Question on the rights and wrongs of photo editing..

[Hollis]

As a non-photographer, can I ask if there is much of a debate as to whether or not you 'should' literally just 'snap and shoot', or play around with photo-editing software when you get home. I follow a couple photographers on twitter - all of whom clearly " stylize " or edit their photos to some extent...

My one arty mate, informs me that there is no issue, and that the moment you're taking a photo you're already essentially editing..

 

[Steel Icarus]

Do what you want asking as it's the truth, say I

Read this the other day, interesting stuff about Cartier-Bresson and the myth of the "decisive moment"

17 Lessons Henri Cartier-Bresson Has Taught Me About Street Photography - ERIC KIM

As this article is very long, I recommend reading this by saving it to Pocket or Instapaper. All photos in this article are copyrighted by Henri Cartier Bresson / Magnum Photos. I recently picked up a copy of “The Mind’s Eye” – which is a great compilation of thoughts and philosophies Henri...

erickimphotography.com

 

[editor]

As a non-photographer, can I ask if there is much of a debate as to whether or not you 'should' literally just 'snap and shoot', or play around with photo-editing software when you get home. I follow a couple photographers on twitter - all of whom clearly " stylize " or edit their photos to some extent...

My one arty mate, informs me that there is no issue, and that the moment you're taking a photo you're already essentially editing..

It's really up to the photographer and what the photo is for. Instagram users seem to love ridiculously filter-packed, over-processed images with colours ramped up to the max but I personally dislike that look.
You should just take pictures for your own pleasure and edit them how you want them to look. Either way, it's good to experiment.

 

[editor]

Do what you want asking as it's the truth, say I

Read this the other day, interesting stuff about Cartier-Bresson and the myth of the "decisive moment"

17 Lessons Henri Cartier-Bresson Has Taught Me About Street Photography - ERIC KIM

As this article is very long, I recommend reading this by saving it to Pocket or Instapaper. All photos in this article are copyrighted by Henri Cartier Bresson / Magnum Photos. I recently picked up a copy of “The Mind’s Eye” – which is a great compilation of thoughts and philosophies Henri...

erickimphotography.com

One of my favourite photographers. This is genius.

 

[weltweit]

As a non-photographer, can I ask if there is much of a debate as to whether or not you 'should' literally just 'snap and shoot', or play around with photo-editing software when you get home. I follow a couple photographers on twitter - all of whom clearly " stylize " or edit their photos to some extent...

My one arty mate, informs me that there is no issue, and that the moment you're taking a photo you're already essentially editing..

If you are doing general photography for your own pleasure, or perhaps for artistic purposes you can edit your images in whatever way you like, and editing is easier and easier these days.

However for some genres editing is still frowned on, for example natural history photography frowns on editing, if you want to enter photographs into exhibitions or competitions in the natural history field you better not be caught editing or you will likely be banned. (I am right about that aren't I RoyReed ?)

There are some edits I won't do, even on photos for my own pleasure, for example I wont horizontally flip a landscape, for some reason that just strikes me as wrong, yet some do it without thinking.

 

[BristolEcho]

I took some pictures and heavily edited them to get some cool results. Got bored after a while, but it's another extension of the art I think. I think as long as it's clear/honest it's fine.

 

[girasol]

I went through a phase of experimenting (I was self learning how to use Photoshop), it was hit and miss, but it was FUN! It was just for my own pleasure anyway, so I wasn't too concerned about how it'd be perceived... Manipulated

 

[RoyReed]

However for some genres editing is still frowned on, for example natural history photography frowns on editing, if you want to enter photographs into exhibitions or competitions in the natural history field you better not be caught editing or you will likely be banned. (I am right about that aren't I RoyReed ?)

I wouldn't know. I'm not a natural history photographer and I've never entered a photograph into a competition.

The only edits I do are to make the photograph look like what my eye saw. The only exception to that is if I photograph in black & white.

 

[weltweit]

I wouldn't know. I'm not a natural history photographer and I've never entered a photograph into a competition.

Oh sorry, ok. Well anyhow I am pretty sure natural history photography doesn't permit editing.

 

[wayward bob]

2002 wants its thread back

 

[FridgeMagnet]

The golden rule is that you should not edit a photo so that it looks shit. Unfortunately people still seem to breach this basic principle regularly

 

[weltweit]

I tend to sometimes crop my photos, clone out unwanted bits, adjust the levels, resize, sharpen and put a 1px black border.

Sometimes though I blend 3 or 5 photos into a panorama, then I do the above steps.

I generally don't do any editing which might take more than a couple of minutes per photo or take more than one session. I do like to do most of my creating in the camera.

Some I know of take photos of elements in separate photos and then later combine them in photoshop. For example I know of one person who take photos of models pretty much anywhere and then merges them into sci-fi environments using PS. He is very skilled with PS and the results are impressive, it hasn't appealed to me though.

 

[RoyReed]

You're editing from the moment you look through the viewfinder by deciding what to include and what to exclude, and how to frame the image. There's no such thing as an unedited photo.

 

[Saul Goodman]

Do whatever you like, they're your photos. If someone gets arsey about it, do it even more.

 

[weltweit]

Long time ago I was photographing Swans a lot, edited this quite a lot .. over did it as it happens ..

 

[weltweit]

And in this one I inexpertly removed at least 3 ducks, and all sorts of lumps of weed : I expect you can see where they were, I certainly can :-/

 

[weltweit]

I saw a presentation about editing a portrait. The editor specified they were not creating a photo, rather they were creating a fantasy image. They used frequency separation to remove all skin blemishes, showed how to brighten the whites of the eyes, how to increase the size of the eyes, how to transform whole aspects of the face, moving the nose and mouth etc .. They were very skilled and it was interesting, I learnt a lot about the use of layers.