Axlf wrote:
Ahh yes but only if it going to be PUBLISHED. If you have to give someone else your FUCK UP that you should not have done in the first place. Then are you really a photographer NO WAY NO HOW!!!!! and this for the people out there who have no skill what so ever and tell everyone i am a pro photographer and there are allot of them here ohh yes there are.................

You've had a lot of your images destroyed when they were published?

RRCPhoto wrote:
Funny how it's the one that are "pro non-PS" doing the majority of the insulting in this thread.

Yes, and without, obviously, reading all of the previous posts.

Ched wrote:
I don't think twice about using Photoshop to get the contrast level I want. Just as a traditional photographer wouldn't really consider not timing their prints properly. I remove stray hairs on the cheek with the same ease another photographer would reduce red-eye. If a shaddow is too harsh when I'm lighting a shot on the set, I add diffusion. Photoshop is just another toolbox.

I just say "no" to bad retouch jobs.

Yup, some of them turn a model into a mannequin.

Axlf wrote:
then train him and he will and graphic designers use this not a photographer. However if it is all you then Kudos aint easy to do two different jobs. But for the ones who don't well then you have no skill and do not even say otherwise. Digital dose not mean be lazy way too many people depend on the digital world to save them use your mind and create some art not shoot random shit and let someone else fix it for you. What did you learn from it ?

unfortunately you have an inexperienced idea of what graphic designers do.  Graphic Designers are not digital imaging people...in fact the root of their trade skill comes from layout, conceptual thinking, visual problem solving and interesting use of typography.  They aren't these pixel wizards that people make them out to be.  Most graphic designers I know absolutely suck at using photoshop but they have a clear idea of what they want in their advertisement.

What I learned is, he captured some very, very, good images that he chose later like picking your best sketches from a sketchbook and he then turned them into amazing pieces of art.  And that is a taught type of skill in any art school.  To rough out your ideas and then finalize the best one.  I graduated with a degree in fine art from a school in england before moving back to the states.  Even with photography I still sketch out ideas for a set, and where I will pose the model, to get a variety of ideas clear in my head, an accurate vision, before I even attempt to work with a model.  I'll scout locations, take test shots there, etc.  Many people don't even do that...they arrive and compose on spot...very reaction to the moment like...which is fine, I don't say I haven't done it...I definitely do.

The point is, you're attempting to discredit people because you've labeled a unique definition of the term "artist" that is simply put, too black and white, to be applicable.  It's fine for you to say that you are that type of artist, and by the readings of your post, a very spirited one at that.  However, it doesn't earn you the right to negate the process of so many other artists who have really supplied beautiful images to the world.  I don't believe your double exposure in your port is done with film and it looks very much like it was done with Photoshop or some like program.  However, I don't care about "how" as much as, what do I like about it?

That's what makes art so great, it's subjective, interpretive, etc...the question you have to ask yourself is...are you an open to nature, the world, and movements in unique and different styles or are you the type of artist who will choose to trap himself in a thinking that could eventually cause you solitude.  A favorite place for many artists! 

You're port shows some great ability to handle a camera but there's nothing there either that screams some revolutionary purism that commands worshop.  I think you're shots are very, very, good.  I would even say, that if I saw them on sale at a small gallery/coffee bar showing, I'd probably buy one or two.  But not because of who you are, or how you shot them, they are just good images that aesthetically please me.  You know what I mean?

And please know, I don't judge the use of pidgeon, my family live in Hawaií and I'm very influenced by the culture and history.

Patrick Alt wrote:
Well, apparently everyone here is in the Photoshop fan club and has little room for anyone who chooses to think otherwise. The incredibly insulting and patronizing tone against those of us who choose not to use this program hardly bears any response. There are many of us who know Photoshop, are aware if its infinite possibilities, but choose to create images in a more traditional manner. There is also the reality that those who work in a traditional manner have usually mastered the craft of the fine art print to such a degree that no further corrections are required. It is possible to do this, I do it every time I work as do most of my colleagues. For us to sit in front of a computer to "fix" what should have been done with a more careful command of craft is ridiculous. Garbage in, garbage out.

