DawnElizabeth Moderator wrote:

What's crap to one person is art to another...... by the way, did I ever tell you that I am actually a highly photoshopped chiuhuaha? True story.

If you're a chiuahuah I would love to scratch you behind your ear.

WG Rowland wrote:
Photoshop is for LOSERS!

Yes I agree, (in a sarcastic tone)  just like prior to the days of everyone shooting digital when the darkroom was for loosers (another sarcastic tone)

It must be nice to be as great as you WG where all you need to do is click the shutter and an image magically appears in an album on the table in front of you.

You never fail to astound me,  just when I think it's safe to go look at a forum you go and make a complete asshole out of yourself yet again.

FKVPhotoGraphics wrote:

Damn! Art, what is it? It's shit!..LOL

Not long ago I went on some big name artist photographers site and part of his collection is photos of piles of dung with all these "comments" by so called "art critics."

When I just got my brand new out of the box Yashica Electro TL back in 19...you don't want to know.....very first thing I photographed were piles of dog crap. Only because I couldn't get anyone to pose for me and the dog crap was plentiful.

What a surprise! I was an artist ahead of my time!

OK you guys, quit ripping off the plot in Little Murders, it's unbecoming. (Oh yeah, I forgot the smiley face to let you all know I'm being funny) 

markEdwardPhoto wrote:
Look if you are making the skin look like plastic or taking out the every bit of shine out of the eyes it look like shit and should not be done. I don't care who does it. Its not art it is shit.

M

I just went to the OP's MM site where I discovered that she has a very normal, conventional esthetic. Nothing wrong with that at all. What I don't understand is why she is so angry about people using a tool to create a different esthetic. Wouldn't it be boring if we all went to the museum and the only art we ever saw displayed was high school year book pictures. Not even fun pictures, but the conventional ones you see all the time from the 1960's. Boring!

Koray wrote:
I was about to turn into green and angry but then decided not to...

I would like to see that. No, I would like to image you into that. There, that's better.

Darren Green wrote:

Yes I agree, (in a sarcastic tone)  just like prior to the days of everyone shooting digital when the darkroom was for loosers (another sarcastic tone)

It must be nice to be as great as you WG where all you need to do is click the shutter and an image magically appears in an album on the table in front of you.

You never fail to astound me,  just when I think it's safe to go look at a forum you go and make a complete asshole out of yourself yet again.

AMEN!!!!!!

Iona Lynn wrote:
http://home.sprynet.com/~mindweb/can.htm

and who says shit can't be labled as art????

LOL!

00siris wrote:
It depends ....

https://www.modelmayhem.com/pic.php?pid=88348

I like this one a lot

WHOA! i agree! That is an awesome pic!!!!

Dan Olek wrote:
Quoting Vincent Versace, "You can't polish a turd."  None of the tools in Photoshop will do any good if you start with a turd.

Yes you can. Photoshop is the great rescuer of under exposed , bad lighting , no composure  pics, that you can turn onto B/W "art" , drop in a collage, turn into line drawings etc.

I used to teach Photoshop, now I concentrate on taking a good photo.

The discussion is not about creating art with Photoshop. It is about removing every feature from a model's face so that there is NO character left.

markEdwardPhoto wrote:
If you are going to edit in Photoshop then do it so it doesn't 'look' like you used photoshop.

It's not just the ultrabright eyes and plastic skin.  How about PS-users who, say, use the clone too on parts of the image and end up with an obviously repeated part of the shot?  Or spottiness in the image instead of smooth blending?  Or the various other shudder-worthy things I've seen from novice 'Shoppers.

Maybe I'm ultra-anal about PSing images, and really good at spotting "photochops", because I'm a designer and, while self-taught, fairly good at working in PS... but then again, I do believe that there are some people out there who are simply not cut out for using the program.  This is an unfortunate thing when that person has a great eye for photography

Edited to Add (for clarification):  I'm not talking about making art here... just saying that some people need to check out some PS tutorials and really learn how to use the tools they plan on using in PS before publishing something that looks... ick.  I'd also like to add that some people simply don't have an eye for that kind of thing, and think an obviously cloned background looks good.

In all, it's a reflection on *their* work and *their* skills as a photographer/retoucher.  And really, while it's something many of us can complain/rant about, it's just irritating and not worth wasting *too* much time on--after all, THEY are the ones who end up looking bad.

Bah I could go on and on about this... recently worked with a photog who's retouched images were of NO use to me at all.  None.  I was so badly edited that not only did I look fake, but I didn't look like myself AND the edits were bad.  Ugh!  Frustrating to say the least.

