# Anyone's a photographer, if they can photoshop



## Raj_55555 (May 17, 2014)

This is not a rant, just a story I wanted to share. 
So I was just back home after a long session in the jungle,crawling around dog poop and stalking a rose ringed parakeet family. I fired up lightroom and started processing the files. This is when my brother shows up, gives me a smirk and says "Anyone can be a photographer if they knew how to use photoshop". Clearly he didn't know the difference between LR and CS, but this led us to a bet and now he has my camera for a week and I've promised to process all his pics for him. The results would be interesting to say the least :lmao:.

I was wondering what's the most absurd thing you guys have ever heard about photography?


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## bribrius (May 17, 2014)

your brothers a smart guy....

lol

what he said isn't actually new or absurd. People have been saying it for YEARS.


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## Scatterbrained (May 17, 2014)

It has been rumored that once, while speaking at an art exhibition, Ansel Adams overhead a man say "I guess anyone can be a photographer if they have a darkroom"; to which Adams responded by making an imprint of an 8x10 sheet film holder on the back of the mans head.  He then told the man to go lie in a dark room for a while and see how that developed.


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## 480sparky (May 18, 2014)

I guess I screwed up then. I bought cameras and lenses and tripods and filters and memory cards.

Turns out all I needed was software. Didn't need all that stupid hardware.


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## snerd (May 18, 2014)

I discovered that my wife was into film photography. Big time. Before we got married, about 7 years ago. She said with the advent of digital cameras, and Photoshop, she lost all desire for it. The fact that images can be manipulated so easily now just ruins it for her. Period. I don't get it. At all. But that's how she feels.


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## bribrius (May 18, 2014)

snerd said:


> I discovered that my wife was into film photography. Big time. Before we got married, about 7 years ago. She said with the advent of digital cameras, and Photoshop, she lost all desire for it. The fact that images can be manipulated so easily now just ruins it for her. Period. I don't get it. At all. But that's how she feels.


One of my sisters was a semi pro. shot sports. she quit the business all together hasn't done photography since.. Probably about ten years now. I think I get it.


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## snerd (May 18, 2014)

bribrius said:


> snerd said:
> 
> 
> > I discovered that my wife was into film photography. Big time. Before we got married, about 7 years ago. She said with the advent of digital cameras, and Photoshop, she lost all desire for it. The fact that images can be manipulated so easily now just ruins it for her. Period. I don't get it. At all. But that's how she feels.
> ...


Well, I do get it, in a way........... but on the other hand, it also opens up a whole new medium of creativity and artistry. It seems she doesn't get "that" part.


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## Scatterbrained (May 18, 2014)

The funny thing is, I have a book here from the late 80's early 90's on "special effects photography", geared towards still life/commercial/product photography.  Compositing images and retouching images was quite common in the film era,it's just that it was often handled by someone other than the photographer.    (granted it was a _lot_ more work)


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## bribrius (May 18, 2014)

snerd said:


> bribrius said:
> 
> 
> > snerd said:
> ...


cheapened it and made it more fake. And easier.

I still like looking at the lower performing 1940's cars. Type on this laptop but I reminisce of the old typewriters. Granted, it was no where near the capability. But the typing was more real. No delete button. could hit back erase but often it didn't work right, or no erase tape. Might have to deal with white out but that don't always work right. sometimes you might just have to throw out a entire page and start it again if you made a mistake. But for every page that came out you had a much larger appreciation of it. And since it wasn't saved on a disk you guarded it as a treasure. Seemed I made a lot less mistake on a typewriter, as I knew they couldn't often be fixed or at least not always easily. And I didn't want to lose a entire page. so paid closer attention.


pjagpjangpjdfngpjdngogpoagkgkodngopdgkajgkangkijfkoank

suppose it doesn't matter if I mess up now. I can just fix it later. its in raw.


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## Derrel (May 18, 2014)

Analog or "silver-based film" photography and digitial imaging are related, yet are very different activities.


