Digital photography

[TBH]

Is digital photography now becoming just a competition to see who can manipulate their photos best in photoshop or some other piece of software?

[North Light]

I think the answer to that has to be no, skilled photographers have always manipulated their photographs, the real art is that you can't see the manipulation.

[Mystical Potato Head]

Would have to say no also.You cant make a bad photo good,you can make it better thats all,Good images come from good subject matter and a good eye for what makes a good image,sure you can enhance your images in photoshop etc but you still need a good base to work from and thats down to you and your camera,not photoshop.

[wifie]

Me too! Dinna like over manipulation although I suppose sometimes it can be clever. I only use the simplest form of enhancing my pics ie what is available on my pc which isn't much. Being an extremely impatient person I do love how fast I can view my images with digital photography. I also like being able to crop them or bin them before printing them, if I wish, or just storing them. From the many "unenhanced" pics I receive from relatives I believe there are people out there who just dinna bother - horses for courses!

[TBH]

I think the answer to that has to be no, skilled photographers have always manipulated their photographs, the real art is that you can't see the manipulation.So the manipulated photograph isn't a true reflection on photography skills but rather the skill of manipulating the image to get a better result.

[Riffman]

Most digital cameras do less manipulation now than when we still shot in film....

A JPEG from a digital camera is a preprocessed picture that when printed looks the same.

When I shot film this is the choices you had to deal with:

Type of film (lets pick Black & White)
Speed of film, thus the grain and quality
Brand of film, affects the grain pattern

Then when you developed the film (not the prints) you could chose whether to push or pull it to get a different speed from it.

Then when you come to enlarging to prints you had to choose the paper, this came in about six grades, from sharp and grainy, to soft and dreamy.

You then had to make test prints with different combinations of projecter aperture and exposure length.

You then had to develope it to the correct time, being careful not to underdevelope it.

And thus in all the final pictures rarely were the exactly replication of the scene that most digital cameras provide.

Now that I shoot in digital , my DSLR provides me with the RAW data files which must be processed before you can see anything!

The other thing is that often what people think is Photoshopping is actually done when the picture is taken, for example using graduated filters.

[Deemac]

Let's face it, there will always be the die-hard traditionalists who advocate "pure" unprocessed photography as the only "true" artistic way. If this makes them happy then good for them.

Others are more than happy (myself included) to do whatever it takes to make the image as pleasing to the eye as is necessary using whatever techniques and tools as are necessary to complete the job. (In-camera, lens filters and/or computer based editing).

From experience I would say - who cares! At the end of the day you either like the image/photo or you don't. What does it matter what processes you used to get there.

I would say that my impression of the anti-processing brigade is that they have probably not got on with computer/digital technology generally, had a fleeting go with image editing software, and just not put in the required energy to learn the techniques and played with the tools available so have then developed an "anti" mindset to the whole process.

[Kevin Milkins]

I have always thought that if you require an unadulterated picture of a park.
Then go for a walk in the park.(Without a camera)

If you want a picture of a park, then choose the picture that pleases you most.;)