Do you often sky-swap?

Markk said:
What about adding in an object, like a car to a parking lot? Not necessarily from that parking lot but at a different time. Like, a car from parking lot A to parking B?
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I think I've done that sort of editing ONCE (many years ago):
My wife's sister & her husband weren't able to come over from New Zealand for our wedding, so I cloned them into a group shot, to show them present in spirit.

In less radical situations I'm never likely to add items, my cloning is usually to remove dust spots, but has on occasion gone as far as removing electricity/phone lines.

I regularly shoot in infra red to show things that are present but not visible to the unaided eye (or through things that obscure visual light). Adjusting hue saturation to show what is hidden is IMO very different to adding something new in.
 
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I've never done it. BUT: - when I first started in photography, it was very (read very, very, very) common for books and magazines to advocate taking photographs of the sky alone under different conditions to ensure that you had an appropriate sky negative to print in. I cannot say how many people did this; but composite printing was very popular (and even, if I may be permitted to use a swear word) regarded as art. It seems that it's only digital photographers who care greatly about this - or perhaps I'm wrong about that.

(See "The Two Ways of Life" for an early, if extreme, example. If it was good enough for the Queen (Victoria) who am I to judge?)
 
StephenM said:
I've never done it. BUT: - when I first started in photography, it was very (read very, very, very) common for books and magazines to advocate taking photographs of the sky alone under different conditions to ensure that you had an appropriate sky negative to print in. I cannot say how many people did this; but composite printing was very popular (and even, if I may be permitted to use a swear word) regarded as art. It seems that it's only digital photographers who care greatly about this - or perhaps I'm wrong about that.

(See "The Two Ways of Life" for an early, if extreme, example. If it was good enough for the Queen (Victoria) who am I to judge?)
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I think it's the ease with which it's done now that is the problem.
 
jerry12953 said:
I think it's the ease with which it's done now that is the problem.
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Possibly correct, to some, but that's advancement, I remember when the clone tool in PS was crap, along with other tools, that was back in 2004, but here we are in 2022, when you can remove a person, change a sky, change a colour etc etc, all within a click or 2 of a mouse, it's called technology, there was a time, when a camera had ASA, shutter speed, and aperture controls, and that's all a good photographer needed, but here we are in 2022, a million miles from where we were, it's all technology, we can choose to embrace it, or not, but each to there own.
 
I think for me, a lot of it is to do with the experience.

I could Photoshop the Milky Way over Durdle Door.
I could Photoshop Orion over Stonehenge.
I could Photoshop mist under the Clifton Suspension Bridge.
I could Photoshop star trails over Pen y Fan......

But I don't want to.

I want to be there on the right day at the right time & actually witness & capture it.
 
LeeRatters said:
I think for me, a lot of it is to do with the experience.

I could Photoshop the Milky Way over Durdle Door.
I could Photoshop Orion over Stonehenge.
I could Photoshop mist under the Clifton Suspension Bridge.
I could Photoshop star trails over Pen y Fan......

But I don't want to.

I want to be there on the right day at the right time & actually witness & capture it.
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Great post.
 
LeeRatters said:
I think for me, a lot of it is to do with the experience.

I could Photoshop the Milky Way over Durdle Door.
I could Photoshop Orion over Stonehenge.
I could Photoshop mist under the Clifton Suspension Bridge.
I could Photoshop star trails over Pen y Fan......

But I don't want to.

I want to be there on the right day at the right time & actually witness & capture it.
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Exactly this
 
LeeRatters said:
I think for me, a lot of it is to do with the experience.

I could Photoshop the Milky Way over Durdle Door.
I could Photoshop Orion over Stonehenge.
I could Photoshop mist under the Clifton Suspension Bridge.
I could Photoshop star trails over Pen y Fan......

But I don't want to.

I want to be there on the right day at the right time & actually witness & capture it.
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I can agree with this, so far as it goes. Where I suspect we'd part company is in what we're trying to achieve. I'm not bothered in the slightest about making an accurate record of what was actually there, I'm concerned with creating an image that conveys what I thought, felt and saw - see the two quotes from artists in my signature. This might be a simple record with minimal change, but usually requires a number of changes. That I record in black and white rather than colour rather disqualifies me from an accurate record anyway :)
 
jerry12953 said:
I think it's the ease with which it's done now that is the problem.
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I think you're correct. That's another thing I've never really understood - that to be good (or, in some cases, acceptable) an image must be difficult to create. I prefer to just look and judge on the merit of the image, rather than factor in the level of difficulty (which must depend on the person as much as anything).
 
My personal guideline is that my photos are mostly comprised of light captured at the scene at the time. Partly that is because I can't be bothered with hours of post processing for digital images but mainly it is a position I feel ethically happy with and one that I could robustly defend should I have to

StephenM said:
to be good (or, in some cases, acceptable) an image must be difficult to create
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There are situations, for example war reporting, where I think it is reasonable to consider the quality of a photo against the context in which it was shot. That said I do agree that a photo doesn't have to be difficult to create to be good and I don't sympathise when we are expected to accept fairly poor photos as good just because the photographer had difficulties in getting the image.
 
SPBN-Horses-in-The-Surf-0041-Box.jpg
 
jerry12953 said:
As I said there are grey areas around image manipulation. I get your argument about the temporary nature of our skies and it is a slightly difficult one to counter. Why not just wait for a better sky? But I don't agree that it depends on the audience; nor do I agree that it depends on whether a sky has been replaced well or tackily. There is just something fundamental about the relationship between photography and the nature of the world around us. Well, there used to be....:(
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When I get paid to take interiors and exteriors I am simply not going to wait 5 days and put in 60 extra miles for that usually secondary exterior shot. It needs to be viable enough and it becomes it. I couldn't care less about such arguments above. They are pure nonsense for practical and commercial reasons.

By the way all software automation is b******t. It makes too many mistakes and approximations. Nothing beats doing it properly by hand in Photoshop
 
Well, this seems to be quite the heated argument. I would never have imagined sky swapping in a war report. That's...quite the idea, hmmm.
 
StephenM said:
I can agree with this, so far as it goes. Where I suspect we'd part company is in what we're trying to achieve. I'm not bothered in the slightest about making an accurate record of what was actually there, I'm concerned with creating an image that conveys what I thought, felt and saw - see the two quotes from artists in my signature. This might be a simple record with minimal change, but usually requires a number of changes. That I record in black and white rather than colour rather disqualifies me from an accurate record anyway :)
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Yeah, I get that too. I can appreciate photos as 'art' - I do always generally edit myself & also clone/heal to 'tidy' things too ;)

I do sort of disagree with "thought, felt & saw" though in relation to my quoted post. In that regard, I can't stick a clear night sky of Orion over Stonehenge to convey what I thought, felt & saw if it's not real & I didn't actually see, think or feel it..... ;)
 
TimHughes said:
This is another variation of composting, no? Certainly has a place. I’ve only used sky swaps my astro landscapes. If I was making a living from real estate photography I probably would use it a lot.
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The auto spelling corrector sometimes gets it wrong. I hope you meant compositing not composting:)
 
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