bang bang photo wrote:
I guess what you are actually talking about is less the concept of using Photoshop as your darkroom, and more about the idea of "saving" pictures with it. You and I probably agree 100% on that. I have colleagues who think it's perfectly OK to save a picture where somebody blinked by cloning in another set of eyes. I HATE that shit!

That being said, I have to admit I do similar things -- I'll take people out of the background of a wedding shot, remove dirt from a wall. So who am I to point fingers? It's a question of taste I guess -- how much retouching is too much? And THAT question is as old as photography itself!

exactly .... if photoshop is your darkroom , then it is your darkroom .... use it and use it well ....

it goes past editing when the final doesnt look like the origional ...   more hair , longer legs ... digital plastic surgery  ....   different sky ... more trees ... smaller pond ... cloned fish ... 16 photos merged to make 1 final ....

great work , looks beautiful , i want to hang it on my wall .... heres $150 ... but dont tell me its a photograph ....

Yerkes Photography wrote:
no .... ansel

"Ansel" eh? What, were you guys drinking buddies on a first-name basis? Coool....  I wish I'd met him, he sounded like quite a guy.

Yerkes Photography wrote:
he didnt rely on auto ... levels , clone brush , unsharp mask , 10pt. brush , and so on ...   and im sure he never used the undo button

He used the "undo" button constantly, as do most darkroom workers. It's called the wastebasket and it's the most important piece of equipment you can have in a traditional darkroom. Edward Weston didn't own an enlarger, but he owned a wastebasket. Even Weston used "undo"

Unsharp masking? The term "unsharp mask" comes from a darkroom technique. Have you ever read any of Howard Bond's articles on how to do unsharp masking with registered out-of-focus film prints? I'm just askin', is all...

"Levels"?  You mean those things that let you adjust the contrast clipping points in your print? Before the advent of variable contrast paper, photographers used graded papers to get the "levels" in their scenes. And then you have flashing and other local contrast adjustments - by the way, Ansel Adams (and his student John Sexton) were great proponents of flashing to adjust the "levels" in their hard-to-print negatives.

By "10pt brush" are you referring to the paintbrush that master darkroom workers like Adams and Eddie Ephraums use for selective bleaching with ferricyanide? Because, you are right, it was a very popular technique back in the day. In fact, my own humble darkroom pants are covered with white spots from ferricyanide - unlike the 10 pt brush in photoshop it bleaches denim, too.

Adams also used a lightbox that let him vary the local light intensity on even his contact prints. The reason that Photoshop has tools called "dodge" and "burn" is because they are named after the wet darkroom technique.

Yerkes Photography wrote:
he didnt need to shoot in RAW , so that he could fix it later ...

You're right. He shot sheet film and developed it in a tray by observation, so that he could short-cut the development time and control the image's contrast. He used different developers to "fix" his negatives later. Actually, he used fixer to fix his negatives, but you know what I mean, I hope.

Yerkes Photography wrote:
and when he worked in a dark room , he knew what he was doing .... he didnt have Mr. Adobe doing it for him ....

Considering how poorly you appear to understand the mappings between traditional darkroom methods and current digital methods, and how poorly you appear to understand the history of fine art darkroom processes, I'm guessing you know very little about either wet process photography or digital photography.

Having Adobe adjust your contrast with a software algorithm is different from having Ilford adjust your contrast with VC paper exactly how?
Having Adobe queue your job to a printer with a mouse-click is different from hitting the switch on your enlarger's exposure timer exactly how?
Having Adobe "transform" your image's keystoning with a boundary box is different from adjusting it by stacking pennies under your enlarger easel exactly how?

You appear to be disrespectful of the johnny-come-latelies of the digital world but you appear to have no sense of the massive alterations that real darkroom workers perform when they are printing. Maybe all you've ever done is straight prints - which means that either you are the god of photographers and shoot nothing but perfect negatives, or your prints look amateurish.

You're not making a convincing presentation that your darkroom skills are so vast and mighty that you're remotely in a position to talk down about anyone.

mjr.

David Birdsong wrote:
Photoshop is to most of us what the darkroom was to Ansel Adams..
If you were to give his negative to most people the print would look like a snapshot, but in the hands of the master, art was created...

Many of Ansels negatives were exposure tests with even the well known Moonrise over Hernandez a grab shot. I agree most would make a mess of the prints from them these days. What I see as B/W prints are overly printed in order to achieve a black in them. Pure rubbish for the most part. Darkroom skills take years to achieve to be competent to print your own negs never mind printing someone elses. Photoshop is the same and will require time in order to reach a degree of skill. There are true masters out there but they are few and far between. The program is massive that no one will ever master it all. Pick a portion and work to become at least good at it. I suk at PS so I try to get what I need in camera. "Try" being the word.