If your definition of photography is the making of images to sell a product, then Photoshop is surely justified and is indeed necessary. But great images have been and will continue to be made with traditional methods without any pixels involved. I find it amusing how, for many years, the photo industry has continued to keep coming out with new products and convincing its client base that if they don't get the newest and latest of this and that, you cannot take good images. And you guys just eat it up. It happened with the last several generations of 35mm cameras and is happening at a much faster rate with digital. Have only 4.1 megapickles, well that is now obsulete. Now you need the new 6.0 megapickles with super extrapolating thingamabobs. It's an endless shell game with the manufacturers, like the house, always winning. Also notice that this is a testoseterone thing. Guys with gadgets. They feed off of this. Notice that there are virtually no women responding to this thread. Guys being guys. You got balls, they got new equipment for you. Hooray.

Lastly, the argument that Photoshop is just a tool. Wrong. Photoshop is a technology. It has been the history of art that each new technology means the further death of craft. I plan to keep my 19th century commitment to craft as long as I live. And I will still put my prints up against anything done with Photoshop. I may be a dinosaur, but at least I'm a T. Rex. :-).

Arent T-Rex's dead?  I would rather be a live frog then a dead dinosaur lmao.

Kevin Connery wrote:
You've had a lot of your images destroyed when they were published?

You weren't speaking to me, but I can sympathize. They change the color, they change the cropping, and it's painful to open a magazine and see your images butchered like that. At least it's a tear sheet though. Most people know tear sheets are what the magazine wanted to print, and what is shown is usually a rough approximation of the artist's intentions.

Mark Heaps wrote:

and at least your willing to...guaranteed you'll go through the same phases as everyone...it's a learning curve...but enjoy the "fun-ness" of it all.

Thank you so much for that reply. (very kind) I will keep that same open mind and hope the title of post is not viewed as an attack, as much as it really is a way of accepting some technology advances to do the same things we did in the dark room. I will always own film cameras in adidtion to digital but do enjoy scanning negs from the past; bringing them into PS.

Axlf wrote:
Yea cause we don't need it nor do we rely on it for our work ie skill versus computer. And yes most people do not know the differance but in the end we know who is the true artist and it aint the people who have no skill behind the camera.

Have fun sticking to film...of course probably within another 5 or so years, there won't be any chemical soup left in the world to develop it.

Really, you don't even look or read any posts that are done on the other aspects of it.  A RAW digital image is a negative.  Manipulation of that negative in the digital world, is via computer software.  Manipulation of that negative in the film era..is in the darkroom.

It's the same bloody thing. So get off your soapbox and try to learn something - because you're going to need to learn sooner or later.

Axlf wrote:
Now that is what i am talking about GOOD FORM............................. A true artist can create from his heart and soul and not depend on nothing else but his skill. And that is how it should be. How the F**K are you going to learn anything if all you are going to do is say well i don't like the way this came out. Ohh graphic designer please make me look like god..........

No camera, just skill? No pencil, paintbrush, or pastel?

What I consider good form is to use the tools available to create what is needed. Sometimes, that's a camera and film; sometimes a camera with a digital sensor; sometimes it's one of the previous plus some post-production; and sometimes it's a pencil and some paper.


You seem to believe that Photoshop should be excluded from the list of acceptable tools. That's fine--for you. Other people believe that cameras can't be used to create art, too, and that's fine--for them.  And still others believe that the art comes from the artist, and not the tool.

RRCPhoto wrote:
In the digital world, since apparently you don't understand this concept nor the english language - there is no such thing as a double exposure.  So the only way to effect that look is via digital layering of the two images, exactly what occurs on film So thus, you did nothing but prove our point.

Verging on off-topic, you can do in-camera double- or multiple-exposures, with a small selection of digital cameras. Nikon's D2x and D80 can do so.

