Interesting article..."Photoshop and Photography"

[tchudson]

Photoshop and Photography: When Is It Real? - Pogue's Posts Blog - NYTimes.com

From the New York Times.

[OsmosisStudios]

* You move the camera to get the best possible shot.

* You attach a lens that takes in a much wider or closer view than you would get with your eyes alone.

* You choose a shallow depth of field, providing that sharp-subject, blurry-background look of professional photos, which looks nothing like reality.

* You set up lights to illuminate a scene in a way that nature never intended.

* You bring in a professional crew to transform a model’s skin, clothing and hair.

* You witness a spectacular event, and then ask the people involved to go back and re-enact what just happened so you can have your camera ready.

* In the darkroom, you “burn” and “dodge” to make certain parts of the photo brighter or darker.

* You bring the photo into Photoshop to remove red-eye. (After all, the red-eye wouldn’t have existed if you hadn’t taken the photo to begin with.)

* You bring the photo into Photoshop to make the colors “pop” a little more.

Acceptable for a photo competition, such as the one held by PopPhoto.

* You bring the photo into Photoshop to shift one element slightly for better composition.

* You combine two or more photographs of the identical scene, taken at different exposures, strictly to produce a better range of lights and darks (what’s called “high dynamic range” photography).

* You combine two or more elements of different photos of the same scene, taken around the same time, simply to get them all in the frame at once (like the seagulls/lighthouse photo).

* You combine two or more elements of different photos that were taken at different times and places (like the motorcycle/tornado photo).

Not acceptable for a photo competition, such as the one held by PopPhoto. That being said, PopPhoto DID accept it as an entry and selected them as winners. In most competitions, however, this wouldn't be accepted or would be considered a new category (as PopPhoto will for next year)

* You use a 3-D modeling program to create a photorealistic scene that never existed anywhere but in your imagination.

Not photography: this falls into another category.

The Author has an interesting question that seems rather silly, to be honest. "The question here is, what should the rules be for a photo competition?". The rules should be what the rules are. If PopPhoto has no rules about it, then those are the rules. If they do, then those are the rules. It's really not that complicated.

In any case, this is a debate that's been going on for quit some time, and frankly I'm bored of it.

[delmiaco]

Originally Posted by [I

But meanwhile, we live in an age where Photoshop jobs are commonplace, reality TV shows dominate the airwaves, and news bites are taken out of context and manipulated. Maybe, these days, the question isn’t “What is a photograph?”; it’s “What is reality?”[/I].

Photography is a work of Art. Photoshop is a tool to enhance the artistic mind. If a photographer takes a great shot and continues to enhance it through the use of tools such as Photoshop, it is still reality.... it just becomes someone else's reality.