Marcus J. Ranum wrote:
Photographs of a model show what the model can potentially look like - not what the model actually looks like. After all, models aren't 2-dimensional and 6 inches high and 1 inch wide like they look on your monitor, are they?
mjr.

How true. 

I've still got a lot to learn myself.  And I'll admit that occasionally I see that I did what seems to me (and others who view it) as a very good -- if not excellent -- composition of a shot "straight from the camera," but I blew something on the exposure or someone intruded into the frame just as I depressed the shutter release button.  I like those shots well enough that I don't want to throw them away.  So, yes, I have used and will continue to use Photoshop sometimes to try to rescue those shots.  And often as I'm working on those shots in Photoshop, I'm thinking about the shot more and actually figuring out what I need to do differently with the camera (or lighting) next time. 

But I digress...

Marcus' comment made me remember something else.  I've seen different photographers shoot the same model.  Sometimes the model is attractive and sometimes not (sometimes even "ugh-ly" in reality).  And I've seen one of those photographers -- "straight from the camera" -- make that model look great, regardless of what she appeared to be "in real life" and the other photographer make the model look bad, again regardless of what she looked like "in real life." 

Photoshop is just another potential step in processing an image.  You can create surrealistic looking photos "straight out of the camera" by little tricks like double-exposure and/or the extreme manipulation of light.  You can make "impossibilities" using an Omega condenser and a lot of skill.  Or you can do the same thing with Photoshop. 

And I wonder how many ads you see in Esquire, Vanity Fair, FHM, Maxim, or elsewhere that are totally unretouched.  Airbrushing?  What's that? 

-- rick

Marcus J. Ranum wrote:

Yerkes Photography wrote:
no .... ansel

"Ansel" eh? What, were you guys drinking buddies on a first-name basis? Coool....  I wish I'd met him, he sounded like quite a guy.

Yerkes Photography wrote:
he didnt rely on auto ... levels , clone brush , unsharp mask , 10pt. brush , and so on ...   and im sure he never used the undo button

He used the "undo" button constantly, as do most darkroom workers. It's called the wastebasket and it's the most important piece of equipment you can have in a traditional darkroom. Edward Weston didn't own an enlarger, but he owned a wastebasket. Even Weston used "undo"

Unsharp masking? The term "unsharp mask" comes from a darkroom technique. Have you ever read any of Howard Bond's articles on how to do unsharp masking with registered out-of-focus film prints? I'm just askin', is all...

"Levels"?  You mean those things that let you adjust the contrast clipping points in your print? Before the advent of variable contrast paper, photographers used graded papers to get the "levels" in their scenes. And then you have flashing and other local contrast adjustments - by the way, Ansel Adams (and his student John Sexton) were great proponents of flashing to adjust the "levels" in their hard-to-print negatives.

By "10pt brush" are you referring to the paintbrush that master darkroom workers like Adams and Eddie Ephraums use for selective bleaching with ferricyanide? Because, you are right, it was a very popular technique back in the day. In fact, my own humble darkroom pants are covered with white spots from ferricyanide - unlike the 10 pt brush in photoshop it bleaches denim, too.

Adams also used a lightbox that let him vary the local light intensity on even his contact prints. The reason that Photoshop has tools called "dodge" and "burn" is because they are named after the wet darkroom technique.

Yerkes Photography wrote:
he didnt need to shoot in RAW , so that he could fix it later ...

You're right. He shot sheet film and developed it in a tray by observation, so that he could short-cut the development time and control the image's contrast. He used different developers to "fix" his negatives later. Actually, he used fixer to fix his negatives, but you know what I mean, I hope.


Considering how poorly you appear to understand the mappings between traditional darkroom methods and current digital methods, and how poorly you appear to understand the history of fine art darkroom processes, I'm guessing you know very little about either wet process photography or digital photography.

Having Adobe adjust your contrast with a software algorithm is different from having Ilford adjust your contrast with VC paper exactly how?
Having Adobe queue your job to a printer with a mouse-click is different from hitting the switch on your enlarger's exposure timer exactly how?
Having Adobe "transform" your image's keystoning with a boundary box is different from adjusting it by stacking pennies under your enlarger easel exactly how?