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## bribrius (May 18, 2014)

Scatterbrained said:


> The funny thing is, I have a book here from the late 80's early 90's on "special effects photography", geared towards still life/commercial/product photography. Compositing images and retouching images was quite common in the film era,it's just that it was often handled by someone other than the photographer.  (granted it was a _lot_ more work)


This is what I don't comprehend here, when people defend it like you do. Not that it needs it but whatever, i don't get it anyway. All I know is I was taught in high school photography to get it right in camera . taught in correspondence after high school photography to get it right in camera. this was like 1991/1995. I don't have my own dark room. never did. only experience was there in darkroom. I don't recall doing anywhere near what we tweak now. And one teacher especially drilled it into our heads. Get it right in camera. After that I spent the next over a decade shooting reg 35mm film. Drop it off get it developed, pick it up. All messed up. so again, remembered, Get it right in camera. Did the same thing before photography courses, didn't have a dark room then either. Get enough crap prints back you start to remember get it right in camera. There is a comparison between post processing and dark room. But most of us never did any of it to that level, if at all. Least I never did. Those that did, I would imagine still thought get it right in camera because it wasn't easy to fix and film and developing wasn't real cheap not to mention the possible lost shots and work and wasted time.
you think I and everyone else had a personal dark room in our house all that time and I spent all week tweaking images in it? Especially people doing it to the extent they do now?
so I spent from the early eighties through until just last year with zero post processing other than a couple dark room classes with photography and whatever they did when I sent out 35mm, which judging by how the prints came back they didn't do a hell of a lot of tweaking and didn't much care how they looked. (which is why we had to)


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## Scatterbrained (May 18, 2014)

bribrius said:


> Scatterbrained said:
> 
> 
> > The funny thing is, I have a book here from the late 80's early 90's on "special effects photography", geared towards still life/commercial/product photography. Compositing images and retouching images was quite common in the film era,it's just that it was often handled by someone other than the photographer.  (granted it was a _lot_ more work)
> ...


The real problem is your assumption that because people use Ps they _aren't_ getting it right in camera.   This is the biggest issue I see.  Sure there are the "I'll just fix it in post" crowd, but as the saying goes, you can't polish a turd.  (yeah, I know, the Mythbusters actually _did_ polish a turd)  Crap photography zipped through Ps is still crap.  It's just retina searing crap now.   Guess what, there are still plenty of press and sports shooters shooting jpeg and sending the images off for publication straight from their location, no post whatsoever.  There are plenty of people that just shoot jpeg because they don't want to process their images.    There are also plenty of people shooting film as an _artistic_ choice.  Film photography isn't dead, and neither is the need to get it right in camera.  

I don't think Ps has changed the mantra of "get it right in camera" it has simply changed what "right" might mean.   You still have to have vision, and skill, but now you can tailor your shooting to your workflow.  If you know the limits of your camera you can shoot with those limits in mind, just as film shooters might have shot with the limits of their film in mind, as well as their darkroom workflow.  For example, if you're shooting jpeg you may find yourself having to sacrifice the sky to expose the subject, yet with raw you know you can shoot for the sky and push the subject in post.   It's a creative decision, but it's the same kind of thinking that led to the development of the zone system.


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## baturn (May 18, 2014)

If you have been a regular on TPF for any length of time and still do not understand why files from your digital camera need some manipulation in a PS type program then you really need to go back to school and learn how to read.


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## Vince.1551 (May 18, 2014)

Raj_55555 said:


> This is not a rant, just a story I wanted to share. So I was just back home after a long session in the jungle,crawling around dog poop and stalking a rose ringed parakeet family. I fired up lightroom and started processing the files. This is when my brother shows up, gives me a smirk and says "Anyone can be a photographer if they knew how to use photoshop". Clearly he didn't know the difference between LR and CS, but this led us to a bet and now he has my camera for a week and I've promised to process all his pics for him. The results would be interesting to say the least :lmao:.  I was wondering what's the most absurd thing you guys have ever heard about photography?



Imo you could largely identify a digitally manipulated photo. So if your brother is talking about a 'make-believe' manipulated photo he's probably  correct in that assumption.

However it you are referring to a shot with minimal post processing (except the typical 'digital' push and pull or blemish touch up or something which you would normally be able to do with negatives or slides and etc) then being able to capture an amazing shot is something admirable. 

Key is manipulated & captured (in the way I described above).

On a judging perspective, there are separate categories and one can quite simply identify a photo that is hard-to-believe(quite unlikely to happen in natural state largely) vs the other.

Not sure if I'm clear on my description ...


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## photoguy99 (May 18, 2014)

In camera versus post is irrelevant.

Crap is crap and good is good. Doesn't matter how you got there. You can fix a lot of stuff in post.


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## Raj_55555 (May 18, 2014)

bribrius said:


> All I know is I was taught in high school photography to get it right in camera


You had photography classes in high school? Wow! :no smile:



photoguy99 said:


> In camera versus post is irrelevant.
> 
> Crap is crap and good is good. Doesn't matter how you got there. You can fix a lot of stuff in post.



