General Photography Chat

[Aleks]

i just want peace and happiness on earth!

and lots o' drugs. lots and lots!

just kidding

or not

anyways, i just did a little math on flickr and i average 8.13 views per picture. alright!

[hammersklavier]

That's awesome!

Oh cool, I figured out how to geotag my pics on Picasa!

[Aleks]

also, one shot that proves that lightroom isnt the same with everyone. i love this guy's pictures, theyre so awesome and inspiring. although i wish he moved away from the green tint sometimes.


link

[giallo]

Originally Posted by bulliver

At it's heart, not in its entirety. I can tell you this much, I've not uploaded a digital photo without at least some digital wankery. IMO demanding all shots be sooc is being a luddite...

@Aleks...I think the hatin' on HDR is because so many people (not on SSP that I've seen, but certainly on flickr) overuse it so ridiculously that their shots look like sandpaper. Can these folks not tell that that looks like shite?

Good post.

I'm not the biggest fan of HDR either-only because most examples of it are awful. Having said that, SSP's photographers that use it really know what they're doing and make some awesome images.

Speaking of things that puzzle us as photographers; have you guys noticed that people (on flickr) will add a note to their pictures saying that they didn't photoshop anything in their photo. ''Straight out of the camera'', they say. Who are these people fooling? Your digital camera is a computer with all kinds of photoshop(y) presets. I always get a kick out of these guys.

Anyway, what were we talking about again? Oh yeah, lightroom. I use it too.

[flar]

I hope nobody is offended by my philosophies on photography. If you are, I either haven't explained them well enough or you don't understand what I'm saying.

For me, technique is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Photos that lose some essential qualities because of overprocessing are not good. Photos that utilize technology to achieve their goals are perfectly fine with me. I digitally process every photo I post, and I use techniques like stitching all the time.

Processing is as much a part of photography as going out snapping pics. But my advice is to concentrate on going out and snapping pics, scoping out scenes, looking for perfect lighting, etc. That's where you'll capture the kind of magical shot that you can't get by sitting in front of a computer messing around with settings.

Feel free to not take my advice, to disagree, or argue, but don't be offended because I have an opinion about photography. I'm just old-school and have philosophies that guide my endeavours.

[HomeInMyShoes]

^I agree that good quality in (your perception of space, light, what's interesting) is more important than processing.

I process everything, but I believe processing starts right from the point of picking up any camera (digital or not). We choose what's important enough to be in the frame, how it should be in the frame, how far we should be away, is depth compression due to zoom a good idea at this time, should everything be in focus or something specific be in focus or nothing be in focus. Even before we hit [insert your favourite post-processing program here] we have made hundreds, if not thousands of choices in the process, what about the exposre, dark subject, dark rest of frame, over-exposure, over-saturation, shutter-speed to blur motion, to stop motion. There's millions of images sitting before me on my mess of a desk. Which one am I going to pull out of the rubble?

[BFHeadstone]

Originally Posted by Aleks

also, one shot that proves that lightroom isnt the same with everyone. i love this guy's pictures, theyre so awesome and inspiring. although i wish he moved away from the green tint sometimes.

link

You have to wonder if his monitor is miscalibrated or if he just likes green...

[vid]

Originally Posted by Doady

Saying that people should never add vignetting in post-processing is like saying that all black-and-white photographs should come from black-and-white film only.

I wasn't saying that. I was saying that it was over-used and applied to photos where it did little to enhance the photo. (Vignetting to a bad composition isn't going to improve it very much.)

Originally Posted by giallo

Speaking of things that puzzle us as photographers; have you guys noticed that people (on flickr) will add a note to their pictures saying that they didn't photoshop anything in their photo. ''Straight out of the camera'', they say. Who are these people fooling? Your digital camera is a computer with all kinds of photoshop(y) presets. I always get a kick out of these guys.

My camera might have an automatic white balance (which only serves to fuck up my photos 85% of the time--it's why I take flash pictures of sunsets) but other than that, I can't actually control anything about how my camera exposes a photo, so it is like a film camera in that regard. Even the screen is really bad, so I don't know how a photo will really turn out until it is on the computer.

Out of 2,345 photos, I have 601 that haven't been digitally processed (though 305 of them were cropped). I also have this:



but you have to admit that if the objects in the photo weren't so well composed, no amount of technicolor glowiness would help it. It almost looks like the screen is folding.

