*** Photo Contest Rules Poll #3: Post-Processing ***

We're presenting a photo on a theme to people who look and enjoy, or don't enjoy.

(I have only Picasa, and I crop, use the "best color" button, or de-saturate, they have limited options but they do make a difference in my photos. I recently got photo shop installed and will learn it in order to put little space ships in the sky like Trusty Elf, and for the eventual obligatory tiny logo of Robb's desk tastefully placed in the right hand corner)

If people overdo things then the result is going to be pleasing or not. The votes will tell and teach.
It's different from wild and way out frames.
It's the way the photographer intrinsically wants to present his work, (not augment it with a frame) so let him.

In essence it's an I don't care option because it fosters freedom in choosing how you want to present your work.

I kind of wanted to enter this one for some theme a while back, just because I like the way it turned out.



It probably would have died quickly of vote deprivation, though. Pleasing or not, a very good point.

The thing about photography is that photographs run on a sliding scale from "photo as documentation" through "photo as art" through "art that started as a photo". The problem usually comes in where enough post-processing is done so that it is not longer easy to tell where on the scale between "documentation" and "art" the photo accurately belongs. There have been notable examples from the mass media where "art" got passed off as "documentation".

For the DU contests, in my opinion we are doing art-related presentations. Thus, there is no need to distinguish how much processing was done, which would move things away from "documentation", unless a specific contest places such restrictions on those specific entries.

It's not that I don't care, but I don't think a rule like this would be enforceable. Some photo-manips are obvious but others can be quite subtle. The question is where to draw the line and then, when you think someone has crossed the line, how do you prove it?

though I haven't voted.

or choose, as in my "unkempt in Charleston, S.C." shot, to find an obvious post-process that makes the photo work.

Tindalos raises an excellent point about proof and enforcement.

I don't know...the voting in the contests is often surprising; I suppose people like what they like 'cause they like it.

Sorry, thought I was in GD.:yoiks:

I don't think we should move toward setting up some threshold for post-processing, personally, but the subject was raised in the discussion thread and I thought perhaps we ought to deal with that too.

Flamewars in the photo group are the last thing we need...it would be like nuking an island of sanity in a sea of discontent...sort of... :D

because there's no "I don't have frickin clue and I'm not qualified to answer this question" option.

Wow, define extreme post-processing. That's my main problem with it. Well, I know it when I see it, and you know it when you see it, yet we don't both see it the same way.

Believe it or not, HDR and other techniques can be done tastefully. I've seen it done.

:kick:

between a lot of processing to enhancing and extreme processing. I'd say we leave it alone and upto the photographer.

"Extreme post-processing will be allowed, but poorly-done extreme post-processing should be mocked without mercy, both in the Photo Group itself and in the polling threads."

:dunce:

Based on the lack of enthusiasm for HDR and extreme post-processing, and the concensus that this is a photography contest, it would seem to me that the decision has been made.

Minimal post-processing allowed.

This only becomes an issue when someone enters a picture that is clearly processed, and then gets their nose out of joint because there's no definitive rule.

What is too much? The contest host is the final arbiter.

I don't think it needs to be more complicated than this.

I would add that there are ways to really enhance photos where it is not detectable, such as merging pictures, adding clouds, etc. I feel that we should have an honor code against those things--yes, an unenforceable rule.

If we allowed extreme detectable post processing, we would start to get some entries that look like the real arty type concctions we see on on Flickr sometimes. People here that say they don't care about the issue would start to change their minds once those entries started rolling in. And some of them look cool enough to win. But they don't really look like photography. I strongly feel we need a provision to keep this from happening. All we would need is a couple of entries like that and the frame issue would seem like peanuts.

I entered a photo of fish in the diagonal contest. The actual photo had some light blotches in it. Someone recommended I "process" those out. I'd have never done that on my own, it changes the concept of photography.

With all due respect, that strikes me as a very strange conclusion to draw from the results.

To me, an overwhelming verdict of "I just don't care" means "we don't need any rules against post-processing." Period. Saying that it "proves" that people want new rules limiting it seems utterly bizarre.