Summed up my thoughts in one line. I've seen enough purists behaving  as if any sort of post processing is evil, most don't realize that  someone else is already doing a lot of post-processing on his/her  behalf, meaning every camera has it's own algorithms to create jpegs and  a lot of "processing" is done to achieve that. The difference being  some programmer wrote an algorithm to automate it, whereas we're doing  it in PP softwares. Unless the photographer is claiming it to be sooc  after using photoshop, I don't see an issue.



Scatterbrained said:


> It has been rumored that once, while speaking at an art exhibition, Ansel Adams overhead a man say "I guess anyone can be a photographer if they have a darkroom"; to which Adams responded by making an imprint of an 8x10 sheet film holder on the back of the mans head.  He then told the man to go lie in a dark room for a while and see how that developed.



I laughed so hard at this


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## 480sparky (May 18, 2014)

photoguy99 said:


> In camera versus post is irrelevant.
> 
> Crap is crap and good is good. Doesn't matter how you got there. You can fix a lot of stuff in post.



Plus, what a lot of people say is "fixing it in post" is really "doing it in post because it cannot be done in-camera".



The camera is a tool.  Use it.  PP software is a tool.  Use it.  Post is no less a tool than a choice of camera, lens, filter, using a tripod, etc.


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## Raj_55555 (May 18, 2014)

480sparky said:


> I guess I screwed up then. I bought cameras and lenses and tripods and filters and memory cards.
> 
> Turns out all I needed was software. Didn't need all that stupid hardware.



lol.. :lmao:


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## 480sparky (May 18, 2014)

Raj_55555 said:


> 480sparky said:
> 
> 
> > I guess I screwed up then. I bought cameras and lenses and tripods and filters and memory cards.
> ...



Now that I think about it, I can ditch my computer, too.  And my monitors, and my printers, the mouse, the keyboard.   I have a spiffy CD with software on it.  That's all I need.

I'm in heaven now.


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## 407370 (May 18, 2014)

I used to make a living doing graphics of all sorts and I have a huge collection of software ranging from high end 3D modeling and animation to a 15 year old version of Paint Shop Pro to my best batch processor of images which was free (Irfanview). 

I look at my pictures and ask myself does this pic *need* anything and if the answer is no (I talk to myself a lot) then it is filed but if the answer is yes then I have the processes at hand to produce an image matching what is in my head.

I was trying to find an image of my glass coffee table that I butchered in a 3D software called Cinema 4D which was abstract in the extreme but it escapes me for the moment. The point is that it is still just a picture no matter what you do to it.


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## limr (May 18, 2014)

When it comes to the final image as seen _by someone else_, then it doesn't really matter at all how the photographer arrived at that final image.

When I look at my final images, it matters to _me_ how I got there. And there are many variables that determine the things we value the most about the process. Part of it is how we were taught, part of it is our natural inclinations for what activities are more enjoyable.

Sure, there was a lot of manipulation of film images, but there were limits (time, cost, skill, materials...) and so there was a real incentive to 'get it right in the camera." Many of us, like bribrius, came up with that mantra. Get it as right as possible in the camera so the post work is easier, faster, and cheaper, if it's even needed at all. 

Digital post work is a lot more accessible and affordable, so it feels less of a burden. And if you mess something up, you just go back to the original file and start again. If you mess up the development of a negative, there's nothing you can do. If you mess up a wet print, you can go back to the negative, but it's a pain in the ass.

Additionally, you get people who really enjoyed the post work. Adams spent tons of time in the darkroom. Cartier-Bresson despised the darkroom. Therein lies another incentive for either getting it right in the camera, or creating the final image in post.

Personally, I'm definitely more of a 'get it right in the camera' sort of a shooter. Perhaps when I can afford an actual darkroom to do my own printing, I'll find more pleasure in the post work. I enjoy the tactile work much more than I enjoy sitting in front of a computer with sliders and curves and clone tools. I have very little patience for digital manipulation.

So to bring it back to my original point, if I have to 'fix' an image in post, I look at the final image and feel a little disappointed in myself. Someone else looking at my image doesn't care how I got there, nor should they care how I got there.

To say there's a right way or a better way to create the final image is short-sighted. There's nothing wrong with either approach. But it's also wrong to say "that it shouldn't matter to anyone" because it _does_ matter to some when it comes to their own work, and there's nothing wrong with that.