The rest of your points (elided) are entirely correct, and even this is correct for most digital cameras.

Mark Heaps wrote:

unfortunately you have an inexperienced idea of what graphic designers do.  Graphic Designers are not digital imaging people...in fact the root of their trade skill comes from layout, conceptual thinking, visual problem solving and interesting use of typography.  They aren't these pixel wizards that people make them out to be.  Most graphic designers I know absolutely suck at using photoshop but they have a clear idea of what they want in their advertisement.

What I learned is, he captured some very, very, good images that he chose later like picking your best sketches from a sketchbook and he then turned them into amazing pieces of art.  And that is a taught type of skill in any art school.  To rough out your ideas and then finalize the best one.  I graduated with a degree in fine art from a school in england before moving back to the states.  Even with photography I still sketch out ideas for a set, and where I will pose the model, to get a variety of ideas clear in my head, an accurate vision, before I even attempt to work with a model.  I'll scout locations, take test shots there, etc.  Many people don't even do that...they arrive and compose on spot...very reaction to the moment like...which is fine, I don't say I haven't done it...I definitely do.

The point is, you're attempting to discredit people because you've labeled a unique definition of the term "artist" that is simply put, too black and white, to be applicable.  It's fine for you to say that you are that type of artist, and by the readings of your post, a very spirited one at that.  However, it doesn't earn you the right to negate the process of so many other artists who have really supplied beautiful images to the world.  I don't believe your double exposure in your port is done with film and it looks very much like it was done with Photoshop or some like program.  However, I don't care about "how" as much as, what do I like about it?

That's what makes art so great, it's subjective, interpretive, etc...the question you have to ask yourself is...are you an open to nature, the world, and movements in unique and different styles or are you the type of artist who will choose to trap himself in a thinking that could eventually cause you solitude.  A favorite place for many artists! 

You're port shows some great ability to handle a camera but there's nothing there either that screams some revolutionary purism that commands worshop.  I think you're shots are very, very, good.  I would even say, that if I saw them on sale at a small gallery/coffee bar showing, I'd probably buy one or two.  But not because of who you are, or how you shot them, they are just good images that aesthetically please me.  You know what I mean?

And please know, I don't judge the use of pidgeon, my family live in Hawaií and I'm very influenced by the culture and history.

Thanks and yea i have had some interesting things happen to my work when i let a so called graphic designer ( try to make them look better ). I allways to me thought that graphicdesigners were gods at photoshop as i have seen some damn good work from some of them even on this site. and i do have the 120 neg of that shot for the record. And i am nowhere as good as some of the photographers on here udor, Fluffytek, Daryal Briggs to name a few now they are damn good, photoshop is a tech tool and allot of people misuse it to gain what they do not have skillwise behind the camera wich is all good but do not lie and say i am a photographer if you are going to go this rout it is an insult to photographers and not to all but allot will take it as such. That's all i am saying on that.

Dr Molly Black wrote:
And it does seem that the anti-digital crowd are more offensive for some reason...

They're frightened by the possibility of thier extinction. Just be nice to them.

Kevin Connery wrote:

Verging on off-topic, you can do in-camera double- or multiple-exposures, with a small selection of digital cameras. Nikon's D2x and D80 can do so.

The rest of your points (elided) are entirely correct, and even this is correct for most digital cameras.

Yeah? cool   Mine can't..damn canon However my avatar was the real image. no PS.

Patrick Alt wrote:
Well, apparently everyone here is in the Photoshop fan club and has little room for anyone who chooses to think otherwise. The incredibly insulting and patronizing tone against those of us who choose not to use this program hardly bears any response. There are many of us who know Photoshop, are aware if its infinite possibilities, but choose to create images in a more traditional manner. There is also the reality that those who work in a traditional manner have usually mastered the craft of the fine art print to such a degree that no further corrections are required. It is possible to do this, I do it every time I work as do most of my colleagues. For us to sit in front of a computer to "fix" what should have been done with a more careful command of craft is ridiculous. Garbage in, garbage out.

