Regards, Alan Chan http://www.pbase.com/wlachan
OK Gang...
I'm grappling with the issue of manipulation. I have a shot I took with the *istD.
It comes nowhere close to my recollection. So I've put 3 versions up on www.photo.net. The 1st is the original, including water drops on the lens. The 2nd is one that's been processed in PS using Image--> Adjust---> Autocontrast. The 3rd, using the 2nd as a base, reduces contrast by -30 on the scale as PS sees it. Not very scientific...
It's probably not a fair test because of the water on the lens in the original, and because somehow I managed to size them slightly differently, but that's the only manipulation I made. The original was simply resized. Numbers 2 and 3 were converted to a .psd during manipulation and then saved as a .jpg.
I think the third matches my recollection far better than the first... and I think the second is pretty questionable. If any of you have insights, comments, etc., I'd like to hear them.
http://www.photo.net/photodb/presentation.tcl?presentation_id=249195
In analyzing what I see and feel, it brings questions to my mind regarding manipulation...
1. (showing my stupidity) Assuming many of us have always just taken our film in to be processed most of our lives, we've come to accept the returned result as THE photo.
2. It's quite difficult to remember exactly what we saw, a day, or in this case about a week, after the image is captured.
3. In the past I would have looked at photo 1 as a waste... now I see it differently.
4. Is all this moot? Has photography, the images we've seen from "the masters", and from popular modern acclaimed photographers, always been a rendering of what was seen through the viewfinder, and never been THE reality?
Thanks.
Tom C.
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