Do you think it's dishonest not telling newbies to photography about HDR, pcediting

Discussion in 'Digital Photography, Home and Portable Electronics' started by death_samurai, Apr 21, 2014.

  1. death_samurai

    death_samurai Ancient Guru

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    I think i am correct in saying some of the really good shots taken here are used with good dslr cameras and not with cell phone cameras and if they were there was heavy editing involved am i correct to say this?

    When i was new to photography that is i only used cell phone cameras to take pictures i didn't know anything about raw or using a pc to edit pictures or even edit them on the phone. I just took the pictures and posted them straight. I got a better camera that produced pictures in jpg format i didn't edit them either just simply posted them as they were. Later i discovered HDR, using gimp to edit and sharpen pictures etc etc.

    Anyway before i did any of that i just simply posted my pictures straight out from the camera. Since my earlier pictures were from a cell phone and now came from a camera they were better but not as good as seasoned photographers who used pcs to edit them and so on. I posted them on a photography forum fyi.

    so on this photography forum one of the members was a mod and he showed me pictures he had taken and they were sharp and clear and didn't look like pictures you can see with your eye and the worst thing was that he left all of it out, using pcs to edit them, HDR pictures, different lenses and just wanted to showcase his pc edited images all due to his own skill. You see what i mean here. Here was a newbie that didn't know any of it thinking that you could take pictures straight out looking like this

    [​IMG]


    from the camera when in reality this image is a HDR image that has been processed by a pc.


    It was only later that when i found out about HDR imaging, not holding your camera in your hand when you take night shots but using a tripod or at least leaving your camera on a flat surface that it isn't moving that you can produce better pictures and my pictures really improved. My camera isn't a dslr fyi it's a sony dsc dx100 hybrid camera that pairs with a phone but the pictures are pretty good better than a cell phone's pictures but not as good as from a dslr obviously but the here's what i really want to know.

    Would you try to lie to a newbie that has no idea what a HDR image is and that you took several different shots of the same subject with different exposures and blended them with a pc to produce that image and try to lie to the newbie that that image you produced came fresh out of your camera? Like you had so much skill you could just simply create such an image with one shot of your camera with no processing from the pc.

    Honestly speaking are there ppl like this out there?

    I actually think that ppl that do photography don't want to tell the ignorant ones that only use cell phone cameras to just point and click and shoot that their images have been processed by a pc so that they can make their skills take even more precedence over their pictures. You see what i mean.


    Oh yes the members over there are truly sensitive you need to kiss their ass literally if not well you're rude.
     
  2. Iggyblack

    Iggyblack Guest

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    Yes there are people like that, and most photography forums are pure cancer.

    I wouldn't lie about what I did to the photo, because there is no point. you can easily tell if an image is HDR or whatever and I'm not a huge dick with an oversized ego because I would something like a D800 or 5diii.

    Like I said, in pretty much most photography forums you will find people who praise pretty much everyone in a giant circlejerk aka flickr, or people who just gearfag till there's no tomorrow aka dpreview/rangefinder forums.
    And of course you will find the *******s who no matter how **** their stuff is, they think it's pure art because they won some sort of forum photography or had their stuff in a crappy exhibtion with no merit.


    The best advice I can give you, is to be ultra critical of yourself. when you think you are doing good, forget about it and stride to improve. that is of course, if you actually want to do photography as a job/serious hobby.
    The moment you stop experimenting, or trying new things to improve upon what you already have done, you'll just stay stuck on a plateau.

    If you just want nice photographs, then it's easier. just learn to correctly expose, good composition and learning to edit photos in a nice way (aka not heavy handed) you'll be good.
     
  3. death_samurai

    death_samurai Ancient Guru

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    hi thanks for the advice and the posting and i must add that with pc software like adobe lightroom or photoshop for example it really changes the way pictures look. I mean they drastically improve pictures. It's good that some members on this forum admit they used photoshop for example to make their pictures look better vs ppl on other forums that won't ever admit them.
     
  4. Iggyblack

    Iggyblack Guest

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    Every good photo needs treatment, people seem to think that "editing" photos only started happening when digital stuff started becoming popular but it isn't the least bit true.
    Even back in the film days, there were many many ways of editing a photo or manipulating the film to get a result you wanted. sure photoshop has gone beyond that with some tools, but the fundamentals are there.

    In my opinion, it's completely retarded to not try to get the best out of your picture as you can.

    For example:

    http://petapixel.com/2013/09/12/marked-photographs-show-iconic-prints-edited-darkroom/

    [​IMG]
     

  5. sykozis

    sykozis Ancient Guru

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    I used to have a friend that did professional photography. His pictures were simply beautiful. In all our talks about his photos he never once tried to claim that they were unedited. Quite the contrary. If asked, he'd display the original next to the finished images. He photographed for National Geographic, several fashion magazines and "adult" publications as well as modeling agencies. The guy's pictures were amazing. His opinion of photography forums was the same as Iggy's.....lol.

    I disagree on Iggy's opinion that "every good photo needs treatment". It really depends on the photo. Some photos just look better unedited....
     
  6. dcx_badass

    dcx_badass Guest

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    I never edit mine, it's partly because I take so many, but mainly because I'm too lazy.

