When does a photo become a digital image?

Jocky

Jocky

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I have been looking round this forum for a while now and I have learned loads about composition / lighting / planning / and several other technical aspects of photography.

Post processing is where i seem to differ in opinion with the vast majority of the forum users. The amount of post processing on some images turns them into a caricature of the original photograph and I am not sure I like it.

I take pics of the Qatar deserts and I want the pictures to end up looking like the subject matter. I add a bit of sharpening and might play with the contrast but apart from a crop that is about it. If I show the pictures to someone they will actually know what the desert really looks like.

For the record I used to earn my living as a 3D Graphic artist building models and creating video from them. I have in depth experience of just about every graphic application that has ever been invented. Just because I can does not mean I have to.

Just wondered what other people think.

CHEERS
 
Perhaps you need to go back to film ? A semi-serious suggestion. As you know, a digital image is merely a rendering of a digital signal using appropriate software/hardware. In itself it is not an artefact. It can be modified in any numbers of ways prior to rendering. The photograph as artefact only comes from film (notwithstanding that there are also many common drakroom techniques that are mimiced in Photoshop) and it seems to me that it is the artefact that is important to you. You're not alone.
 
Jocky said:
The amount of post processing on some images turns them into a caricature of the original photograph and I am not sure I like it.

I take pics of the Qatar deserts and I want the pictures to end up looking like the subject matter.

CHEERS
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Personally, I'm with you on this, although I have seen some amazing surreal images created by post processing.
 
ChrisGilbert said:
Perhaps you need to go back to film ? A semi-serious suggestion. As you know, a digital image is merely a rendering of a digital signal using appropriate software/hardware. In itself it is not an artefact. It can be modified in any numbers of ways prior to rendering. The photograph as artefact only comes from film (notwithstanding that there are also many common drakroom techniques that are mimiced in Photoshop) and it seems to me that it is the artefact that is important to you. You're not alone.
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The bit I dont understand is why use a camera at all.

If you have a picture in your head then build it with a 3D program and have infinite control over how every pixel looks and how it reacts to the adjoining pixels. To me this is the difference between taking a picture and creating an artificial image.

3D artists will never be able to capture a moment in time and that is what photography does. The difference should be celebrated.

The effort to make a photograph look like an artificial image just seems like a whole load of misdirected effort to me.

CHEERS
 
Jocky said:
3D artists will never be able to capture a moment in time and that is what photography does. The difference should be celebrated.
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But I think it is celebrated, still. Perhaps just not as universally as it was pre-digital.

I think there's a difference between image as personal record and image as message. Image as message can be created in any media at any time but image as personal record will only ever serve as a trigger for recall when it's made at that point in time when the record is made. The question then is whether image as record is worthy of being shared.
 
You have to define what a photograph actually is, and then decide for yourself whether the thing you are looking at is one.
I think photographs have a particular quality that sets them apart from Film or digital images..:)
 
ChrisGilbert said:
But I think it is celebrated, still. Perhaps just not as universally as it was pre-digital.

I think there's a difference between image as personal record and image as message. Image as message can be created in any media at any time but image as personal record will only ever serve as a trigger for recall when it's made at that point in time when the record is made. The question then is whether image as record is worthy of being shared.
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A picture is just a picture. What use it is put to is entirely at the viewers discretion.

The point I am making is that the picture itself should reflect the subject matter and not be refined to the extent of not being a picture any more.

CHEERS
 
Jocky said:
The point I am making is that the picture itself should reflect the subject matter and not be refined to the extent of not being a picture any more.
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Pictorialist vs. Modernist photography.. it's a debate that's been running since Victorian times. What is your Art may not be my Art, and you may not even agree that photography is an Art.

There is no right or wrong to this debate. My own belief is that it's wrong that to assume that any two people who own a camera have anything in common other than ownership of a camera. It's why a forum like this can be so friendly and so divisive at the same time.

There is no spoon such thing as a single definition of "photography". It's different for you, it's different for me, and it's different for the next poster in this thread.
 
"When does a photo become a digital image?" The answer is the instant you press the button, after that everything is digital, unless you use a film camera.
 
swanseamale47 said:
"When does a photo become a digital image?" The answer is the instant you press the button, after that everything is digital, unless you use a film camera.
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Ah! But no! It's only a potential image when you've pressed the button. It does not become an actual image until you press another button: the one that allows you to view it. And if you press that second button, but keep your eyes closed or look away from the screen, no image may exist!. And you may be imagining this whole image thingy anyway. What is an image?










(Perhaps I'd better go and lie down for a bit.)
 
jon ryan said:
Ah! But no! It's only a potential image when you've pressed the button. It does not become an actual image until you press another button: the one that allows you to view it. And if you press that second button, but keep your eyes closed or look away from the screen, no image may exist!. And you may be imagining this whole image thingy anyway. What is an image?

(Perhaps I'd better go and lie down for a bit.)
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No in a digital camera the data is converted into an image format ( Raw/jpeg etc) when the shutter buttons pressed, your only turning on the display to view it by pressing another button. If you keep your eyes closed it's all a bit pointless really... :bang:
 
Jocky said:
The point I am making is that the picture itself should reflect the subject matter and not be refined to the extent of not being a picture any more.
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I understand your point. Thus my reference to film.