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## rexbobcat (May 18, 2014)

bribrius said:


> cheapened it and made it more fake. And easier.  I still like looking at the lower performing 1940's cars. Type on this laptop but I reminisce of the old typewriters. Granted, it was no where near the capability. But the typing was more real. No delete button. could hit back erase but often it didn't work right, or no erase tape. Might have to deal with white out but that don't always work right. sometimes you might just have to throw out a entire page and start it again if you made a mistake. But for every page that came out you had a much larger appreciation of it. And since it wasn't saved on a disk you guarded it as a treasure. Seemed I made a lot less mistake on a typewriter, as I knew they couldn't often be fixed or at least not always easily. And I didn't want to lose a entire page. so paid closer attention.  pjagpjangpjdfngpjdngogpoagkgkodngopdgkajgkangkijfkoank  suppose it doesn't matter if I mess up now. I can just fix it later. its in raw.



You also have to remember that it's easier now to show off bad photos than before. There are probably more bad photos than before, but I'd like to think that there are also a lot more really good photos as well to keep the balance since there has always been, I'll wager , more bad photos than good photos anyways


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## IzzieK (May 18, 2014)

Raj_55555 said:


> This is not a rant, just a story I wanted to share.
> So I was just back home after a long session in the jungle,crawling around dog poop and stalking a rose ringed parakeet family. I fired up lightroom and started processing the files. This is when my brother shows up, gives me a smirk and says "Anyone can be a photographer if they knew how to use photoshop". Clearly he didn't know the difference between LR and CS, but this led us to a bet and now he has my camera for a week and I've promised to process all his pics for him. The results would be interesting to say the least :lmao:.
> 
> I was wondering what's the most absurd thing you guys have ever heard about photography?


I shoot RAW so I need to use PS to translate my photos to a medium I would like to see it, whether it be on PNG,TIFF or Jpeg. Does that make sense?

I once went to a music event in a mall where I was taking piano lessons. I took a lot of shots and not really a good photographer (as if I am now...:lmao and one musician saw my gear and said "Wow! now that! is a camera!" I was actually encouraged to shoot more pictures. Found out later on when I was doing my PP that I miscalculated my WB. How silly did I feel!


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## bribrius (May 18, 2014)

back to the main o.p. statement.

without the digital and post processing I wonder how many "photographers" would no longer be doing photography. Where as some dropped out of photography with the development of digital imaging and photoshop even more seemed to have picked it up.  Lets face it it's easier, cheaper and much more forgiving of mistakes.


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## Overread (May 18, 2014)

Photography is easy just point and click

Anything that goes wrong can be edited, you just press the auto buttons and PS does all the work for you

If its still bad you can use arty filters; they instantly transform your image into art!


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## KmH (May 18, 2014)

As far as getting it right in the camera:

It's rare when you can get it 100% right in the camera. The actual goal is to _get it as close to 100% right as __possible._
What we now call post processing can also be called retouching or 'photo finishing'.


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## Overread (May 18, 2014)

Getting thing right in camera does not mean the same as not editing. 

All it means is that you get the shot you want in camera which you know you can then edit to give you the concept you wanted when you pressed the shutter button. 

This might mean that all you do in editing is set the basics and prepare for print/webdisplay or it might mean that you'll spend hours editing on it to get to the end result. 


The key is that when you're editing you're not trying to "fix" mistakes.


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## bribrius (May 18, 2014)

whatever. Everyone do what they want and have fun with it!! :mrgreen: I was accused last week of photo shopping a building on another website I hadn't even photo shopped. Go figure. lol. 
Some people don't like processed photographs anymore than they like processed cheese.


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## Scatterbrained (May 18, 2014)

bribrius said:


> back to the main o.p. statement.
> 
> without the digital and post processing I wonder how many "photographers" would no longer be doing photography. Where as some dropped out of photography with the development of digital imaging and photoshop even more seemed to have picked it up.  Lets face it it's easier, cheaper and much more forgiving of mistakes.


...and this is a bad thing?    More people are riding motorcycles now too, yet I don't pine for the finicky motorcycles of my youth.  Sometimes I have to wonder if the people agonizing over the development of digital photography would have been agonizing over the invention of the power loom?

  You know, my grandmother did fine art photography when I was  growing up.  I spent my evenings and weekends there and while I didn't give a wit about photography at the time, I learned some interesting things from the processes.  She had her garage split in half.  The back being the darkroom, the front being the workshop where she stored her equipment, made frames, made paper (from scratch, fun stuff), kept metal plates for printing on, etc.  She had a room adjacent to the garage that was her retouching room.   When you're a kid watching someone cut a mask from a sheet of rubylith, hand tone a B&W image, or make paper from scratch is neat stuff.  (didn't make me any more interested in photography though  )  It's safe to say her "workflow" was a wee bit different than your average shooter, but so were her results.  My point?  That there have always been people who embraced the development side, and that even in the film era photography was about more than just pressing the shutter for plenty of shooters.   Meanwhile there are still plenty of people, like yourself, who abhor post processing, just as there were in the film era.    

