[Doc Holliday]

Originally Posted by velomuse

Okay, so I was thinking about what I said and I sounded pretentious to say the least. Let me clarify what I meant....If you incorporate post production techniques into your photography, it doesn't mean you suck. I mean you might suck, but that is not for anyone else to decide. I, personally, don't like any post production work save cropping. If the image is well conceived and comes from your heart, then any of the perceived imperfections are meant to be there. You are using your mindseye and that can't ever be wrong. Here is an image I made today. I have been out to this site a half dozen times but while driving on the highway the other day, the composition for this shot arrived.

I used to believe that using PhotoShop meant you weren't being 'honest' [whatever that means] with your images and I questioned why people did it. This from a guy who has been using PhotoShop since version 2.5, (I used to own an ISP and did webpages, apparently, it was acceptable to me to do it to other's images).

Now, I believe that PS helps make images into what I saw or what my interpretation is of what I saw. Plus, I believe there are a lot of times that an image is crooked, when I don't get the light/dark areas in the foreground/background correct, et cetera. Photoshop fixes that. Photography, to me, isn't always representational. Sometimes it can be incredibly abstract.

I have a friend who is a professional and still uses fllm. He can almost do as much with his film images in the darkroom as can be done by someone skilled in PS can do. So, it is not like film photographers don't manipulate their images.