Ok, I'm done... I swear!!

markEdwardPhoto wrote:
Then you used too much!!!

I see lots of images out there that have plastic skin and ultra bright eyes. If you are going to edit in Photoshop then do it so it doesn't 'look' like you used photoshop.

Again, don't put out crap just to put something out....

M

MORE IMPORTANTLY MARK... people should not plagiarize concepts and image creation. Your shot of the woman squatting nude with the rose behind her back is a direct knock off of an ad run by OPI Cosmetics in an international campaign just a few years ago. Tsk tsk tsk.

You should worry less about other people and Photoshop and work on your own ethical behavior.

Robert

markEdwardPhoto wrote:
Then you used too much!!!

I see lots of images out there that have plastic skin and ultra bright eyes. If you are going to edit in Photoshop then do it so it doesn't 'look' like you used photoshop.

Again, don't put out crap just to put something out....

M

Photoshop is a tool! just like your camera.  Art is one of the few areas that the end can justify the means.

markEdwardPhoto wrote:

Look if you are making the skin look like plastic or taking out the every bit of shine out of the eyes it look like shit and should not be done. I don't care who does it. Its not art it is shit.

M

...another man's trash is another man's treasure... Max V and Michael Rosen are amazing artists'. I love their work! Photography on every level IS art...as is the necessary evil of tweaking and engaging emphasis to one feature or another to increase the artistic value of one's "art piece" or to obtain the level of art they were going for... everyone in the biz is an artist of sorts. It doesn't make it wrong, it is just personal preference. Muah!

markEdwardPhoto wrote:
[ I don't care who does it. Its not art it is shit.

Have you looked at their ports? Michael Rosen and Max V are very much artist, just because you cant or wont accomplish it doesnt mean its shit. Do you feel the same about the film guys who sit there and burn and dodge there pieces then use the pencils to correct skin tones? Grow some balls and think outside of the box. Since when has the need for art to be confined and defined become so popular? Painters originally felt the same about photographers.... where did that get them years and years later?

Z_Photo wrote:
the evolving (like that word?) de facto standard seems to me to be different in varied genres of photography.  i see no issue with artistic photoshop work for many genres.  however, in nature photography "it just ain't right" to photoshop a penguin into the bristlecone pines.  yeah that is an exhaggeration because it would obviously be an attempt at a fantasy image, but the point is, for nature work, the accepted standard seems to be that one does nothing to alter nature by doing anything beyond some levels, contrast, and saturation, some burning and dodging- that type of work.  changing the content is not acceptable UNLESS the photo is accompanied by a statement that it was digitally altered.  at least that is my observation

Off the top, I can think of only four areas where literal truth in photography trumps creative vision, two of them rightfully technical, and two involved with ethical matters and possibly the nature of truth itself:

Technical Objective Observation: visual analyses for military and scientific purposes.

Ethical and Near Objective Interest: journalism and portraiture (more about that in a moment).

Fidelity to the reality excised from time by recording remains foremost in only those areas.  The journalism industry has taken the tack of separating photojournalism from art department commentary (photo-illustration), and there's not one ethical and honest editor on the planet who does not know the difference at generation between visual reportage and opinion.  Portrait artists, however, have always fallen into two categories that now may become two-and-one-half.    Avedon's not the only artist to seek and tell through portraiture some truth about his subjects; Cecil Beaton, Harry Benson, Sante D'Orazio (in his casuals of film and music industry celebrities), Timothy Greenfield-Sanders (no question there) and so many others seek and tell a kind of truth and one often less adorned than may suit their subjects. 

The other side in portraiture sets out to make people beautiful.  It's a job--and what a toolkit its practitioners have acquired.  Now there are two distinct parts to this form of portraiture: producing a decent exposure in the first place--the traditional photograph; interpreting the photograph cum illustration either conservatively or liberally.

The last quasi-artistic-journalistic portrait I looked at featured a dancer in rehearsal.  Derived from a color digital file, the photographer kicked out a high-contrast, grainy, Tri-Xy (pushed) black and white virtual print.  My comment, essentially, was that the "photograph" resembled the kind of work shot on 30-minute assignment and kicked out fast on paper through rollers (no fixer needed) in the 1970's.  It's one thing to optimize labor and production speed in a thirty-year-old news environment and quite another to deliberately imitate that look.  For better or worse, that's first fruit from the latest digital imaging environment (you can take perfectly good photographs and make them look perfectly struggling out of the soup from another era).

