When you are creating images, either Random, Competition, or for stories, to add to the forum, do you include Image Editing? For example, Photoshop, Gimp, or other Image Editing tool

When you are creating images, either Random, Competition, or for stories, to add to the forum, do you include Image Editing? For example, Photoshop, Gimp, or other Image Editing tool

Yes...

Photography has always involved editing and photo manipulation and since long before the days of digital photography. Does anyone think Ansel Adams didn't heavily manipulate his prints in the darkroom to get exactly the right tonality in his B&W landscapes? Does anyone think that the the women who appeared in publications like Playboy had absolutely perfect skin without a blemish, birthmark or mark anywhere on her skin? Does anyone think that advertising photos aren't heavily retouched? Think again.

I sometimes use it to correct the brightness etc, but I prefer practical effects rather than digital effects.  After all its supposed to be a photo comp...not a "let's see how much photoshop we can use" comp....isnt it ?

Kimono Troop Command wrote:

Photography has always involved editing and photo manipulation and since long before the days of digital photography. Does anyone think Ansel Adams didn't heavily manipulate his prints in the darkroom to get exactly the right tonality in his B&W landscapes?  Does anyone think that the the women who appeared in publications like Playboy had absolutely perfect skin without a blemish, birthmark or mark anywhere on her skin? Does anyone think that advertising photos aren't heavily retouched?  Think again.  

That's a bit deep Gary for a simple fun poll question

Kimono Troop Command wrote:

Does anyone think Ansel Adams didn't heavily manipulate his prints in the darkroom to get exactly the right tonality in his B&W landscapes?  

I remember stumbling across a documentary program on television many years ago, before I was even in to photography to any extent, in which Ansel Adams was talking about his "photo creation" technique. While I was not seriously in to photography myself, I knew of Ansel Adams as a landscape photographer, and I found the program interesting. I remember feeling surprised and disappointed, a disappointment that has troubled me to this day, to learn to what extent Adams manipulated his prints to achieve the artistic effect he wanted. Later, when I was taking a course in photography at university, one of the instructors, a long-time commercial photographer, claimed Adams inserted the moon in to some of his photographs. He said that many of those "dramatic moonrise" photos Adams is so famous for are faked. They are composite photos. I have not been able to find definitive corroboration for this claim, but, if true, I doubt it is something that the caretakers of the Ansel Adams legacy would care to have widely known.

SCU_HQ wrote:

Kimono Troop Command wrote:

Does anyone think Ansel Adams didn't heavily manipulate his prints in the darkroom to get exactly the right tonality in his B&W landscapes?  

I remember stumbling across a documentary program on television many years ago, before I was even in to photography to any extent, in which Ansel Adams was talking about his "photo creation" technique. While I was not seriously in to photography myself, I knew of Ansel Adams as a landscape photographer, and I found the program interesting. I remember feeling surprised and disappointed, a disappointment that has troubled me to this day, to learn to what extent Adams manipulated his prints to achieve the artistic effect he wanted. Later, when I was taking a course in photography at university, one of the instructors, a long-time commercial photographer, claimed Adams inserted the moon in to some of his photographs. He said that many of those "dramatic moonrise" photos Adams is so famous for are faked. They are composite photos. I have not been able to find definitive corroboration for this claim, but, if true, I doubt it is something that the caretakers of the Ansel Adams legacy would care to have widely known.

It sounds like you were talking to someone who was jealous of Ansel Adams's fame. Adams himself was for most of his life a commercial photographer incidentally. His contribution to black and white photography was through his invention if you will. of the "Zone" system in which he divided tonality into ten different "zones" ranging from pure white to pure black and he applied it to all three stages of the photo process: the metering and shooting of the photo of the image, the processing of the negative and creation of the print. He liked to create images with a full tonal range and it's why his images look the way they do. To this day, many Adam's wannabe's go to the same GPS coordinates Adams was at to shoot a photo, but they never succeed in producing the same image because only Ansel Adams was Ansel Adams. What matters is the beauty of the final print.

Kimono Troop Command wrote:

He liked to create images with a full tonal range and it's why his images look the way they do.

Yes, Adams was creating "HDR" (High Dynamic Range) photos manually long before digital processing came along.

I appreciate that he was an absolute master of every aspect of the photographic process, trying to emulate as closely as possible the both the appearance and the "feeling" of "being there" as he could through the photographic medium.

At the time I saw that documentary film, decades ago, what he did seemed like "cheating." Later, however, as I became more aware of the limitations of the photographic medium, I came to appreciate what he was doing with his extensive post-processing during development and printing.