You appear to be disrespectful of the johnny-come-latelies of the digital world but you appear to have no sense of the massive alterations that real darkroom workers perform when they are printing. Maybe all you've ever done is straight prints - which means that either you are the god of photographers and shoot nothing but perfect negatives, or your prints look amateurish.

You're not making a convincing presentation that your darkroom skills are so vast and mighty that you're remotely in a position to talk down about anyone.

mjr.

you totally rock

John Allan wrote:
I think one of the problems with talking about Photoshop is that it is now being used as a Verb, this image was photoshopped. Which usually means that the image went from being a photograph to an art piece (or somewhere in the grey middle). The verb is often used in the pejorative, to denote a 'fake' feel to the image.
I don't think there are many photographers that don't use the software (Photoshop Noun), for judicious post.

John

i like your point, i'm going to xerox it, thanks

Xenia wrote:
Anyone brave enough in here to showcase us good photoshopping skills, back to back with the original 'raw' image? That should put the haters' argument to rest.

At the risk of looking like a d*mn fool and exposing (no pun intended) my lack of skill in both photography and Photoshop, here's a link to a couple of my Photoshop corrections.

I admit it was bad photography in both cases.  In the first shot, there was an extreme difference in the exposure needed for the background versus the subjects and I could not get close enough to use a flash.  (The photo was shot with a 210 lens from some distance away, through a crowd.)  I'm not yet a good enough photographer to know what I should have done "in camera" to deal with that.  The second was just a lack of thinking on my part.  I had been shooting different shutter speeds at f5.6 to try to get certain water effects.  I didn't alter the exposure before taking the shot.  I liked it well enough for the pose and composition that I didn't want to lose it.  Also, someone else was partially in the frame and I couldn't move to recompose because of the throng of photographers around me.  So I "photoshopped her out."  (Oy!  I used "photoshop" as a verb!  That's terrible!  English, like photography, isn't supposed to evolve!) 



Okay...have a look and then rip -- or Photoshop -- me a new one...

-- rick

Maynard Southern wrote:
Photoshop AND photography are fer untalented slackers. I create all my images on the walls of my cave with the soot from a burning branch. I am HARDCORE, bitches!

hahaha...one free drink for Maynard

So Shoot Me! wrote:

At the risk of looking like a d*mn fool and exposing (no pun intended) my lack of skill in both photography and Photoshop, here's a link to a couple of my Photoshop corrections.

I admit it was bad photography in both cases.  In the first shot, there was an extreme difference in the exposure needed for the background versus the subjects and I could not get close enough to use a flash.  (The photo was shot with a 210 lens from some distance away, through a crowd.)  I'm not yet a good enough photographer to know what I should have done "in camera" to deal with that.  The second was just a lack of thinking on my part.  I had been shooting different shutter speeds at f5.6 to try to get certain water effects.  I didn't alter the exposure before taking the shot.  I liked it well enough for the pose and composition that I didn't want to lose it.  Also, someone else was partially in the frame and I couldn't move to recompose because of the throng of photographers around me.  So I "photoshopped her out."  (Oy!  I used "photoshop" as a verb!  That's terrible!  English, like photography, isn't supposed to evolve!) 



Okay...have a look and then rip me a new one...

-- rick

these are not bad by far ... i would not call these bad edits ... and theyre still photographs...

Yerkes Photography wrote:
these are not bad by far ... i would not call these bad edits ... and theyre still photographs...

Thank you.  From what I know, the people involved were happy with the result.  Oddly enough, I wasn't totally pleased about it.  I see a couple of things that still need fixing.  (But lately I'm working hours each day with Photoshop and learning new things, it seems, hourly. 

I'm hoping to learn enough to be able to do some serious photo-restoration of old antique images.

-- rick

Christopher Bush wrote:
the criticism comes in when people OVERuse photoshop.  i mean, come on...is some tasteful restraint too much to ask?

I'd say rather 'poorly use' than 'overuse', but others don't see the distinction.

bang bang photo wrote:
So virtually all of Ansel Adams work is the result of VERY complex manipulation in the darkroom. By your definition, he is not a photographer, right?

Yerkes Photography wrote:
no .... ansel knew how to use a camera , film , and processing to create a photograph ....
he didnt rely on auto ... levels , clone brush , unsharp mask , 10pt. brush , and so on ...   and im sure he never used the undo button

Right. He knew composition, lighting, and chemistry.

He never used an undo button; instead, he'd discard dozens or more test prints. How is that functionally different--other than taking longer and costing more money?

