======================================================= -> This is The 'SPORRS' Mailing List -> Info File: http://www.anet-stl.com/acphotog/sporrs/infosporrs.htm -> Note: Remember to include your name in each list post or reply. -> Please delete all unnecessary quoted text from the original message! =======================================================
Robert Palmer asked me if I thought I could really remove the yellow air compressor from my BN bridge shot, and then I saw John Shaw's post about digital changes in RR shots, so I thought I'd address two similar things at once here with this post. I'm sure Robert won't mind. First I respond to removing the compressor, then I opinionate on John's subject and babble onward. > >(and I can always remove the compressor in Photoshop!). > > Do you think so ?? I looked at the image closely and I don't think it > could be done very easily. I was mostly kidding, but I think I could do it... and it would not be easy to fill in that space to match what the original void would have looked like, but using the shapes above and behind it and Transform, the Rubber Stamp tool and some Copy/Paste work in Photoshop, then some selective use of filters in certain places, I think I could get it convincing. It would be easier with a shot of the bridge without the train in it (take it from the other side for the shapes and flip it over and distort it to fit then reduce the opacity of that layer and use it as a 'template' to fill in the missing bridge pieces), and I do have frames where the train is farther away, but it could still be done. Hopefully I will have time to try it sometime. :) It is never my intention to pass a doctored shot off as unaltered, but since the compressor was not there very long, it would not be out of place to use the shot with it removed for a purpose other than news reportage (where alterations are not acceptable). Personally, I would label it as an altered image to SPORRS members then, but each time we choose a different lens, a different film, fill flash, we crop our images or we move a twig or a piece of trash (or a vehicle) from our shot, etc., we are altering the image that we are creating. I could have moved a little closer with a slightly shorter lens and the compressor wouldn't have been there and it would have looked almost the same. That would have been an alteration too. When we use light and shadow (and filters) to define, hide, sculpt and emphasize, we are doing it too. What about when we shoot from planes and helicopters? People can't fly. It's a little different when you remove something that wasn't there, but in this case it is something that shouldn't have been there, so it's really no different than setting up your set to shoot differently. Photographers do it all of the time in the studio, and if I was to have been paid to shoot that shot, I would have had that compressor physically removed before I shot there. I've seen bigger shooting budgets for sillier things. Digital imaging is a tool that is still in its infancy, and it will not go ignored by photographers. Look at Stanley Jackowski's Florida Tri-rail shot on the SPORRS web site that I scanned. Looks very real and pretty normal, huh? The trucks and underframe came out pitch black, like they weren't there. I had to make a duplicate layer, lighten it considerably, put it behind the first one and erase through the top layer to get the lighter underframe to come through where it needed to be. That is a typical example of something that is used frequently every day. I pulled an underframe out of the darkness, but it was there in the shadow. The rest of the bridge in my BN shot was there too, but it was covered by the yellow air compressor. If I remove it sometime, I wouldn't consider the shot a 'fraud', but then again, I wouldn't use it as a news photo labeled as being shot on that particular date then either. And what am I trying to do anyway, depict the air compressor as part of an event? Taking a well known tree or building out of a shot is really altering the shot, or so I thought until I saw a familiar shot recently with the background building torn down and the trees physically removed. What is reality when we are creating images and art? I'm not a newspaper photographer, so freezing that paper cup in the gutter into a moment in time is not my responsibility, but I also realize the good and the bad potential of digital manipulation and I use my best judgment when creating images. I also make a point of indicating any digital changes worth mentioning, to anyone interested, but lightening a black underframe and removing a little piece of trash on the ballast or a dirt-like bird speck in the sky is not worth mentioning in my opinion. Regards, Dave Dave Cohen Photographer Action Photographic Webmaster [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.anet-stl.com/acphotog/home/ ======================================================= -> SPORRS: 'Serious Photographers Of Railroad Related Subjects' -> Web Site: http://www.anet-stl.com/acphotog/sporrs/ -> Message © 1998 SPORRS® - All Rights Reserved =======================================================