If your definition of photography is the making of images to sell a product, then Photoshop is surely justified and is indeed necessary. But great images have been and will continue to be made with traditional methods without any pixels involved. I find it amusing how, for many years, the photo industry has continued to keep coming out with new products and convincing its client base that if they don't get the newest and latest of this and that, you cannot take good images. And you guys just eat it up. It happened with the last several generations of 35mm cameras and is happening at a much faster rate with digital. Have only 4.1 megapickles, well that is now obsulete. Now you need the new 6.0 megapickles with super extrapolating thingamabobs. It's an endless shell game with the manufacturers, like the house, always winning. Also notice that this is a testoseterone thing. Guys with gadgets. They feed off of this. Notice that there are virtually no women responding to this thread. Guys being guys. You got balls, they got new equipment for you. Hooray.

Lastly, the argument that Photoshop is just a tool. Wrong. Photoshop is a technology. It has been the history of art that each new technology means the further death of craft. I plan to keep my 19th century commitment to craft as long as I live. And I will still put my prints up against anything done with Photoshop. I may be a dinosaur, but at least I'm a T. Rex. :-).

Ok, I gotta respond to a few points here...

First paragraph...no one that I've read so far bagged on anyone who does things in a traditional way, you must not have read much of the thread.  I personally have a friend on here, Steven Gelberg, who is an amazing traditional photographer who prints all his own work.  It is his craft and I proudly display much of his work in my home.  Mastering a craft takes time and effort and if you have truly mastered it than bravo, you can finally spend the rest of your days doing what you want instead of learning how to do what you want.  We should all be so lucky, but questioning the challenge of working your craft hasn't occurred.

Second paragraph...I'm pretty sure in some way or point, you've used technology and not killed  a previous craft.  You've wound film, used a plastic bag to protect your plates, and I'm sure you're not using lead plates to print from and require chemicals etc...but do you take guilt in killing and reducing the population of portrait painters?  I hope, that many images are continued without the use of pixels, but I'm sure that there will also be an overwhelming acknowledgement that many great images are made with pixels.  There are definitely guys with gadget syndrome, that's no lie.  And I'm happy to read you're so in touch with your feminite side that you can post a testosterone injected response, blanketed with a cloud of sarcasm hidden behind the labelling of masculine flaws to be on that side of hte fence.  But you're equally not innocent.  I sit behind a computer for hours, and I've spent the last 16 years, mastering that craft and I'm good at it.  My clients, my friends, my customers, and many previous galleries have said so.  And before the computer, and during the computer, I spent tireless hours in darkrooms and printing houses learning that craft.  I find this side more intuitive to my process of thinking and my patience level, but that doesn't make me wrong or bad.

And PHotoshop absolutely is a TOOL, and it's created using technology...but if that's your position than you should stop using your camera because it's equally a tool of technology.  You should never buy paint but should make it yuorself, master that craft, learn to paint without a man made brush and instead use more natural resources available to you.  To imply such a black and white position against photoshop is absolutely a position against yourself.

Now the guys with penis complex and must have the latest and greatest are the ones that don't understand the definition of "craft".  They believe the new technology and tools will make them better...and in some cases, it does.  But I don't blame the camera, the software, the darkroom, the paper or the chemicals, for their lack of persistence in learning their "craft".

Axlf wrote:
then train him and he will and graphic designers use this not a photographer. However if it is all you then Kudos aint easy to do two different jobs. But for the ones who don't well then you have no skill and do not even say otherwise. Digital dose not mean be lazy way too many people depend on the digital world to save them use your mind and create some art not shoot random shit and let someone else fix it for you. What did you learn from it ?

Is that why the product is called Graphicdesignershop?

As for the rest of the post, I couldn't translate it into a language I understood. Sorry.

A tool that you do not understand is not automatically not a tool, or a 'tool of the devil'. Did you feel that photographers who could use a camera were lazy before you knew how to operate yours, and the only way you could create something was by drawing it?

