in photography is it considered un genuin and un ethical to use photoshop?

Question

for example i when a photographer takes a pic of the sun and edits it with photoshop and improves it to look better then displays it in a gallery is that ok coz i think it lost its artistic side what do u think?

Answer 1

If you do it to a contest entry you should be shot.

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

Everything about photography is a creative process, from equipment selection (camera, lens, filters, film, etc.) to subject choice, to shot composition and exposure. Every decision ultimately effects the outcome of the photos. Why should the creative process stop once the shutter snaps closed? Why should it be ok to use a warming filter on your lens when you make the shot, but not ok to apply Photoshop's Warming Filters to a photo after the fact? Or using a slow shutter speed to blur water versus using Photoshop's blur tool to achieve the same effect?

If you are going to radically alter an image, or make a composite from two completely different images, then you should probably disclose that to your audience. But I do not think there is anything unethical or disingenuous about using photoshop.

Answer 4

I just think its two compleatly different sides of the artform. I work both, i do alot of in camera work and leave it straight at that, but i also do alot of photoshopping and the like for more "artistic" photos. It all depends on what your going for. Some things cant be done on camera, and some cant be done on photoshop. At the same though, dont lie about the way you did something. I always make it a point though that if im working with someone new to photography i start with a wet process before digital to get them familar with all aspects. Then, i make sure that they can produce good work on camera before they start photohopping, etc. to make sure they understand how to actually shoot. If you cant take a good pic to start with and fully rely on photoshop, etc. to make something worth looking at, your not a photographer in my opinion, your nothing but a graffic designer which is a compleatly different thing. You should only photoshop something thats already a good picture to make a statement, not to cover your ineptness.

Answer 5

Ansel Adams perhaps the greatest spokesperson on the side of straight photography was quoted as saying ,"Not everybody trusts paintings, but people believe photographs."
That being said there is certainly truth to what is said, people do in fact have a tendency to equate photography to truth. If we didnt believe in this statement the whole field of photo journalism wouldnt exist. However, it is sort of a hypocritical statement considering how much Adams manipulated his images in the darkroom. Ansels whole concept of the zone system(previsualization of an image) reflects more of the artist vision and imagination rather than the truth of the situation, just consider all the variations of the photo "moonrise over hernandez"..will anyone ever truly know what that moment looked like other than ansel himself? Although people equate photography to truth, the way a camera views the world and captures it on film is quite unlike how we view the world and record it into our memories, though in some respects quite similar. Nonetheless we see photography as truth, and Photoshop and other means of darkroom manipulation as sort of this nemesis to the truth of the moment. Fact is this, a photographer will only allow you to see the truth that he or she wants you to see, the image is manipulated by the sheer fact that a human is taking the photo, because as they always say that every photograph has 2 people in it, the viewer and the photographer.(consider this photo/video http://www.twf.org/News/Y2003/0411-Statue.html as everyone recalls in the video there is a swarm of people gathering around to topple the statue of saddam, but this was only the partial truth, had the photographers and videographers stepped back you would see that that swarm of thousands of people wasnt but a small group. This is a good example of a photographer allowing you to see what he wanted you to see rather than the truth of the moment.)
Knowing what I know, that even the most pure photographs are manipulated in some respects, that even our memories dont always remember what actually happened which is why we put so must trust in photography, I have no objections to Photoshop. I enjoy photographers like Jerry Uelsmann who uses all kinds of photo manipulations for the fact that he brings to the forefront that a photo isnt always about the truth of the moment, but is also about the photographers vision in that brief 1/60 of a second as the shutter opens and closes.　

Answer 6

we have no choice but to use photoshop nowadays,as far as ethics go you need to apply the same ethics as used with conventional chemical/mechanical dark room techniques...this wasn't an easy choice then and isn't now....here are some basic guidelines:.
If the photo is being used or shipped as fine or commercial art the sky is the limit
manipulate away...
portraiture:if commissioned portraiture ,you owe it to your subject to ship the best picture possible without overdoing the retouching until the photo becomes a "painting".
photojournalism and editorial: its okay to use retouching to save a picture i.e. eliminate dusters,noise,save an over or under exposed photo,some basic color correction(not color enhancement),cropping okay if used judiciously,eliminating distracting elements i.e. powerlines in a skyline shot,is borderline
ethically ,use good judgement.Some of the most important images in our history have been "saved" by darkroom techniques.Examples include film "pushing" RFK assasination
picture.Cyanide printing W.Eugene Smith's "minimata series" and conventional ink retouching Robert Capa's D-DAY photos.
What is clearly unacceptable and unethical is using photocomposition (combining two pictures to make another)to alter the content and meaning of an editorial shot.A great recent example of this serious ethics breach is the "faked " photo of Senator John Kerry at an anti-Vietnam rally with Jane Fonda
in the background that circulated as an "actual" picture and severely damaged the Kerry campaign in the last election.there are no hard and fast rules now,there never has been.Its basically an honor system.The advent of digital imaging with its seamless,undetectable retouching has complicated the ethics of photography immensely.Sometimes a question is its own answer.Good question.

Answer 7

Ethics is all about disclosure. As long as you don't hide that you edited the photo or pass it off as being authentic you are OK.

Keep in mind that if you are doing journalistic photography anything other than minor color/brightness corrections would be unethical since you are trying to represent real life.
But with artisitic photography, there are no limits as long as you are open about using photoshop or other image enhancements.

Answer 8

I have taken photos and done traditional darkroom work; I have used photoshop. I am no authority, but I will say this: The great photographers, like Ansel Adams, spent so much post camera time dodging and burning in parts of the photos, that one can honestly say they were photoshop before there was any photoshop. I prefer less darkroom-manipulated, more straight-shot work, like Weegee's. But heavy image manipulation has been with us for a long time before the digital age.

Answer 9

Ansel Adams was a great example.
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"Some of the people who are now manipulating photos, such as Andreas Gursky, make the argument - rightly - that the 'straight' photographs of the 1940s and 50s were no such thing. Ansell Adams would slap a red filter on his lens, then spend three days burning and dodging in the dark room, making his prints," says Sternfeld, referring to the processes of adding or withholding intensity to a print. "That's a manipulation. Even the photographs of Henri Cartier-Bresson, with all due respect to him, are notoriously burned and dodged.
http://www.temple.edu/ispr/examples/ex04_03_10.html
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It's nothing new. It's just that with Photoshop, ANYONE can do it.

Answer 10

Photoshop is the modern dark room, I think without PS, soon, you wont be able to do anything with your images. Have a look at a book called The Master Printing Course. It's about black and white printing and how much work and art is involved in a print, same thing with PS!

Answer 11

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