 Just out of curiosity, do you pine for a return to the days of the straight razor, where mistakes in technique were painfully punished?   

As a side note, you may not have noticed it, but the ubiquity of digital has been pushing a lot of fine art shooters back to film (many are actually picking up large format, and some for the first time).  It's becoming more of a "process art", where how the image was taken is what really matters.    

Anyway, I'm done rambling for now, it's time for lunch.


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## terri (May 18, 2014)

limr said:


> When it comes to the final image as seen _by someone else_, then it doesn't really matter at all how the photographer arrived at that final image.
> 
> When I look at my final images, it matters to _me_ how I got there. And there are many variables that determine the things we value the most about the process. Part of it is how we were taught, part of it is our natural inclinations for what activities are more enjoyable.
> 
> ...



:cheer:


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## minicoop1985 (May 18, 2014)

snerd said:


> I discovered that my wife was into film photography. Big time. Before we got married, about 7 years ago. She said with the advent of digital cameras, and Photoshop, she lost all desire for it. The fact that images can be manipulated so easily now just ruins it for her. Period. I don't get it. At all. But that's how she feels.



My wife had a similar ideology. She doesn't like the way I take things to edit. She's SOOC or hit the highway. Used to shoot lots of film. I remember when she got her first digital camera (a Panasonic Lumix Superzoom that I recently converted to IR) probably 8 years ago. She felt guilty for about a week, until she saw her shots on a computer. She still doesn't like editing, but I keep telling her it's not THAT bad, so long as you still end up with what you saw in the end-it's just a different means of getting there.

For the record, photoshop makes a photographer like a Ferrari 360 Modena makes a race driver. They don't. Everyone knows it's the DSLR that makes the pro... Sheesh.


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## TreeofLifeStairs (May 18, 2014)

I'm interested in seeing the results of your wager. When is his week up with your camera?


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## AlanKlein (May 18, 2014)

What do you say when someone asks about your photo, "_Did you Photoshop it_?"

Do you tell the truth?  Do you lie about some of the editing?  Do you care at all? 


Do you think he thinks less about your photo if your response is "_Yes_."

Does that bother you?


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## vintagesnaps (May 18, 2014)

I don't know, I think there's something to this. I've seen photos where people show an original and the edited version and so often it looks like the exposure was off. I'm not sure if they don't even see that, or just think everything has to be post processed and that's how it's supposed to be, or that's what they learned, or what. It just seems like some people are doing so much editing and don't seem to realize that's not always necessary if you get a good photo in camera.

Obviously there's a process involved, you have to get images off your media card (unless all you want to do is look at them on the back of your camera!). You have to get film developed to even see what you shot. So there's a process involved in getting images into a viewable form. But I don't necessarily _post_ process photos - not unless you consider that to be taking the media card out of the camera and putting it in the computer and looking at them. I'll usually do a print and if that looks good directly out of the camera, I'm done. Other times I might have to brighten or adjust contrast, that's about it. My darkroom process is similar in that once I get an exposure time determined, if the roll was shot in the same lighting conditions I might be able to crank out prints fairly efficiently, or I might need to do a little dodging or burning, or sometimes there may be a photo I spend more time working on depending on what needs to be done. 

But I've done sports where you have to get it in camera (not that sports publications don't do some editing but these days there are photos online before the game's even done so you gotta get it in camera, there isn't necessarily going to be much time for editing). Of course there was always retouching doing portraits etc. even when portrait photographers were using film so I think it just depends on what you're doing.

But it to me isn't really practical either way to have to spend a lot of time post processing everything. I love doing darkroom work, but I couldn't spend all day in there (well, I could, but I can't). I mean everybody has jobs or kids and a life and I think you can only spend so much time on it. I think there are people who probably wouldn't be photographers if it was still the so-called film era but then there are people who would, because they'd keep working at it and developing their skills til they got good at it.


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## Dikkie (May 19, 2014)

Back in the days... 
I remember my parents and grand-parents shooting film too.
But they used to shoot a lot of positive film instead of negative film. Dia slides, to put in frames in a slide projector.
As you shoot these slides, you aren't going to do postprocessing (like negatives in a dark room), it's immediately your final product.

