Altering images

[Seajay]

I would like to know members views on the manipulation of images. Do you feel it is OK to remove the background on an image leaving the main subject on a plain background or should the background be included.
Is it unethical to manipulate an image? Certainly when trying to identify a particular bird in a book it is much easier to have a plain background (no distractions), on the other hand a shot of a bird including it's habitat can be beautiful and interesting and from the 'study of wildlife' point of view of equal importance.
Perhaps I am being unfair but our WAB Gallery requires the shots of birds to be large and consequently we see line upon line of (unquestionably superbly taken) shots of images filling the frame. I look at my own on computer and see the same thing - about 20% are not of the subject filling the frame.
Some years ago some chap from Sweden, Scandinavia anyway, posted a contribution on a wildlife site and it consisted of a cluster of thumbnails of shots of a bird species and you clicked on one of the shots and it enlarged. The cluster showed a close-up, such as we mainly do in our Gallery, one in flight, one with the bird's environment and so on - about 5 in total. Does anyone know what I mean and how you do it?

[mh68]

Morning Seajay

I think image manipulation and how far to take it depends on what youre trying to portray - obviously accuracy is important when documenting a particular species for ID purposes, while if the intent is merely to create an attractive looking image which is closer to art then a degree of manipulation does no harm.
I think the most important thing is to state whether the image was heavily edited or not so as not to mislead people.
It`s been interesting to note in one camera mag that in interviews with some top photographers, many of them state that they try to get the images right in-camera and do very little editing afterwards, while the mag itself pushes image manipulation constantly as a matter of course. I am always more impressed with quality images which havent been excessively tweaked on the computer, as I believe it takes far more skill to get it right in-camera than to put an image right afterwards in an editing program. While using the likes of Photoshop effectively is a skill in itself, it seems to me that this skill is replacing the skill of getting the shot right in the first place,and its something I have mixed feelings about. With my own shots I try to maintain a balance - wildlife shots are tweaked only slightly (and if posting them online I try to note what has been done to them if relevant eg cropped)whereas other images which are intended to be more "arty" are manipulated more (but again I try to state what has been done to them when posting).

Mark H

[ron1863]

Originally Posted by mh68

Morning Seajay


It`s been interesting to note in one camera mag that in interviews with some top photographers, many of them state that they try to get the images right in-camera and do very little editing afterwards, while the mag itself pushes image manipulation constantly as a matter of course.
Mark H

I don't as yet subscribe to any camera magazine, mainly because the majority of the one's I've browsed seemed obsessed with image manipulation and not the actual techniques involved in taking shots.

[mh68]

Yes, thats exactly what I mean Ron, and its ironic that many of the notable photographers they interview are the total opposite and concentrate more on actual photography than image post-processing.

Mark H

[zan]

I agree pretty much entirely with mark... It doesn't matter to me what people do with their photos to improve them to their liking. As long as the photographer is honest about the changes made when asked I don't see the problem. It's easy enough to check a RAW file in a competition or whatever to check it anyway. The exceptions are natural history photography and journalism I guess, where you are capturing the scene exactly as it was and it is unethical to alter it at all.

For my own stuff, I personally prefer to get the image as perfect as I can in the camera because I'm new to photography and want to learn it well. Photoshop is an important skill to have, but I get really bored sitting in front of my comp with loads of photos to sort and usually only tweak the best ones anyway.

Just my 2p!

Zan

[matt_xyz]

I agree with the above comments. I have no problem with manipulating an image for artistic purposes, but it's not something I tend to do. But for wildlife images I think it's important that the image is as accurate as possible and that's the stance of the WAB Gallery.

To an extent I suppose it comes down to how we define manipulation. I have no problem with levels adjustments, shadows/highlights, noise reduction, sharpening (in moderation), saturation etc and regularly make these kind of changes to my images. Beyond this the most I will ever do is a bit of cloning to remove a stray branch or similar, but I avoid this if it would substantially change the 'accuracy' of the image. I'm uncomfortable with the idea of completely replacing backgrounds, but that's just me.

Photography mags do seem slightly obsessed with manipulation, but there are so many on the market now that they wouldn't manage to fill them if they didn't devote large sections to Photoshop techniques. I still read, and enjoy, these magazines but, without wishing to sound arrogant, I do increasingly feel like I know as much as some of the staff writers (and more sometimes). A few months ago one magazine contained an article in which the editor (no less) took himself off to Wicken Fen (I think) to demonstrate macro photography. The quality of the images he produced were very mediocre. Not terrible, but far from top quality. Personally, I would prefer to see a greater input from high quality professionals rather than the 'jack of all trades master of none' staff writers.

Matt

[Seajay]

Good morning to you all
Many, most interesting comments have been made but so I can join in effectively how do you get a post from someones reply and stick it in your reply so you can refer to a specific sentence or paragraph? You know where the words someone wrote come in a slightly coloured box.
Also I tried to put a Smile in but it's come in as. I also have problems uploading images, if I put them in the forum images when I need to put them in my thread I can't find them and when I go back then the thread's gone. Not particularly 'au fait' with computers as you see. I know it's drifting off the subject but to me it's important in order to respond effectively.

[Seajay]

Is OK the Smile problem is solved! It's beaming away!

[mh68]

Originally Posted by Seajay

Good morning to you all
Many, most interesting comments have been made but so I can join in effectively how do you get a post from someones reply and stick it in your reply so you can refer to a specific sentence or paragraph? You know where the words someone wrote come in a slightly coloured box.
Also I tried to put a Smile in but it's come in as. I also have problems uploading images, if I put them in the forum images when I need to put them in my thread I can't find them and when I go back then the thread's gone. Not particularly 'au fait' with computers as you see. I know it's drifting off the subject but to me it's important in order to respond effectively.

Just click the "quote" button next to the particular post you want to respond to, instead of "reply" to quote that post

To find images youve uploaded onto the forum images Gallery, you need to click on "image archive", then click "my photos" to find shots you`ve uploaded.

Mark H

[Seajay]

Thanks Mark, you make it sound so simple