Dan Olek wrote:
Quoting Vincent Versace, "You can't polish a turd."  None of the tools in Photoshop will do any good if you start with a turd.

Unless of course you possess the skills to completely redraw the turd into a swan. Possibly a brown and uttlerly beautiful swan.

DigitalSwede wrote:
Do you feel the same about the film guys who sit there and burn and dodge there pieces then use the pencils to correct skin tones? Grow some balls and think outside of the box. Since when has the need for art to be confined and defined become so popular? Painters originally felt the same about photographers.... where did that get them years and years later?

Right On ! you said what was on my mind ! Photoshop is a just another tool that is use today by the Digital Photographer in the Digital Darkroom that we call computers.

Also Art is subjective and if you dont like what you see then dont look at it and move on !

MMDesign wrote:
I guess it's good that you're only required to have four photos, as opposed to a brain, to join this site.

*Laughs* That's universal...MM is not the only site that might have some questionable people...

QOL wrote:
I live my life with simple little thought..... wwaad

what would ansel adams do?

Near the end of his life, Ansel Adams was drying some of his prints in a microwave oven. He would have embraced any technology that would have helped him make better prints.

QOL wrote:
I live my life with simple little thought..... wwaad

what would ansel adams do?

My hero is Irving Penn. He is the father of the modern Platinum print. His work is so steeped in traditional methods he has become the source of them. He has an Epson 7600 printer. They (his studio manager) tell me he is so enamored with it he just watches the head pass over the paper in amazement. I assume this is what Adams would do as well. You see, they were industrious men and ahead of their time. They were innovators less prone to the drivel we indulge in.

Bob Randall Photography wrote:

My hero is Irving Penn. He is the father of the modern Platinum print. His work is so steeped in traditional methods he has become the source of them. He has an Epson 7600 printer. They (his studio manager) tell me he is so enamored with it he just watches the head pass over the paper in amazement. I assume this is what Adams would do as well. You see, they were industrious men and ahead of their time. They were innovators less prone to the drivel we indulge in.

Ah Penn,

I love Penn. I'm hoping to build a portable outdoor studio and try doing some north light work similar to some of the stuff Penn did. I hoping to do a series on children living with cancer...

Penn and Adams in they're own respects were both artists. I don't think artist's concern themselves with tools..only they're vision. photoshop, schmotoshop... I'll use it as I see fit till something else comes around that I'd rather use.

I get the idea of over use though and I think sometimes I go too far. it's from having been a typesetter in the early 90's and watching what happend to page layouts with the plethora of medocre type that came available to do macs.  However out of that came some truly unique and highly original designs and layouts... like it or not Wired magazine's original design was an outgrowth of too many bells and whistles... i happend to like it.

MMDesign wrote:

Near the end of his life, Ansel Adams was drying some of his prints in a microwave oven. He would have embraced any technology that would have helped him make better prints.

I remember reading that Adams had a hard time wrapping his head around colour images. He couldn't fine a way to finish his vision using colour. I think the key is to use whatever is at your disposal to help create your vision... or feed your kids... which ever comes first

QOL wrote:
Ah Penn,

I love Penn. I'm hoping to build a portable outdoor studio and try doing some north light work similar to some of the stuff Penn did. I hoping to do a series on children living with cancer...

Penn and Adams in they're own respects were both artists. I don't think artist's concern themselves with tools..only they're vision. photoshop, schmotoshop... I'll use it as I see fit till something else comes around that I'd rather use.

I get the idea of over use though and I think sometimes I go too far. it's from having been a typesetter in the early 90's and watching what happend to page layouts with the plethora of medocre type that came available to do macs.  However out of that came some truly unique and highly original designs and layouts... like it or not Wired magazine's original design was an outgrowth of too many bells and whistles... i happend to like it.

Christ! Another one, eh? I started out doing paste-up, setting headlines on a typositor and shooting halftones in a type shop. Boy, was I glad when computers came along.

MMDesign wrote:

Christ! Another one, eh? I started out doing paste-up, setting headlines on a typositor and shooting halftones in a type shop. Boy, was I glad when computers came along.

haa ha you should get a kick out of this...

By business cards are chrome-coat.. white stock black type only. Set in courier with type misaligned and on an angle with cut marks showing.. i asked the printer if he could ghost the type on press

QOL wrote:
I live my life with simple little thought..... wwaad

what would ansel adams do?

My saying is:

Ansel would burn... (and so do I)