I used to shoot that way aswel before with film, trying to get my composition the right way, settings the right way, everything did have to be perfect before I pressed the release button.
Now, with digital, I have to be concentrated less, I can afford some errors because I know I can make corrections easily when postprocessing.

That really changes the way I feel when photographing. I remember that the intensity of photographing was higher before, more exciting too. That's aswel the main reason I pick up an old film camera now and then to shoot a roll. Although it's already more than a year ago that I shot a roll now... should do it again soon!


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## The_Traveler (May 19, 2014)

Dikkie said:


> But they used to shoot a lot of positive film instead of negative film. Dia slides, to put in frames in a slide projector.
> As you shoot these slides, you aren't going to do postprocessing (like negatives in a dark room), it's immediately your final product.



I do some judging at local camera clubs and a few still have a slide section.
There is an enormous difference between the quality of the submitted slides and the digital images.
The average slide generally looks amateurish compared to the average digital image and even the winning slide is rarely an exceptional image.


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## Raj_55555 (May 19, 2014)

TreeofLifeStairs said:


> I'm interested in seeing the results of your wager. When is his week up with your camera?



I'm supposed to get it back next monday, I'll post the results, i.e. if he actually bothers to use the camera


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## imagemaker46 (May 19, 2014)

I get asked about photoshop all the time, I tell people that pretty much every single picture that they see in magazines and books has gone through photoshop.  I use it every day, I try and get as much correct in camera before I shoot so that I'm not wasting time.  If a person is good enough with a camera they should be able to shoot images that don't require photoshop.  I've had images that I look at and skip using photoshop as they don't need any work, but 9 times out of 10, I make some kind of minor change, light/dark/crop.

Being good at photoshop is required these days if anyone is planning on working as a professional.  It's just another element, but it shouldn't be a crutch.


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## bribrius (May 19, 2014)

I have a new development on this. I met someone that already picked up lightroom masters collection (I think that cost like a grand?) and they don't even have a camera yet. Talk about preplanning...
Nothing against them either, im sure they will be great in photography I just thought it was kind of backwards..


edit: oh, friend of my wifes. Nice woman. suppose I was just surprised. she showed me the program already has it installed in her computer..


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## photoguy99 (May 19, 2014)

Printing has always involved post processing, if only a light edge burn. Any picture benefits from a little dodging and burning. The number of serious photographers who have eschewed dodging is really small. Getting the edge burn right in camera would be a bit tricky.

Also slides were NOT always the end product. There were a number of truly excellent direct positive printing processes. Plenty of people shot slide film specifically so they could print Cibas.


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## minicoop1985 (May 19, 2014)

AlanKlein said:


> What do you say when someone asks about your photo, "_Did you Photoshop it_?"
> 
> Do you tell the truth?  Do you lie about some of the editing?  Do you care at all?
> 
> ...



Taser to groin, then run.


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## TheNevadanStig (May 19, 2014)

Here's a swallow in flight, SOOC. It's great I know. And believe it or not, I have many just as good as this one.
But, lets see if someone can Photoshop it to look like one of Danny's


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## BillM (May 19, 2014)

Stop stealing my photo's Stig !!!!!!





:mrgreen:


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## Vince.1551 (May 19, 2014)

minicoop1985 said:


> Taser to groin, then run.



Lol


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## bribrius (May 19, 2014)

TheNevadanStig said:


> Here's a swallow in flight, SOOC. It's great I know. And believe it or not, I have many just as good as this one.
> But, lets see if someone can Photoshop it to look like one of Danny's


look like someone took danny and pixel rabbit and compiled them.


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## Scatterbrained (May 19, 2014)

bribrius said:


> I have a new development on this. I met someone that already picked up lightroom masters collection (I think that cost like a grand?) and they don't even have a camera yet. Talk about preplanning...
> Nothing against them either, im sure they will be great in photography I just thought it was kind of backwards..
> 
> 
> edit: oh, friend of my wifes. Nice woman. suppose I was just surprised. she showed me the program already has it installed in her computer..



I assume you're referring to the Creative Suite Master Collection?  Oddly Lr isn't included in the Master Collection, but it doesn't matter now with CC.  Are you sure she ponied up the money for CS6 or did she just purchase the subscription service?


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## bribrius (May 19, 2014)

Scatterbrained said:


> bribrius said:
> 
> 
> > I have a new development on this. I met someone that already picked up lightroom masters collection (I think that cost like a grand?) and they don't even have a camera yet. Talk about preplanning...
> ...


full program.
edit: well im assuming so. she said it went for a grand. I kind peeped through it, talked about the tutorials which she thought would come in handy. it seemed to me like the full thing and you are correct. It was creative suite master collection or edition or something to that effect. My photoshop knowledge is lacking. Looked interesting I didn't really get a chance to play around with it. I was really just a little surprised, that's all.