Have you worked with color negatives, and had a lab process/print them? If so, you relied on "auto ... levels", as well as auto color correction.

Yerkes Photography wrote:
he didnt need to shoot in RAW , so that he could fix it later ...
and when he worked in a dark room , he knew what he was doing .... he didnt have Mr. Adobe doing it for him ....

If you believe "Mr. Adobe" does the work, it's understandable how your statement might make sense. Of course, it's based on the same premise as believing "Mr Nikon' does the work, or 'Mr Velvia' does the work, or any other tool is "doing it for him".

Mircalla wrote:
A funny story. A good friend of mine went to school in PA, and got his masters in art. He was a phenominal painter, as well as photographer and his portfolio was outstanding. BUT-when it came time to get himself work, he was turned down left and right for his lack of knowledge in computer graphic design. Go figure!

In this day and age, computers are used for almost everything. Using something like photoshop allows you to enhance a photograph, create something more artistic than it already is, and give new definition to the term itself. I don't see anything wrong with photo enhancement-I LOVE it! It's especially nice for an amateur photographer who can't afford all of the expensive filters and other equipment that some of the more professionals do.

Photography IS an art form. It seems that more and more people these days look at a regular photograph and consider it a mere snapshot until it's been touched up and worked with.

you are 100% correct ... you do need to know how to use a computer ... and how to design with it ... but, because you do , it doesnt make you a photographer ....

example ... if you want to work at a library , you need to know how to look things up on the computer .... but just because i know how do look things up on the computer , i'm not a librarian ....

Yerkes Photography wrote:
exactly .... if photoshop is your darkroom , then it is your darkroom .... use it and use it well ....

it goes past editing when the final doesnt look like the origional ...   more hair , longer legs ... digital plastic surgery  ....   different sky ... more trees ... smaller pond ... cloned fish ... 16 photos merged to make 1 final ....

great work , looks beautiful , i want to hang it on my wall .... heres $150 ... but dont tell me its a photograph ....

Jerry Uelsmann.

That's ignoring the myriad other factors where the final doesn't look anything like the scene, from time exposures (streams looking like milky clouds), black and white images, etc.

Yerkes Photography wrote:
example ... if you want to work at a library , you need to know how to look things up on the computer .... but just because i know how do look things up on the computer , i'm not a librarian ....

Oh I agree with you, don't get me wrong. What I am talking about is someone actually using their photographic skills and then using photoshop to maybe touch them up a bit, give them some new life. Perhaps even allow the viewer to use their imagination a bit.  I totally appreciate the art of photograph, but I also appreciate the art of alteration.

Kevin Connery wrote:

Jerry Uelsmann.

That's ignoring the myriad other factors where the final doesn't look anything like the scene, from time exposures (streams looking like milky clouds), black and white images, etc.

not referring to the scene... refering to the origional image taken with the camera ...
i can move a rock before i take the pic , or throw away the beer can before the shot .... but to move the rock , add 6 more beer cans , and replace the sky with one i shot two weeks ago at a different location ...is not photography , its digital manipulation ....

Marcus J. Ranum wrote:

Yerkes Photography wrote:
no .... ansel

"Ansel" eh? What, were you guys drinking buddies on a first-name basis? Coool....  I wish I'd met him, he sounded like quite a guy.

Yerkes Photography wrote:
he didnt rely on auto ... levels , clone brush , unsharp mask , 10pt. brush , and so on ...   and im sure he never used the undo button

He used the "undo" button constantly, as do most darkroom workers. It's called the wastebasket and it's the most important piece of equipment you can have in a traditional darkroom. Edward Weston didn't own an enlarger, but he owned a wastebasket. Even Weston used "undo"

Unsharp masking? The term "unsharp mask" comes from a darkroom technique. Have you ever read any of Howard Bond's articles on how to do unsharp masking with registered out-of-focus film prints? I'm just askin', is all...

"Levels"?  You mean those things that let you adjust the contrast clipping points in your print? Before the advent of variable contrast paper, photographers used graded papers to get the "levels" in their scenes. And then you have flashing and other local contrast adjustments - by the way, Ansel Adams (and his student John Sexton) were great proponents of flashing to adjust the "levels" in their hard-to-print negatives.

By "10pt brush" are you referring to the paintbrush that master darkroom workers like Adams and Eddie Ephraums use for selective bleaching with ferricyanide? Because, you are right, it was a very popular technique back in the day. In fact, my own humble darkroom pants are covered with white spots from ferricyanide - unlike the 10 pt brush in photoshop it bleaches denim, too.