Yes, post-production work can be horrible--and so can in-camera work. Do the examples of horrible work invalidate all the results? You've said so; can you justify any of your claims?

WillSpringfield wrote:
when i was shooting film i did not need to photoshop most of my images if i had a great model and a great team to put everything together but digital imaging is so different from fil. the colors most time dont even compare to film or chrome... so digital photography NEEDS a digital darkroom = PHOTOSHOP!!!

Well put.

Jay Bowman wrote:

Are you being facetious here?  Because I would like to say that it's refreshing to hear that there's someone else who isn't some acolyte in his flock.  While I'll admit he's talented at what he does, his style doesn't even remotely influence what I do.  Honestly, when I first heard his name here I thought "Isn't that the I'm-Rick-James-bitch guy?" but that's neither here nor there...






Now, Bruce Weber on the other hand...

Yes. That was an honest assessment. And I like Bruce Webber a lot, though on my list of favorites, he's on the "B team" (the A team consists of about, oh, 5-7 people).

Patrick Alt wrote:
Well, apparently everyone here is in the Photoshop fan club and has little room for anyone who chooses to think otherwise. The incredibly insulting and patronizing tone against those of us who choose not to use this program hardly bears any response.

The incredibly insulting and patronizing tone against those of use who choose to use this program hardly bears any response as well.

Patrick Alt wrote:
There are many of us who know Photoshop, are aware if its infinite possibilities, but choose to create images in a more traditional manner. There is also the reality that those who work in a traditional manner have usually mastered the craft of the fine art print to such a degree that no further corrections are required. It is possible to do this, I do it every time I work as do most of my colleagues. For us to sit in front of a computer to "fix" what should have been done with a more careful command of craft is ridiculous. Garbage in, garbage out.

True. GIGO has been a staple term in computers since long before the personal computer was invented, much less Photoshop.

On the other hand, to imply that only those who don't use post-production understand or have mastered their craft is disingenuous--akin to the "incredibly insulting and patronizing tone" you complained about yourself, just with a different target.

Patrick Alt wrote:
If your definition of photography is the making of images to sell a product, then Photoshop is surely justified and is indeed necessary. But great images have been and will continue to be made with traditional methods without any pixels involved.

Strawman argument. You're the first one here to even imply otherwise.  Certainly nobody has said what you're rebutting.

Patrick Alt wrote:
Lastly, the argument that Photoshop is just a tool. Wrong. Photoshop is a technology. It has been the history of art that each new technology means the further death of craft. I plan to keep my 19th century commitment to craft as long as I live. And I will still put my prints up against anything done with Photoshop. I may be a dinosaur, but at least I'm a T. Rex. :-).

Sorry, false premiss, and a false conclusion.

Did the invention of acrylic paint lead to "the further death of craft"?

Did the invention of pre-coated glass plates--plates that didn't have to be coated within a few minutes of the exposure--lead to "the further death of craft"?

Did the invention of roll film lead to "the further death of craft"?

Etc.

Your prints are not in question; you're the only one who has indicated otherwise.

Kevin Connery wrote:

Is that why the product is called Graphicdesignershop?

As for the rest of the post, I couldn't translate it into a language I understood. Sorry.

A tool that you do not understand is not automatically not a tool, or a 'tool of the devil'. Did you feel that photographers who could use a camera were lazy before you knew how to operate yours, and the only way you could create something was by drawing it?

Yes, post-production work can be horrible--and so can in-camera work. Do the examples of horrible work invalidate all the results? You've said so; can you justify any of your claims?

Wow sorry Mr know it all. You have learned everything there is to know on both fields. Let me bow down to you.. ( worshiping the master ). Justify what that you will learn nothing if you are going to have a mistake fixed befor looking it over so you don't do it again. Gee wiz gramps how is it that you do not understand this........ And no i did not i learned on my own how to shoot no school i just liked to shoot. And people still do draw duh and as far as i can tell it's a tech tool made by man not the devil aint we being silly today.