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## SpikeyJohnson (May 20, 2014)

bribrius said:


> back to the main o.p. statement.
> 
> without the digital and post processing I wonder how many "photographers" would no longer be doing photography. Where as some dropped out of photography with the development of digital imaging and photoshop even more seemed to have picked it up.  Lets face it it's easier, cheaper and much more forgiving of mistakes.



Lately I find myself really delving into photoshop quite a bit.  Normally I just go through LR5 but since I got a tablet and pen I love PS.  I sometimes find it more fun to peer at the photo's as I work on them later, fixing imperfections in things, cleaning, recoloring, drawing and accentuating.  I have used film and darkroom as well. I liked them but it was so expensive for me to play with.  

So some day's for me, I like the "Get it right in Camera". Other day's I love to get into photoshop and play. I think I like the "Get it right..." when I'm shooting many photo's for an occasion where as with photoshop it is more of a single item up to like 10-20 photo's at most.  I will play with photo's for hours in PS when I feel like it.


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## nzmacro (May 20, 2014)

TheNevadanStig said:


> Here's a swallow in flight, SOOC. It's great I know. And believe it or not, I have many just as good as this one.
> But, lets see if someone can Photoshop it to look like one of Danny's



Leave me out of it   I'm on the sideline just reading through this 

What PS or the equivalents can do, is make a great shot ........ superb. But and its a big but, it can't save a shot that is already dead and should be buried. Every single shot I've taken and probably most on here by the looks, goes though a certain process to make the image look as good as it can be as we see it. No way on this earth am I going to tell you what some of us get up to   

These are all right out of the box with no editing at all .......... trust me 


























All just straight from the garden and camera. Untouched I tell ya.

Danny.


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## nzmacro (May 20, 2014)

TheNevadanStig said:


> Here's a swallow in flight, SOOC. It's great I know. And believe it or not, I have many just as good as this one.
> But, lets see if someone can Photoshop it to look like one of Danny's




Its not too bad Jas, a bit of sharpening and cropping a litlle more to the thirds, yeah not bad. Nice shot Jason.



Danny.


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## Raj_55555 (May 20, 2014)

nzmacro said:


> These are all right out of the box with no editing at all .......... trust me
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Come on Danny, stop lying! You've clearly added the watermark in post .


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## nzmacro (May 20, 2014)

Oops, I did as well. I forgot about that Raj  or maybe I have an app for the camera that does it on auto


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## Raj_55555 (May 20, 2014)

nzmacro said:


> Oops, I did as well. I forgot about that Raj  or maybe I have an app for the camera that does it on auto



I should get one of those apps :lmao: :lmao:


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## 480sparky (May 20, 2014)

nzmacro said:


> Oops, I did as well. I forgot about that Raj  or maybe I have an app for the camera that does it on auto



I just email all my photos to Chuck Norris. As soon as he looks at them, the watermarks appear all by themselves.


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## Raj_55555 (May 28, 2014)

Well, the results are in. He hardly took 10 pics, and only these 3 were remotely usable. I don't know what I expected 
I did as much PP as I could in LR, but going to CS seemed overkill for these shots.


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## Bamps (May 29, 2014)

I don't know, that second one looks pretty good. Off the wall, ( or should that be IN the wall), and different, yet clear on the boys there. The other two, not so much.


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## bribrius (May 29, 2014)

Bamps said:


> I don't know, that second one looks pretty good. Off the wall, ( or should that be IN the wall), and different, yet clear on the boys there. The other two, not so much.


1 keeper in 10 actually isn't too bad, in comparison to some...
Especially from a guy who doesn't pick up cameras that doesn't like photography. He might be a natural


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## AlanKlein (May 29, 2014)

You can't Photoshop perspective, content, interest, good lighting, etc.  That's why so many shots that have been heavily processed still stink.


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## limr (May 29, 2014)

Okay, I hope this doesn't sound too bad, but...that kid on the bottom 'bunk' in the second picture? His head is sorta freaking me out. I'm sure there's a weird thing going on with the perspective that is creating a strange optical illusion, but his head and forehead just look GINORMOUS compared to his facial features, which look very small. Plus, the angle of the arm under his head makes the arm look shorter than normal - like there's no elbow or even wrist. Just goes straight into the hand. And it looks like he's got make-up on or something like that - very smooth skin. It almost looks like a doll head on a real body.