Adams also used a lightbox that let him vary the local light intensity on even his contact prints. The reason that Photoshop has tools called "dodge" and "burn" is because they are named after the wet darkroom technique.

Yerkes Photography wrote:
he didnt need to shoot in RAW , so that he could fix it later ...

You're right. He shot sheet film and developed it in a tray by observation, so that he could short-cut the development time and control the image's contrast. He used different developers to "fix" his negatives later. Actually, he used fixer to fix his negatives, but you know what I mean, I hope.


Considering how poorly you appear to understand the mappings between traditional darkroom methods and current digital methods, and how poorly you appear to understand the history of fine art darkroom processes, I'm guessing you know very little about either wet process photography or digital photography.

Having Adobe adjust your contrast with a software algorithm is different from having Ilford adjust your contrast with VC paper exactly how?
Having Adobe queue your job to a printer with a mouse-click is different from hitting the switch on your enlarger's exposure timer exactly how?
Having Adobe "transform" your image's keystoning with a boundary box is different from adjusting it by stacking pennies under your enlarger easel exactly how?

You appear to be disrespectful of the johnny-come-latelies of the digital world but you appear to have no sense of the massive alterations that real darkroom workers perform when they are printing. Maybe all you've ever done is straight prints - which means that either you are the god of photographers and shoot nothing but perfect negatives, or your prints look amateurish.

You're not making a convincing presentation that your darkroom skills are so vast and mighty that you're remotely in a position to talk down about anyone.

mjr.

Thank you...
The best explanation/defense of PS I have ever seen.
Thank you again...

Patrick Lebeda wrote:
Sometimes I get comments from models that they heard from other photographers that I "overwork" my pictures. I class this as jealousy. Either you use a programme or you don't. But don't bother anyone else with jealousy thoughts. It's pathetic and childisch.

Actually, the options include, but are not limited to: not using it, using it poorly, and using it well. (For whatever definition of 'well' fits your standards and the requirements of your audience.)

Rather than simply dismiss those comments as jealousy, have you considered that others may be seeing visible effects of the work that you don't? (I haven't seen your portfolio--this is merely a general question.)

The same question would apply to the following

MegaHertz Studios wrote:
No, No, no ... well maybe a little. Someone said one of my faces was too smooth.  Oh well, I got over it.

Was the face intended or expected to look 'real' in the context of the image-as-a-whole? If so, was the smoothing making it look inappropriately unreal? Does the area of the image that's been smoothed match the underlying texture of the image (noise/grain)? Does the smoothed face look mismatched to the rest of the skin showing?

William J Palank wrote:
If as a digital photographer you are shooting in RAW (and I surely hope you are), then you have to process your image in Photoshop, much like developing  film. Then you can go onto burning the edges in your digital darkroom rather than using the messy and toxic chemicals that masters such as Ansel Adams and Ed Weston used. End of story.

The term "burning the edges" means the photographer allows more enlarger light to fall on the edge of a print while masking the remainder.  In other words, he gives the edges of a photograph a longer exposure.  Burning is done with light, not "messy and toxic chemicals."

Yerkes Photography wrote:
here is an extreme edit ...



the first image is the origional photograph ... great on its own ....
the second , is a photoshoped work of art ....

again , not that this is not art , or a bad image ... or any of the other things im being accused of saying ....

i actually really like this guys work ... he's a friend of mine ... and we will be working together soon ...

I think they both suck - but that's just my opinion and you know what those are like....

The concept that a good photograph is made by someone knowing how to use a camera is ludicrous.  Any idiot can learn how to properly expose a piece of film or a digital sensor in a day.  Ok if you're shooting on location in challenging setting it will take longer, but not much, much longer.  That is all operating a camera is.  A method by which you can properly, precisely and consistently expose the transfer medium.  That's it.

What goes into making a great photograph, as opposed to just taking a picture, occurs before and after the shutter is clicked.  How you dress a set, who you cast, what colors pallet you chose to use, what lens, how you light it, how you cast shadows, how you correct for flaws, how you develop the negative (or positive or raw data).  Some of these things have to be done prior to shooting the image, some have to be done after.  Some things that have traditionally been done prior to clicking the shutter can now be done after.  The order does not matter.  The image matters. 

