Steve Smith
Joe
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Grade two would be a standard print. Grade zero would be very low contrast. I don't quite see how that relates to a RAW file.
Steve.
Steve.
and please use their services
I found this pretty depressing
- Thread starter jerry12953
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Me neither.
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My point is, by posting teh raw, we can see exactly how much of a great shot can be attributed to phtography, and how much can be attributed to processing. As you've demonstrated, more often than not these days, it's processing, and not the actual photgraphy.
As you said, if that was E6 you'd use a ND grad, and still exposed for the foreground.
I disagree that shooting on film reulst in dissapointing results. What you are suggesting is that landscape phtography has improved since digital. Patently, that's not true
©Joel Meyerowitz, Deardorff 8x10 on transparency - all in a pre-photoshop era.
So, sorry.. I'm not buying that argument
I don't agree that the raw is like printing at grade 0 either. Correctly exposed, great shots can be had straight from the camera... just as Mr Meyrowitz has done here. Film or digital... makes no difference.
I think you misunderstand me, I am just saying that shooting digital raw is a different process to shooting E6 or are you saying I should have exposed for the foreground and lost detail in the sky or perhaps used a ND grad on a digital camera when you can expose to get both in the digital file and process it accordingly,and perhaps I should even have used a colour balance filter, rather than setting it post processing.
As to Mr Meyerowitz I know a 10x8 exposed correctly can see into the shadows more than 35mm but I am dubious about the road dinner and not knowing what the colour balance of his film was, and even with a colour temp filter for fluorescent and those signs look fluorescent but also lit with halogen/tungtan spotlight, looks awfully like he white balanced on the white sign in Photoshop and let the diner fluorescent lights go where they may.
I could be wrong but it also brings me back to your original argument to get to the internet it has been though photoshop and unless you or I are actually holding the original slide in our hand how do we know how much has been altered from the original slide.
Has to grade 0 my bad a slip of the memory,it's been 20 years since I have been in a darkroom due to health problems.
Not often I get into this type of thing unless I find it interesting and i usually view your comments with much agreement but here we will have to beg to differ as I am not into point scoring for the sake of it and am now liking the previous cartoon post even more.
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There's no such thing as a free lunch. You think because it's digital you can recover highlight and shadow detail with impunity. That's because you probably don't print
You can't. The cost is increased noise. Yes, Id have used a grad on that sky, even with a digital camera. I'd have used a less aggressive one than I would with E6, but I'd still be trying to keep my contrast as low as possible. Send me a full print resolution of that sunrise and bench shot, and I'll happily point out the loss of quality caused by your processing for you.
Dude.... they were taken in the 70s. No photoshop. I have a first edition release of that book here. They're famous photographs... no one's messed with them.
Also.. you're no more likely to get shadow detail from 8x10 film than you are medium format film. If it's the same film stock, you'll get the same tonal response.
You are. These are large format film images taken in the 1970s by one of the world's best photograpohers. There's nothing digital going on.
but it also brings me back to your original argument to get to the internet it has been though photoshop and unless you or I are actually holding the original slide in our hand how do we know how much has been altered from the original slide.
Because these aren't some random images I've taken off Flickr... it's Joel ****ing Meyerowitz! I've seen original C types hanging on gallery walls. They are what they are.
(Shrug). I'm massively unconcerned about people's opinion of me in here. I make this point quite plain, quite often.
I feel it's important to explode this myth that processing is what makes great images. It's not about winning an argument with you. It's about the next poor sod who is about to start down that road into processing his/her images to death, and googling something, and this thread coming up in his/her search. Maybe, just maybe, they'll think a bit more about it. It's about getting accurate information out there to counter the quagmire of half-baked b******s and ill conceived opinion masquerading as facts out there.
OP
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Yes, I remember Ian Thompson's composite image when it was published in OnLandscape. It created quite a bit of controversy, if I remember correctly. The problem with the quote from Joe Cornish is that he doesn't define any of those terms. it could well be that what he meant by "creativity" or "veracity" might be different from how you or I would understand it.
Perhaps a more concrete example to use would be Charlie Waite. You probably remember the controversy two (or was it three) years ago when several category winners in Landscape Photographer of the Year - including the overall winner - were exposed as being composites. All by the same photographer and they were all disqualified. I cannot believe Mr Waite did not have the final decision on this.
It is also worth noting that the guy who finally exposed them , Tim Parkin, is a big buddy of J.C. and editor of OnLandscape. He is (or has been) one of the judges on LPOTY AND Wildlife Photographer of the Year since then as a result, I suspect, of his forensic ability to detect malpractice!
it is always interesting to hear opinions different to one's own even if some of them are written in such a way as to make them difficult to accept. It helps to crystallise one's own opinions. As a result of this thread I have written a new blog post. Anyone please feel free to read through it and I would welcome comments.
http://wp.me/p2BFlt-ni
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Ok - JC might have meant something different in his quote (although that is a bit of a leap), but I was at the debate and discussion we had with Ian Thompson and I know what he said. I accept that you weren't present and therefore would have to take my word for it - which I doubt you will.