Karl jerome wrote:
Photoshop is a great asset but also a lazy asset. The craft of photography is changing with everyone including make-up artist and stylist. People get lazy and take less of a focused eye on what they are doing. Although photoshop can help you so much, photographers have to spent days retouching the work the others on the team should have fixed the time of the shoot.
This maybe one of the reasons!!!!!!!
K

It's also a time-saving, profit-making asset. I shoot a lot of food and beverage. One recent shot would have required about 5-6 hours setting up lights, cutting cards, etc.. I set up the shot but exposed the elements as separate exposures with hand held cards and quite simply put them together afterward. What would have taken 7 or 8 total hours, took 5 from start to finish. The job was bid so every hour I saved was profit.

Marko Cecic-Karuzic wrote:
Yes. That was an honest assessment. And I like Bruce Webber a lot, though on my list of favorites, he's on the "B team" (the A team consists of about, oh, 5-7 people).

Just guessing..
Paolo Roversi
Richard Avedon
Sarah Moon perhaps
Albert Watson... no, probably not
Patrick Demarchelier
Steven Meisel
Maybe David Bailey
or Peter Lindburgh

Axlf wrote:
Yea cause we don't need it nor do we rely on it for our work ie skill versus computer. And yes most people do not know the differance but in the end we know who is the true artist and it aint the people who have no skill behind the camera.

Only people who cannot comprehend Photoshop or computers can be a "true artist"?

Picasso might disagree. Leonardo would laugh (if the comment were translated for him). And Steven Klein, Patrick Demarchelier,
Steven Meisel, Inez van Lamsweerde, Nick Knight, Mario Testino, Douglas Dubler III, and others might also.

That there are great artists--photographers--who don't use Photoshop has not been argued. You, however, keep making the opposite claim: that people who use Photoshop cannot be "true artists", in spite of evidence to the contrary.

Ched wrote:

You weren't speaking to me, but I can sympathize. They change the colr, they change the cropping, and it's painful to open a magazine and see your images butchered like that. At least it's a tear sheet though. Most people know tear sheets are what the magazine wanted to print, an what is shown is usually a rough approximation of the artist's intentions.

Cropping, however, has been the norm for decades. I'd routinely submit images and have them butchered back in the 1970's--long before Photoshop. Colo, was even more problematic then--newspaper color in those days wasn't very good at it's best.

Those are both different than what Axlf indicated:

Alxf wrote:
Ahh yes but only if it going to be PUBLISHED. If you have to give someone else your FUCK UP that you should not have done in the first place.

Kevin Connery wrote:
Is that why the product is called Graphicdesignershop?

As for the rest of the post, I couldn't translate it into a language I understood. Sorry.

A tool that you do not understand is not automatically not a tool, or a 'tool of the devil'. Did you feel that photographers who could use a camera were lazy before you knew how to operate yours, and the only way you could create something was by drawing it?

Yes, post-production work can be horrible--and so can in-camera work. Do the examples of horrible work invalidate all the results? You've said so; can you justify any of your claims?

Axlf wrote:
Wow sorry Mr know it all. You have learned everything there is to know on both fields. Let me bow down to you.. ( worshiping the master ).

Nice attack. What do you base it on? Nothing I said would justify such a claim.

Axlf wrote:
JJustify what that you will learn nothing if you are going to have a mistake fixed befor looking it over so you don't do it again. Gee wiz gramps how is it that you do not understand this.

Agreed. What has that got to do with your argument? It's been that way for as long as photography has existed, and is one reason so many wedding and portrait photographers had difficulty transitioning to digital: their labs weren't "saving" their misexposed, off-color images.

You have been the only one here to make the claim that photographers who use Photoshop inherently don't know how to "get it right in camera". Have you considered the people who have been shooting for 20-30-40+ years might possibly have learned how to use their cameras by now, and are merely adding Photoshop to their toolbox?