[giallo]

Originally Posted by flar

I hope nobody is offended by my philosophies on photography. If you are, I either haven't explained them well enough or you don't understand what I'm saying.

For me, technique is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Photos that lose some essential qualities because of overprocessing are not good. Photos that utilize technology to achieve their goals are perfectly fine with me. I digitally process every photo I post, and I use techniques like stitching all the time.

Processing is as much a part of photography as going out snapping pics. But my advice is to concentrate on going out and snapping pics, scoping out scenes, looking for perfect lighting, etc. That's where you'll capture the kind of magical shot that you can't get by sitting in front of a computer messing around with settings.

Feel free to not take my advice, to disagree, or argue, but don't be offended because I have an opinion about photography. I'm just old-school and have philosophies that guide my endeavours.

Absolutely. If you're not happy with the photo you've taken right after you've taken it, no amount of post-processing is going to save it.

For me, lighting is everything. I hate flat photos.


vid, my first camera was like that too. It was always a surprise to see how pictures turned out once I had uploaded them to the computer.

Nice pic btw.

[Ramsayfarian]

Originally Posted by giallo

Absolutely. If you're not happy with the photo you've taken right after you've taken it, no amount of post-processing is going to save it.

Beg to differ on that one.

[Aleks]

Originally Posted by giallo

vid, my first camera was like that too. It was always a surprise to see how pictures turned out once I had uploaded them to the computer.

meee tooo! god, i hate that the camera show what the picture would look like if it was a jpeg. when i open it up on my computer the .raw image looks wayyyy different.

i never understood why people liked raw. its underexposed, undersaturated, lighting is flat.

but now i understand and i dont think i could shoot jpeg ever again. i havent shot in jpeg for over a year now. maybe two, who knows.

[giallo]

''Beg to differ on that one.''

And this is the beauty of photography. There really isn't any right or wrong way to approach it as long as the photographer is happy with it.

All my images go through post-processing, but if I have to spend more than a couple of minutes on an image (time includes make three different sized versions for flickr and my agency), then the picture just isn't good enough.


''but now i understand and i dont think i could shoot jpeg ever again. i havent shot in jpeg for over a year now. maybe two, who knows.''

Yeah, shooting RAW was a bit of a rebirth for me. The amount of flexibility it gives while editing is amazing. Plus it gives you a much larger market to sell your photos in, especially with a full frame camera.

[Doady]

Originally Posted by vid

I wasn't saying that. I was saying that it was over-used and applied to photos where it did little to enhance the photo. (Vignetting to a bad composition isn't going to improve it very much.)

The same can be said for any post-processing technique really. Yes, adding vignetting to a bad composition is not going to improve it much, but neither would curves, or saturation, or whatever. I don't see why vignetting of all of things must be singled out.

I think post-processing cannot rescue a bad photo, but post-processing can turn a good photo into a great photo. I think post-processing in all its forms is an essential part of photography, but that's just me.

Originally Posted by flar

Yes, many techniques were possible in the film era, but not nearly all. Even if techniques like "burn" and "dodge" and "unsharp mask" have their origins in the darkroom, there is a huge qualitative difference between digital and film processing. Anyone can start digital editing if they have a computer. Doing the equivalent with film takes a huge amount of skill and practice, and if you screw up, the negative is ruined.

Couldn't the same be said about digital photography in general? I think we can all agree that making taking photos with digital cameras is easier than with film cameras, in many ways. Does that mean that pictures from digital cameras are less photographic?

[mr.John]

Anyone know a good safe site where I can download a copy of lightroom?

[Ayreonaut]

Probably here.

[mr.John]

Probably?...I don't my computer to explode in flames after downloading the program ....so to paraphrase Sir Laurence Olivier "is it safe" PS I have no intention of paying a dime if you get my message

[ue]

^He was joking. Look at the link. It's Adobe .

[mr.John]

I don't think you people are getting my hint...I don't want to splash any cash (which means a pirate copy) that's why I want a site that's safe...yeah like I'm going to dish out $300 for a copy of lighthouse or $700 for photoshop

[ue]

^Yeah, I think we got that, hence Ayreonauts smiley.

(ps - lightroom )

[mr.John]

Just joking with the lighthouse....I'm asking on this forum because someone posted that he never spent any money on software