn to use my equipment better .. I know that is asking a lot of myself but at least with digital you don't have to send the film by courier for processing to see if you succeeded or not, during which time everything you were photographing changed anyway.


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## yustr (Sep 27, 2004)

PP is an inherent part of all photography - always has been, always will. Even back in the days of yore, different film made for different images. Different tricks/tools in the darkroom made for different images.

Bottom line: All photos are mere representations of the scene. Just by putting a frame around it changes it from what the eye sees. 

So PP away for artistic reasons. 

Just don't do it for political or ideological ones. :4-thatsba


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## Done_Fishin (Oct 10, 2006)

yustr said:


> So PP away for *artistic* reasons.



put in a nutshell ..


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