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## Raj_55555 (May 30, 2014)

Bamps said:


> I don't know, that second one looks pretty good.  Off the wall, ( or should that be IN the wall), and different, yet clear  on the boys there. The other two, not so much.


Yup! That's what I told him, it was the only one that looked decent to  me,  going a bit to the left and keeping the camera straight would have  helped but he did a good job .




bribrius said:


> 1 keeper in 10 actually isn't too bad, in comparison to some...
> Especially from a guy who doesn't pick up cameras that doesn't like photography. He might be a natural



 I might have stated the numbers a bit incorrectly. What I meant was he hardly took pictures of 10 different types, for the second one there were about 12-13 blurry ones (like last one here), with this one in between somewhere. I'm not criticizing him though, he did a nice job I'd say. Just that I got him to admit it was tougher when he was actually trying to make a good photo conciously


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## Raj_55555 (May 30, 2014)

limr said:


> Okay, I hope this doesn't sound too bad, but...that kid on the bottom 'bunk' in the second picture? His head is sorta freaking me out. I'm sure there's a weird thing going on with the perspective that is creating a strange optical illusion, but his head and forehead just look GINORMOUS compared to his facial features, which look very small. Plus, the angle of the arm under his head makes the arm look shorter than normal - like there's no elbow or even wrist. Just goes straight into the hand. And it looks like he's got make-up on or something like that - very smooth skin. It almost looks like a doll head on a real body.



This one was severely underexposed, and I had to bump up the exposure by +1.8 resulting in too much noise. I reduced the sharpness a bit and softened the skin as well. And he does have a very big head, but eek! the hand looks real freaky, I didn't even notice until you pointed it out. I wonder what was going on.


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## annamaria (May 30, 2014)

Scatterbrained said:


> It has been rumored that once, while speaking at an art exhibition, Ansel Adams overhead a man say "I guess anyone can be a photographer if they have a darkroom"; to which Adams responded by making an imprint of an 8x10 sheet film holder on the back of the mans head.  He then told the man to go lie in a dark room for a while and see how that developed.



Oh this is way to funny.  I laughed so much when I read this.


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## annamaria (May 30, 2014)

My goal:  get the shot right in camera with minimal post processing.  May take a while, but in the meantime having fun.


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## hamlet (May 31, 2014)

Like the arms of Vishnu every one of the tools a photographer uses is a hand to achieve his goal. Now whether you achieve it in the field or on your computer is up to how good you are in those specific examples and both take time and effort to learn, there are no shortcuts.


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## Raj_55555 (May 31, 2014)

hamlet said:


> Like the arms of Vishnu every one of the tools a photographer uses is a hand to achieve his goal. Now whether you achieve it in the field or on your computer is up to how good you are in those specific examples and both take time and effort to learn, there are no shortcuts.


 or lord Ganesha, Kali, Brahma, Shiva, Durga and so on.. :lmao:. Seriously, we've got so many of them that none of remembers all their names, and some of them have multiple heads too, I guess you can compare that to a backup camera


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## limr (May 31, 2014)

Raj_55555 said:


> limr said:
> 
> 
> > Okay, I hope this doesn't sound too bad, but...that kid on the bottom 'bunk' in the second picture? His head is sorta freaking me out. I'm sure there's a weird thing going on with the perspective that is creating a strange optical illusion, but his head and forehead just look GINORMOUS compared to his facial features, which look very small. Plus, the angle of the arm under his head makes the arm look shorter than normal - like there's no elbow or even wrist. Just goes straight into the hand. And it looks like he's got make-up on or something like that - very smooth skin. It almost looks like a doll head on a real body.
> ...



I think just one of the things alone would have been fine, but the combination of skin+head+hand gave me a sort of "What the---??" moment 

I have to say, though, for a shot that was so underexposed, you did a wonderful job rescuing it!


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## Raj_55555 (May 31, 2014)

limr said:


> I think just one of the things alone would have been fine, but the combination of skin+head+hand gave me a sort of "What the---??" moment
> 
> I have to say, though, for a shot that was so underexposed, you did a wonderful job rescuing it!



Thank you, thank you:smileys:!!


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## Dikkie (Jun 7, 2014)

The_Traveler said:


> Dikkie said:
> 
> 
> > But they used to shoot a lot of positive film instead of negative film. Dia slides, to put in frames in a slide projector.
> ...


Maybe these few people shooting slides aren't that good photographers then.

The quality of slides, does it only involve the resolution compared to MegaPixels, or do you mean aswel composition or other stuff?


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