However, I haven't met or chatted with Charlie Waite so I have no idea as to his stance on the topic. Nor indeed Tim Parkin either. The views on competitions is largely irrelevant I would think. Any competition can make up any rules they like. If they decide they don't want any composites then thats entirely up to them and quite rightly, anyone ignoring the rules should be disqualified. Maybe Mr Waite and My Parkin had a hand in writing the rules, maybe they didn't. Some competitions have categories specifically to include them. It doesn't make them the rule makers or the arbiters on such things generally, its also just one very small aspect of a limited category of photography. It's highly unusual to see such limitations being put on, say, a portrait competition. The Taylor Wessing Prize for example makes only mention of a 'live' sitter, no mention at all of the processing work that may or may not have gone on afterwards.
The only other point that you seem to ignore is this one of ease and simplicity in dropping in skies. I can only conclude that as you have only "recently been introduced" to the adjustment brush in Lightroom, that the art of compositing and other manipulation techniques in photoshop are currently outside of your current knowledge and skill set. Assuming this is the case, take it from someone who uses PS to a greater degree (but by no means an expert), that compositing and adding/subtracting skies and anything else to an image (believably and well) is anything but simple, easy or quick! Really! Even if you look at the software you mention, their own tutorial talks about being careful around shooting the foreground of an image as windy conditions, complicated horizons etc make the task more 'tricky'. This is before we've even looked at the light, light direction, colour tones etc etc etc. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm just saying that doing it and doing it well is a really difficult skill to master and make convincing to avoid the obvious comments of "is that a composite" image?
I get that it is a line you personally wouldn't cross, I just feel that it isn't something thats new, its use can still make for wonderful images and that it isn't really depressing or challenging the veracity of photography anymore than has been done before and in the past by many lauded image makers, be they landscapers or any other genre of photographer.
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I have no idea how to add a sky to an image nor can I ever imagine wanting to find out. I am quite happy with the tools I have available in Lightroom because I have no wish to go beyond processing for the reasons I have already explained.
My use of the word "easy" has been misunderstood right from the start. It has never been about the skills required in Photoshop (or any other software) to make composite images. But as a landscape photographer of many years standing (and a modestly successful one at that) I know how difficult it is to get to a great location under a great sky in good light. It is one of the skills of the landscape photographer to do this. Those are the skills I'm talking about. If your sky comes out of a box I feel it devalues your image. But I've said quite enough.......
My use of the word "easy" has been misunderstood right from the start. It has never been about the skills required in Photoshop (or any other software) to make composite images. But as a landscape photographer of many years standing (and a modestly successful one at that) I know how difficult it is to get to a great location under a great sky in good light. It is one of the skills of the landscape photographer to do this. Those are the skills I'm talking about. If your sky comes out of a box I feel it devalues your image. But I've said quite enough.......
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Is that a skill... or patience and dedication? Not that it matters, but if the sky is actually there, aren't you just taking a light reading, possibly adding a ND grad and taking a photograph? How is that more skilful than taking a portrait in a studio? I think a lot of people confuse dedication and patience with photographic skill. You didn't create the sky... you just waited for it to be there... then photographed it.
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It's actually cheating if you wait for the sky to improve. You should shoot it as it is. Rather than let someone, mother nature, a god, or whatever, come up with another one where you just have to stand there and do nothing. Where is the skill in that? At least with that new software you can make a creative choice. In both cases you are using someone else's sky.
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and I think that's just it. This notion that because someone clambered over rocks in the dark and got up at 2am somehow makes the whole process skillful while the other is some kid lobbing a sky at some software. One requires patience and dedication and some creativity as said, the other patience, dedication, creativity and skill. You can decide which is which.
OP
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It takes a certain amount of knowledge, built up over the years, to get to that location on that day at that time. Like how to read maps in detail, tide tables and interpret weather forecasts. Then you start to apply your actual photographic knowledge.
But honestly, this is getting beyond silly. I'm not denying other people don't have other skills. It would be nice is that was reciprocated.
But honestly, this is getting beyond silly. I'm not denying other people don't have other skills. It would be nice is that was reciprocated.
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You're right it is getting silly. Why you feel the need to keep saying that and then continue to defend the indefensible is silly. You state something and then it gets questioned and you say it's getting silly! Simple. Stop saying silly things.
You stated that turning up in the right light etc was a skill and implied that processing wasn't.A few of us questioned your comments. Looking up on the internet what tide times are, google maps, sun positioning on any given day is something I do regularly and takes all of a whole 5 minutes to achieve. I don't consider that skillful or knowledgeable.
Photographic technical knowledge is a requirement and I accept that but it's hardly difficult given some time and practice. The 'skill' is composition, light and processing (wherever you draw your own lines)
OP
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!
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It is always a personal preferences I feel your art falls into two categories. One is the ability to take and image to record a scene which we all hope will have artistic content. Or you can use artistic interpretation and produce art from various images, which incidentally I believe should be you own. If you take images from elsewhere you become a digital artist and not a photographer. Also we have to bear in mind an artist puts paint to canvas not necessarily in a true representation of what is before them. Our dark room days did we not add features such as skies if we were not happy. The digital world has made it a lot easier and allows us to be more creative but nothing has really changed in this wonderful world of photography.
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