Axlf wrote:
....... And no i did not i learned on my own how to shoot no school i just liked to shoot. And people still do draw duh and as far as i can tell it's a tech tool made by man not the devil aint we being silly today.

"Ain't you being silly today?"

I must be off; I've got some saints I need to photograph in an hour.

MMDesign wrote:
Just guessing..
Paolo Roversi
Richard Avedon
Sarah Moon perhaps
Albert Watson... no, probably not
Patrick Demarchelier
Steven Meisel
Maybe David Bailey
or Peter Lindburgh

Hey! Not bad for a blind guess at all!

Off the top of my head (and I'll only include those roughly in the fashion field, won't bother to talk documentary photogragraphers, or filmmakers or painters, etc):

Mario Testino
Juergen Teller
Paolo Roversi
Helmut Newton
Deborah Turbeville
Peter Lindbergh
Terry Richardson
Mario Sorrenti
Horst Diekgerdes (maybe)

Meisel, Bailey, Avedon and perhaps Sarah Moon make the B list, as well as about 20 others. I like Watson, in much the same way I like Penn. Neither has much impact on the way I work or see things. Demarchelier has done some beautiful stuff in the past (if a bit "classicist" for my taste), but I'm not wild about him, he's pretty boring and I think he's been bored out of his mind for over a decade.

RPSphotos wrote:
Good Photographers perfer NOT to use photoshop for2 main reasons.. 1) the photograph that they take is not classified as a photograph after it has been altered in photoshop, therefore making it an image of the actual photo. 2) if the photographer new his basics !! he or she would use professional make-up artists and proper lighting to correct or hide any flaws that would make the picture imperfect. "A photograph is just that not and computerized altered image of one's photo.

So photographers whose practice is not aligned with your two points would, therefore, not be "good' photographers?  That's what you're saying, right?  I just want to make sure.  It seems inescapable to me given that you said "Good Photographers perfer NOT to use photoshop for2 main reasons.."

commart wrote:
Keep it simple, folks.  Where digital anything becomes involved, about the only thing truly "photographic"--light recording--left in the process is the exposure.  What happens next (yes, I'm going to trot it out again . . .):

Type I Photography: Emphasis on the fidelity of the recording and the emulation (because that's what it is) of traditional, straight photography virtues.  Paul Strand's realism and Cartier-Bresson's surrealism, filtered from the world as he chose to encounter it, fit the Type I model as does the work of most photography amateurs and enthusiasts Before Adobe.

Type II Photography: Emphasis on the creative vision of the photographer post-facto and responding directly to the extensive expansion of  convenient post-processing capabilities (i.e., lol, After Adobe).  May Ray would either be having a blast with this stuff (probably) or despairing (less likely, he was such a wonderful cavalier) of his own originality where the tools for being so, some coming from his own experiments, have generously been made available to practically all.

good post, most insightful an duseful.

I've nudged the legacy of common darkroom practices, from dodge and burn, toning, cosmetic retouching, even cross-processing into the Type I category, and then, while looking within that, acknowledge some grades, from the military-NASA requirement for authenticated and unreconstructed observation data and journalism's traditional emphasis on crop, dodge, and burn for similar reasons to consumer services reliant on making pictures prettier than they may have been when taken.

Type II, from what editors call photo-illustration to more obvious forms of "digital art" starts with the decision to add a distinct conceptual level of change to the base recording.

The perceived threat from Type II activities is that they will steal energy from the experience and meaning of the making of the primary exposure (and vice versa, Type I purists may be seen as anachronistic and suffocating misfits, lol).  My preference is to run with both.  Lately, I've been producing three classes of edit from RAW and slide scan files: 1) a straight color correction and adjustment to taste followed by noise reduction and sharpening; 2) a corrective retouching (and sorry, Bob, for ye olde language, if thy left flower stalk offend thee, clone it out!)   ; and 3) an anything goes dip into the PS-CS2 enabled world of photo-illustration.

