I agree...using photoshop is neither good or bad. It is just another tool for
creating images.
As for the extraordinary cave photos that prompted this discussion; I thought
they were stunning. They were executed with a sound understanding of
composition, color and most important; art was present. I thought there was a
painterly quality to them that is seldom seen in more "pure" traditional cave
photography. The use of light and luminous color reminded me of many of the
paintings of the Rennaisance.
In my humble opinion, I say bravo. Well done. Thanks to Oztotl...someone is
finally pushing the edges of cave photography!
jerryat...@aol.com wrote:
I believe any photo can usually be improved with a bit of touch up;
whether you did it in the dark room in the olden days, or in PhotoShop at
present is irrelevant. You are still working with a single exposure in which
the photons that were captured, document an instant in time that was selected
and engineered by the photographer - for better or worse. It's takes
experience and talent to select the appropriate lighting, camera angle,
exposure, and composition for that single photo. Only so much can be added or
deleted in subsequent digital manipulations.
The digital photos that give me pause are the composites, where several
exposures are combined and edited into a final version. To be fair, a lot of
talent is required to set up and engineer the shots; and to digitally merge
them into a beautiful photo. But something unnatural has been added I think.
You'll never see those scenes in the cave, however magnificent they are. To a
purist, they are unfaithful representations of the underground, and pass into
the realm of pure art. This is neither bad nor good, but certainly different
then traditional photography.
Jerry.
In a message dated 11/14/2007 9:45:41 P.M. Central Standard Time,
cvreel...@austin.rr.com writes:
use Photoshop to some degree on all my cave shots. You can brighten
underexposed areas & bring out detail, you can darken overexposed
areas, & generally improve the quality of the final image with a
little work. It's just the fake over-saturation of colors that
weren't that bright in the actual setting that gets to me a bit. If
you underexposed by an f-stop, by all means, lighten the shot up a
bit, if it makes it presentable -- but show the cave as it really is.
I do this with my scanned slides as well as shots from the new
digital (Yes, I highly recommend the Nikons) so the "real film vs.
digital" debate is kind of moot. The best thing about digital in the
preview screen. It sure is nice to be able to look at the image and
say "Okay, I'm going to open 'er up an f-stop, and point that flash
you're holding about 5 degrees more to the left, and hold it up
higher. Ok, THAT's a keeper." (having a memory card that'll hold 275
RAW files is nice, too)
CV
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