Watch a feature film on DVD that has unused scenes on it that have not been through post...  If you saw what a show like CSI or Law & Order or Battlestar Galactica look like prior to post you would gag.  Are the DPs and cinematographers on those shows lacking in talent or skill?  No.  They are just aware that when shooting digitally it makes far more sense to shoot "flat" and make most of your adjustments in post to compensate for medium being used.  Of course they still do all the things that they would have done to "get it right in camera" first, but how they expose the tape, and in fact how they light the scene, has changed as post-processing techniques have advanced.  They don't shoot blindly hoping they can fix it in post.  They shoot a very specific way because they want to achieve a very specific base image because they already know what they are going to do to that footage in post.

Shooting digital stills is no different.  Now, that may not be how YOU want to work, fine.  But the thought that I "Don't know how to work a camera" because I'm trying to achieve a look that goes beyond a flat snapshot of a pic, is not true.  You may not like my images, and I'm cool with that.  A very good friend and colleague of mine whose company I enjoy regularly doesn't like my images.  But they are intentional, they are well planned and they look, for the most part, exactly as I want them to.

Kevin Connery wrote:
Jerry Uelsmann.

That's ignoring the myriad other factors where the final doesn't look anything like the scene, from time exposures (streams looking like milky clouds), black and white images, etc.

Yerkes Photography wrote:
not referring to the scene... refering to the origional image taken with the camera ...
i can move a rock before i take the pic , or throw away the beer can before the shot .... but to move the rock , add 6 more beer cans , and replace the sky with one i shot two weeks ago at a different location ...is not photography , its digital manipulation ....

Are you familiar with Jerry Uellsmann's work? It was all done in the darkroom. (He might be using digital now; I don't know.)

Nevertheless, how is burning down a background so that it goes from zone 5 to zone 0 or 1 different than removing it--other than having been done earlier?

MegaHertz Studios wrote:
Photography is finally growing up.

MegaHertz Studios wrote:
Photography has evolved beyound its adolescense of being a purely documentary art form.

But, as MJR and Melvin noted earlier, that doesn't seem to have changed anyones' mind.

Kevin Connery wrote:

Actually, the options include, but are not limited to: not using it, using it poorly, and using it well. (For whatever definition of 'well' fits your standards and the requirements of your audience.)

Rather than simply dismiss those comments as jealousy, have you considered that others may be seeing visible effects of the work that you don't? (I haven't seen your portfolio--this is merely a general question.)

On some level you are right, but when I hear that so often, I don't consider it as somethin' they see wrong, but pure jealousy. But... they use it also and when I WOULD say somethin', wow... hell is loose :-)

Btw, use it, miss use it, but be happy :-)

P...

gsvb wrote:
Photoshop is fake.

Hmm... maybe you change your opinion when you have that big shoot and your face isn't what it should be that moment.

Just my 2 cents :-)

P...

MegaHertz Studios wrote:
Certainly alot of diverse opinions here.  I think photography has evolved and I think what we are now talking about cannot even be defined as photography.

This is not good or bad.

People take pictures and print them, use them for screens savers, make powerpoint slide shows, burn DVDs, etc etc. 
Many people professionals never print their images. So is it still photography?

No!  Of course not!  Everyone knows you have to print your images or you're not a real photographer.  After all, photography comes from the ancient Greek words for "writing" and "light," doesn't it?  You can't make a digital image by writing with...oh, wait...

It is fun, though, to see the diversity of opinion here and observe the occasional pontificatory conflation of opinion with "truth." 

-- rick

bang bang photo wrote:
So virtually all of Ansel Adams work is the result of VERY complex manipulation in the darkroom. By your definition, he is not a photographer, right?

This is completely untrue, Adams Created as perfect as possible a negative to work with. Much of his early work was shown as contact prints.

Adams didn't just take a bunch of shots and fix the best one in the darkroom, he knew when he clicked the shutter what he would need to do as far as development and on some level dodging/burning to get the image he had in his head.

MegaHertz Studios wrote:
Certainly alot of diverse opinions here. I think photography has evolved and I think what we are now talking about cannot even be defined as photography.

This is not good or bad.

People take pictures and print them, use them for screens savers, make powerpoint slide shows, burn DVDs, etc etc. 
Many people professionals never print their images. So is it still photography?

Any photograph no matter how manipulated is still a photograph (unless painted or drawn over). As long as we are still fixing a scene using light and putting it into a tangible medium, regardless of film, digital, wet darkroom, or digital darkroom, it is still photography.
I don’t see what logical point you are trying to make.

---

Where do you get this stuff? I mean, I’m sure there are some people who photograph strictly for the internet and whatnot but come on! I have never met or heard of a photographer that refuses to print images.