Now that we are in the digital age, I'm sure many of us here depend on photoshop to process or enhance our photographs.

Some people said that too much photoshop makes a photograph fake - they become a digital painting instead. It's as good as painting a new picture.

So are we really taking a photograph or are we painting pictures?

Yes, in just the same way that darkroom manipulation has been for film photography: I read recently that someone had seen the original print of Ansel Adam's' ""Moon over Hernandez", and it looked quite crappy until he dodged and burned in the darkroom. Bill Brandt, to get his very high contrast black and white images, used to use a 4H pencil on his negatives, so manipulation is only history repeating itself. Regards, Ken

Whilst this really is just history repeating itself, I did not consider the dark room manipulated photographs to be purely photographs either. They are photographic art, but we cannot ignore that there is more art involved than just what the eye sees through the lens.

Truth is every photo you have taken and had processed commercially,has been manipulated-even the machines in one-hour photo shops,read the negative,and manipulate the process for the best print possible from that negative-that said, the only true photography,is that of slides,but even they can be altered by use of filters in the darkroom, to some extent. regards, Ken

I guess the difference for me is that when photos are processed they are still leading to a product that is actually what was on the negative. The processing is to make the final product as like what the photographer saw-not to change it.

Photoshop by comparison deliberately alters the image. I am not talking about red eye removal, I am talking about the removal of blemishes from faces, the cloning out of areas that are unwanted. That is digital art, but not photography as the traditional format would produce.

In my opinion, Photoshop is a latest form of photography.It just start the new era of digital photography. Manipulation is always a part of photography.But this type of photography make us away from the original object. Some time it looks like an illuision.
But it also helps to get more clear photo.

Interesting how this thread develops.

So is photography getting what we want or taking what we see?
I thought that Photoshop only brings Photography into commercialization.

Humans only wants to see perfect things (thus minus the blemishes or even add hair to bald).
In the process, have we made ourselves more imperfect? -> taking imperfect pictures, but there's always Photoshop to cover up.

Photoshop makes images less honest. It is useful, but heavy use of it negates the actual art of photography.

I love Photoshop. And I think it would be a different sort of enhancing your photography whether to make it better or even to distort it depending upon the purpose you may want to achieve. But you still have an option. If you will going to retain your photographs originality, then use the photoshop as your image browser only.

there would be a lot of rejected photos if there wasn't a photo editing program.

Gary

I still maintain that photoshopped work is perfectly a work of art. I just am not sure that I can accept it as being photography any more.

i guess it's the extend of PS work that one applies to the photos.

i try to keep PS to minimal, except probably when I feel naughty? haha
Otherwise, adopting good photography techniques is useful too! Saves time spent on PS.

Take more photographs and enjoy the process!

I usually just use Photoshop for sizing photos for my blog. Sometimes I'll adjust color or blur the name and contact info from my cat's tags before I post the photo.

I think many companies demand Photoshop work now for their products. It's just enchancement, but I don't think it makes photos fake unless you overdo it.

I actually use photoshop when I want to edit my family photos. It does well for that purpose but when it comes to other compositions, I don't use it.