Anyway, it's just art. It's subjective and it doesn't matter. We all make of the media what we will. Our purposes are our own.
 
If you're not there experiencing it first hand, then the best you can experience is a representation of the 'event'.

If I show the pictures to someone they will actually know what the desert really looks like
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Before you take a picture, you are already making decisions about what you want it to look like.

It is possible to have two photos taken of the same subject with the same camera and no out-of-the-camera editing - and for them not to be easily recognisable as the same thing.

Pictures are taken or created for different reasons and with different goals. In my opinion it doesn't matter how much they are processed or altered or transformed but what is important is that they are produced with honesty and no intent of malicious deception.
 
Bristolian said:
Personally, I'm with you on this, although I have seen some amazing surreal images created by post processing.
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+1 for this. While I'm not totally against using PP for any image I spend my time setting the camera to try and get a faithful representation of what I'm pointing the camera at when I press the button. Whilst this is not always possible and I do use DPP and PSE, but I do try 'not' to use it. I take most of my images in Jpeg, which limits the amount of PP I can do, for this reason. I've seen some excellent (overly) photoshopped images, but I've not been able to see the actual subject in real life.
 
after.jpg

Dscf0471.jpg


Thats a photograph of my friend Dave out in the desert looking for shark teeth.

The top one is much more easily liked than the bottom one but the sand is not golden it's actually nearly grey. The light is always blinding and it looks on the whole like a film set of a post apocalyptic disaster movie. There are no rolling Laurence of Arabia sand dunes in this part of the desert. In a word DESOLATE.

To me this is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen and I feel a responsibility to represent it as it actually is.

My favourite pics of Qatar:

untitled-13-1.jpg

untitled-112.jpg

untitled-92.jpg

untitled-31.jpg


The sky is cloudless for 300 days a year so any picture with golden sand and a cloudy sky is normally processed up the wazoo.

I am happy that anyone who looks at my photographs will see Qatar as it actually is.

It's just my opinion.

CHEERS
 
Jocky said:
The top one is much more easily liked than the bottom one but the sand is not golden it's actually nearly grey.
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Personally, I like the bottom of the 2 as it looks more real.

Also, the last image needs rotating 180' as it is upside down.

However, it's subjective and as such, it doesn't really matter.

Post processing has been about since photography started, in dark rooms maybe but it was still there.

As for the amount, that really depends on what the person is trying to achieve.
 
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People can do as much or as little processing for all I care, but simply doing as little post processing as possible doesn't necessarily mean the subject in the photo will appear as it did to the photographer.

For example, when we actually find ourselves in locations of low contrast our brain will work harder to separate the colours so that the scene before us has a higher contrast and intensity in colour than as a camera would merely record. The image in the mind carries a lot of information built up and manipulated by all the human senses but nearly all gets lost when we try to replicate it in a 2D still photo. The skill in the photographer determines how much can remain in the photo, using things such as composition or lighting to create depth and significance (leaving unimportant details out of frame), etc.. Many of these can be done by the photographer prior to pushing the shutter, other things are done after. So even if you wish to have an authentic replication of what you witnessed, you may still require post processing.
 
How the final image appears depends on the camera you were using, the settings you had on at the time, the lens you had on the camera, possibly the programme you used to render the files if you shot in a raw format, the colour profile you set, the screen and conditions you are viewing the image on/in, the printer profile, the ink if you print using ink, the type of paper, of course the type of film if you shot film, and a few more things.

All that and you still end up with a two dimensional image of a three dimensional scene. Then there are images taken with very short or very long exposure times, both show things we can see, but may not notice - freezing motion for example.

The idea of a photographic 'truth' was debunked a long time ago.

swanseamale47 said:
No in a digital camera the data is converted into an image format ( Raw/jpeg etc) when the shutter buttons pressed, your only turning on the display to view it by pressing another button. If you keep your eyes closed it's all a bit pointless really... :bang:
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Boring side note/ If you're shooting in raw, then you can't see the raw file, it has to be rendered by a programme such as ACR for example to interpret the data as a viewable image. Hence the existence of different raw processing programmes and individuals' preferences for different ones.
 
I have no idea what 'filosofers & felines' are. Or, perhaps, is. Society is probably to blame and Google seems equally ignorant.
 
Sophistry is probably to blame. Or possibly solipsism.
 
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ChrisGilbert said:
But we don't have your memories to back up and reinforce the emotional significance of the shots. If you hadn't told us we'd probably never had guessed that it was Qatar.

Does that matter ?
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I dont think it matters if we dont know, what matters is that the shots are shots of Quatar, Colours and tones can change but the honest integrity that the shots contain a true moment of reality at the time of shooting is what makes them photographs, not the style of visual finish they are shown in.
 
Nope I'm still here and I'm pretty certain that I'm not alone! :)

It was an attempted pun which obviously didn't work; quantum mechanics having as much to do with philosophy as physics.
 
I think we need a law akin to Godwin's Law on the lines of ""As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Schrodinger's cat approaches 1".
 
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