While I don't see merit in claiming that an image has not been "Photoshopped"--that's just nonsense--I do understand an artist's emphasis on and preference for subject as encountered or created before the lens.  Until just about now, which is why we're having this conversation, the story of "how I got that picture" has been more likely to lead up to the "shutter release" (another anachronism) than start with the making of duplicate copy of an image file and then move on to recounting the tale of the making of subsequent layers of conceptually reconstructing alterations.

Patrick Alt wrote:
Well, apparently everyone here is in the Photoshop fan club and has little room for anyone who chooses to think otherwise. The incredibly insulting and patronizing tone against those of us who choose not to use this program hardly bears any response. There are many of us who know Photoshop, are aware if its infinite possibilities, but choose to create images in a more traditional manner.

Well, that's pretty much evident upon viewing someone's work. It'd be obvious to me. Who I'm referring to (which I see a lot of) are awful photos and the photog posts in big bold letters "NO PHOTOSHOP", as if it makes their work so much more appealing. Lol...

ravens laughter wrote:
I have seen a few images on here that have pimples and red areas and scratches... and the photographer proudly announces "No Photoshop!"

Why is this worn as a badge of honor?

Is it that so many people think that if you use photoshop that you don't know how to shoot? And that if you post pictures with obvious flaws that could be simply corrected that that in and of itself means that you're a better photographer than those who use photoshop to correct those small flaws (or like me actually insert flaws)?

I don't speak for anyone else, but when you see things like scratches, red marks, scars, stretch marks, body hair or any other "flaws", they are there by design.  In fact I seek out subject who have "imperfections" -- you can find some of the reasoning in my profile. 

I do use photoshop however, but pretty much as a darkroom subsititue:  Dodge and burn, contrast, and removing dust spots [from my constantly dirty scanner].  That's about it.

I'm just one of those guys who likes to "get it in the camera" -- I have nothing against people who use Photoshop extensively, it's just not necessary for what I do.

RPSphotos wrote:
Good Photographers perfer NOT to use photoshop for2 main reasons.. 1) the photograph that they take is not classified as a photograph after it has been altered in photoshop, therefore making it an image of the actual photo. 2) if the photographer new his basics !! he or she would use professional make-up artists and proper lighting to correct or hide any flaws that would make the picture imperfect. "A photograph is just that not and computerized altered image of one's photo.

In that case, does manipulation in development, enlarging in the darkroom, whether minor or extreme, make it not a photograph? Retouching with dyes, inks, and pencils directly on the emulsion of the negative, not to mention the airbrush, has been part and parcel of photography for at least 80 years. Longer.

I, personally prefer to make it look as if I never touched the image, I intensely abhor the porcelain doll look, but Photoshop has allowed me to do myself what one used to have to farm out to a professional retoucher.

Patrick Alt wrote:
Lastly, the argument that Photoshop is just a tool. Wrong. Photoshop is a technology. It has been the history of art that each new technology means the further death of craft. I plan to keep my 19th century commitment to craft as long as I live. And I will still put my prints up against anything done with Photoshop. I may be a dinosaur, but at least I'm a T. Rex. :-).

First off, lovely portfolio, beautiful work.

Now then, this last paragraph is completely lacking in logic. Photoshop is an electronic tool, just as a camera, enlarger, etc. are manual ones. Your second sentence would indicate that you have made the wrong choice if you want to fight against the death of craft...I suggest finding a cave and get busy painting. I respect your commitment to your choice of time period of technological advancement to produce your work. I just can't grasp why you can't offer the same to us that work with more recent technologies. I guarantee you would not be able to sit down and do what I do with PS. I have spent a s#$tload of time working with and learning PS, and I spend hours and hours editing one of my more complex images. It isn't the death of craft, it is the invention of a new method of craft, just like has gone about since man first put his finger in a bit of soot and made that first drawing.

Anyway, this is a pointless argument...I just had to have my say when I saw you insinuating there is no craft to the proficient use of the PS tool.