By the way, I think one point should be made: this concern about post-processing seems to have sprung out of an off-line discussion between blueraven95 and myself some time ago, about a handful of entries (names of images or photographers will be omitted, as the point isn't to call anyone out) which struck us both as having seriously-overdone processing, and which were doing very well in the voting. My complaint, at the time, was not that such processing should not be allowed, as that it dismayed me that voters were not noticing the artificial look of those images. In short, my complaint was not about post-processing, but about bad post-processing, and more about the voting public's failure to recognize just how badly it was done. (The latter sounds more like a matter for pre-qualifying voters via a "visual sense test," rather than restricting photographers. ;-) ) And you know what the irony is? Each of those photos would have still been allowed under the new rules, as they involved corrections to exposure, color saturation, etc. specifically permitted under the most recent phrasing being developed.

You might notice that the poll didn't really have a place to say "minimal post processing" and that some of us, including me, chose "I just don't care dammit" because it was closest to our opinion. No, we don't want a free for all or we'd have chosen the first response, all post-processing allowed.

Regardless, clearly you need to write up the conclusion and have it added to the rules since you seem to care more about it than anybody else.

...but here it is again:

"I don't care" is certainly not an optional way of saying "minimal post processing". Of the options given, the closest choice to "minimal only" would be have been "HDR is a pox". With the choices given, a reasonable interpretation of "I don't care" would be "HDR is fine for others, but I won't be using it".

I'd think of things that were more like replacing backgrounds with another scene shot elsewhere, manipulating color saturation so that things look utterly unrealistic (i.e. psychedelic) and so on. The problem I have is that, every time I've seen a result that screams "bad over-processing," I realized I've used that same technique myself -- the only difference is that I've used it in a much more restrained manner, which IMO merely brought out what was already there in the scene I witnessed. (I've even replaced skies on occasion -- though not in contest entries -- but have given up on it because I found I could never get a result that didn't scream "fake!")

The big problem, as I see it, is that to use rules to outlaw some of what most of us recognize as "overdone processing" would almost necessarily take away techniques that can be used quite legitimately and modestly to provide good results that aren't at all a distortion of what was there before the photographer.

By the way, although I'm not a fan of software-created HDR (because I usually find the results horribly artificial), I see nothing wrong with manual "exposure blends" of dual-processing a single image, or taking two images shot one after the other at differing exposures, and then combining them in a final image. All that is doing is bringing the very-limited exposure range of film or digital sensors more in line with that of the human eye -- and thus creating an image that is more like "what the photographer saw."

Finally, two questions worth pondering:

1) Although most people here would describe garish over-use of saturation as "extreme processing," how is that any less legitimate than taking a color photo (as virtually all digital photos are) and removing the color to create a black-and-white image? Unless you're colorblind, you don't see entirely black-and-white images in nature.

2) Why is it that using Photoshop to create an image that looks different from what an average person would see while looking at the scene verboten, but the use of a slow shutter-speed to give water a "silken" look (as is standard in waterfall and river photography) somehow O.K.? Those techniques (which I use on many occasions, and have even done on one contest winner, ...in the widening gyre...) are at least as much a distortion of reality as can be done in Photoshop, yet they're recognized as legitimate by virtually all photographers.

that's what I meant. I don't care. The image should speak for itself, regardless of what's been done to it. I have seen some amazing over the top extremely post processed images, just like I've seen ones that sucked. If the folks in GD who vote, end up picking something that looks less than appealing to some of us then so be it. It's a big world out there and people have a pretty wide range of aesthetics.

I'm not sure where to draw the line. Cranking the saturation up to 15 is okay but up to 25 isn't? Desaturating down to 0 is okay but down -30 isn't? Cloning out telephone wires, a piece of trash, a piece of unwanted graffiti? Some of these require some "extreme" methods but if done right shouldn't be noticable.

To me a good digital image can often require a lot of work. It's not just point, click, print (or save as jpg.)

I certainly remember way back when I worked in a darkroom I did some extreme post processing - solarizing, contact prints of solarized prints, underexposing, overexposing. Now it's easier thanks to the wonders of Photoshop, but I would still consider it photography. The initial shot is a starting point. The photographer should have the flexibility to be creative with his/her image.

Just my two cents.

against extreme post-processing when this was first posted, but wanted to give my thoughts on why some time to formulate.