    The most I might do in very very rare circumstances is hit the "I'm feeling lucky" in google picasa if I like the pic but the colour is a little off.
     
  7. F1refly

    F1refly Ancient Guru

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    It's like art, either you like a picture or you don't. I don't see what anything matters whether you edit or not or admit to anything. Does a painter have to admit what kind of strokes he used? I dunno but whether you like the end result is all that matters.

    One of my favorite things to do with my pictures or game screenshots or even desktop wallpaper is use like oil painting or pencil sketch effects or other various effects cause I like how it makes it look sometimes, not that I"m into photography or anything but I fail to see why every picture someone shares has to be ***** perfect using expensive cameras and PC's or not. I see photography as a sort of art that can look unedited or like a Picasso or taken with an iPhone, however the photographer wanted it to look.
     
  8. bballfreak6

    bballfreak6 Ancient Guru

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    imho, the whole concept of "straight out of the camera" is silly, your supposedly SOOC images are still processed, except it's done by the camera itself, which really doesn't know what you want, just does what it think is "right" based on your settings

    i do believe in trying to get the best "data" you can out of your camera's raw image to edit, which still requires understanding of what good lighting is and exposing properly and the vision to create the shot you intended, edit or photoshop all you like, a crappy picture with bad composition and poor lighting is still a crappy picture no matter what

    anyway just for fun here is a "before and after" of a pic i took last year...top is straight out of camera, bottom is after running it through lightroom

    [​IMG]Before & After by basketballfreak6, on Flickr
     
  9. Iggyblack

    Iggyblack Guest

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    When I said editing, I didn't mean like spend an hour in photoshop editing something. even just a simple white balance fix or shadow/highlight fixing can improve a photo..

    But a painter wouldn't lie and say that he did with his thumbs or something. that's what the OP post is mainly about, people lying about editing a photo and saying they got it right from the start.

    Contributing with before/after pic as well.

    [​IMG]

    This is more when the X100 likes to create a funky raw file, but luckily it's totally saveable.

    [​IMG]
     
  10. eclap

    eclap Banned

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    One thing that really grind my gears is when people post badly exposed pics and gloat about them being unedited. Not editing a photo that is slightly off is just plain stupid.

    EVERY photo needs touching up if you're uploading it to the net even if it's only to sharpen it up after resizing it. And I will go as far as say that there is no photo out there that is perfectly exposed and framed. Every photo will benefit from a bit of cropping and editing. Some might need it more than others, but they all benefit.

    Perfect example bbalfreak's last photo, the original photo has a slightly slanted horizon, even if I was 100% happy with exposure, I would correct it like he did. Touching up the rest was optional, but the straight horizon was the first thing that photo needed.
     
    Last edited: Apr 22, 2014

  11. bballfreak6

    bballfreak6 Ancient Guru

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    good catch eclap ;) and i totally get what you're talking about those gloaters lol

    on the field often it is easy to miss small details such as that small slant i had on my posted photo, to give some perspective that amazing light and colour i had lasted for only a few minutes before it faded, and i was dealing with long exposure shots as well, so it was a race against time for me

    ironically the edited version gave a much more accurate representation of the light and colour i had at the time i took the shot, my singh ray reverse grad stacked with my nd filter gave a purple cast that i had to get rid of in post
     
  12. FULMTL

    FULMTL Ancient Guru

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    I think I take good pictures in the daytime right from the camera. Most of the time I have to crop becaue I am using a prime lens and might be standing too far away.
    At night, it's different because I always have to lighten up pictures. That's where shooting in RAW and Lightroom will get the most out of your hardwares limitations.
    I used to shoot in Jpeg for years, then one day I randomly switched to RAW and went out shooting at an event. Came back to look at the pictures and saw that they were more detailed than before.

    I come from an art/design/drawing background before I even had a camera, so editing/retouching pictures was normal for me. I know that many people are the opposite, and pick up a camera without the art/design history. I think some of those people tend to take longer to get good at taking pictures because they didn't have the eye to start with. Just get to know your hardware, and you can do some amazing things.
     
    Last edited: Apr 22, 2014
  13. death_samurai

    death_samurai Ancient Guru

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    Well the issue with film back in the days was that you needed a dark room to create the pictures and you know most ppl didn't have them so they needed to send them to a shop to create the pictures. The ppl at the shop would touch up the pictures and since most ppl don't stick around or aren't allowed to observe the shop creating their pictures they didn't know that the finished pictures were actually touched up by the shop ppl.
     
  14. Thug

    Thug Guest

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    I agree, well maybe not 'every' photo, but the majority do.
    I used to develop film (B&W and slides) in my attic that I converted into a dark room and I would zoom in to enlarge an area, I would dodge and burn and other bits of editing similar that I also do on the PC these days.
    Its not a dirty word, its a process that most photographers did/do to get the best out of an image.
     
  15. eclap

    eclap Banned

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    RAW all the way when shooting events, you can't afford to mess up and shooting RAW gives you great control over things, good man.

    Aye, people see wedding photographers charging a few grand for a few hours of shooting and think "this is great for a few hours of work" when in fact then the poor sod has to sit there and edit every pic manually. I will never shoot a wedding again, it's just not worth my time. I'd do it if someone offered to pay me a couple of grand, sure haha.
     
    Last edited: Apr 24, 2014

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