The reason I am against it for contests is this: There are many of us here who cannot afford photoshop and really just barely can use their camera. I use my husband's once in a while for these shots, and once in a while I get off a lucky shot using the auto setting. Just by virtue of the fact that many others here are either extremely talented hobbyists, and some others are professionals, the fact that you can use your talent and knowledge of your instrument gives you edge enough.

Plus, all the post-processing does is prove you are good at manipulation, not photography necessarily. And this is just a friendly message board contest, not one looking for a money or fame shot, right? Even though we rank amateurs aren't as good, we still enjoy being in the running sometimes.

Does that make sense? :shrug:

I feel that there are good reasons on both sides of this. So I feel that it should be up to the host.

that this is just a message board contest, it is and should be in my estimation anyway, a fun exercise.

As I just mentioned to Mz. Pip, I think an honor system will do, since it's so hard to tell. :hi:

BUt some processing that looks 'extreme' really isn't particularly techically difficult while some processing can be quite complex and virtually undetectable.

I think that's where the difficulty lies.

I think there are many honorable people in this group who wouldn't have a problem with it. :hi:

Don't sell yourself short -- I remember you had a really good image in the last Winter seasonal, and seem to recall another one in a recent monthly contest (was it "still life?").


With all due respect, the oft-assumed dichotomy between "photography" and "post-processing" (as if "the only thing that counts is what happens before the shutter clicks") is the biggest canard (translation: "horse manure") spread about the art. As I believe I recently pointed out, people who have seen "straight" prints from Ansel Adams's negatives have said they look nothing at all like his famous enlargements. Adams would spend days on a given image, producing test print after test print, painstakingly dodging and burning small areas of each image, until he figured out a "recipe" for each image that, in his musical analogy, was "the performance" of that negative's "score." Would anyone suggest that he should merely have given his negatives to the corner drugstore and been satisfied with the prints they gave him back because anything further was merely "manipulation," and not "photography?" While I certainly would never claim to Adams's stature, back in my film days, I spent hours in my college's darkroom on a given enlargement, and would never have dreamed of considering a straight "contact print" to be the only honest reflection of my abilities as a photographer. And I didn't go as far as others -- all "amateurs," I would note -- who would figure out ways to build darkrooms into their homes or apartments, and even get (expensive!) color enlargers so that they wouldn't have to be restricted to black-and-white. Should they have just been told to be satisfied with prints from Fotomat instead?


I find it ironic that this should come up, since this was one of the sarcastic comments aimed at this group by the poster who got so upset about not being allowed to use frames: Since not everyone can afford Photoshop, why not require straight out-of-camera JPEGs? Furthermore, since not everyone can afford an SLR, why not require contest entries only come from the cheapest possible point'n'shoot? But, in fact, even if you can't afford Photoshop (and I wouldn't have been able to do so, if I didn't have a school-age child in the house...you do know that you can get student discount pricing on Adobe software, even if your "student" is in kindergarten, don't you?), you can still find many good image-processing programs for far less, including Adobe's own Photoshop Elements and Lightroom. There's even a reasonably-powerful "open source" (i.e. free) image editor known as GIMP. As to not knowing how to use one's camera...it seems to me that some level of skill and knowledge should be expected of people submitting their photos to a competition, even if they consider themselves "rank amateurs." (Fortunately, based on your own images, a deficit of skill or knowledge doesn't seem to be the case for you.)

paragraph are in the extreme. The only post processing I do is to use Irfanview to crop, usually, once in a while, I may lighten the exposure, but other than that they are pretty much straight out of the camera, and are lucky shots. If I have an eye for composition is because long, long ago I was a dabbler with paint and charcoal, and was exposed to the arts. (Nothing past high school, mind you, as I find myself coming up on 52 years old. LOL)

Photography is not my avocation or my hobby, but I'm not too intimidated to try my hand at anything I even have a mild interest in. Jeff expressed a worry not too long ago that the forum wasn't as lively as it once was, maybe if more people weren't intimidated, it would be. There weren't even enough entries in the last contest before it closed, I think.

I'm not saying that no post-processing should be allowed, just not so much that it's out of the reach of the everyday photobug. :shrug: