Do Photos Need To Be Perfect Right Out Of The Camera? 

Just an FYI before I get comments - yes, I know that the dog image and the Ansel Adams images are titled incorrectly. Gremlins at work... The dog image should be Elliott Erwitt

RAW developing software like Lightroom or Darktable is probably the digital equivalent to a $100.000 luxury darkroom. And with Photoshop or Gimp you get a digital equivalent to probably an entire graphic design studio from the old days on top of it. On your laptop... The every day experience of most people taking pictures back in the analog era was like this: Take the picture as good as you can in camera, send the film to the developing lab, get the printed pictures back - no editing possible. Editing photographs was only possible for those who had access to a darkroom or who owned at least some equipment. Today literally everyone can edit pictures who wants to do it, regardless of budget concerns, even on the phone. I think that's amazing!

I have taken so many so-so photos in camera only to find something very special that I overlooked. I can crop out what I thought was the focus and concentrate on an unexpected element. A photo of a long sidewalk can become just about a particular crack near some pink chewing gum and I'm off in an entirely different direction. We've all found those hidden gems, now we can edit in our pajamas. Amazing.

As a German RU-vidr always says: "This is how the artist decided". I think this is everything you can say about this topic.

Back in the day I never expected to print without dodging and burning.

I find it very interesting on how some photographers invest so much time and energy on trying to establish rules about what is supposed to be "the right" photography, "the true" street photography and so on. It's really curious because this just shows, at the same time, how narcissistic it is to say "only what I do is right", and how fragile and limiting it is to say "I refuse to go further in this or that direction", as if they were saying "look how outrageous are those people that are doing something that aren't about me". Now, in the matter of post-processing, I really like the Portuguese translation for the word "developing" used in analog photography: we use the term "reveal" (revelar) - in deed, the process of developing a film is a process of revealing what was captured on camera and, until that moment, was hidden inside a plastic roll. I like to think digital post-processing as a similar activity: to "reveal" what, until that moment, was hidden on a digital file captured by a senso. It's in that revealing process that the photographer is able to adjust the final image so that it gets closer to what she/he expects to be seen by others - just like what an oldschool photographer does in the dark room with the red lights.

I think it all comes to one's preference and style. I enjoy the process of actual shooting and try to get as much as possible in camera. Because I don't like to spend my time on the computer editing, thus this part of photography takes very little time in my case. While my friend is a complete opposite and enjoys photoshopping for hours, so she spends her time mostly on editing rather shooting. But it's always good to get the exposure and light correctly rather than relying on fixing it in post. The editing of correctly exposed image only brings it to the next level.

I love editing a well exposed image.

Editing is an essential process of photography. Its pressing the shutter is like making a rough sketch. Editing is like painting over the sketch.

So many people are taking so many photos on so many devices these days that I actually do more editing, not less, before I print for display, for example, to put on my wall at home. I like to recolour, or posterize, or create strange blurs and so on - in a way, I change my photos into a kind of hybrid form of art. In a similar way, I use digital tools to create music. I like playing live, but I will certainly take advantage of all the available technology. I don't wash my clothes in a river, and I don't travel by horse and cart. The end result is the only thing that matters.

When you got your start shooting film with a cheap mass market Kodak as I did back in the Before Times, COURSE you think you have to do as much as you can in-camera because you ship it off to a lab for processing. That's the mindset that served me stubbornly until just a few years ago when someone showed me a video of Ansel Adams with multiple prints of the same image that had been processed differently as he came back and revisited it. I resisted learning digital editing for a very long time - and I still try to keep it simple when I do it - but it has opened up possibilities. It even makes me go back and experiment with old photo files and refresh them with a new eye. Thanks as always for the content.

Thanks for addressing this issue, Alex. I'm amazed, if not surprised, that we are still talking about it. Experienced photo practitioners are aware and accept that adjustments after the exposure are common, and not cheating in any way. Our only obligation is to the success of the image. Of course we will use any tool that achieves this. "Rules" be damned. In my experience, most of the world doesn't care about how our photographic sausage is made. It's only some photographers who are enamored with the process of making an exposure, (and perhaps some lawyers) that care. Perhaps it is a compliment to my post processing skills that my hand in the manipulation of my pictures is not noticed. But I'm never asked about it.

I was recently going to write a blog covering the differences between our eyes, film, and digital imagery even though the subject has been done to death. It is also a very technical subject. What prompted me to do so was that I was selling prints at a local event, and someone asked me if I was a real photographer or if I edit my images? He then ironically told me that his favorite photographer is Ansel Adams, who even as you pointed out, did edit his film. I tried to not roll my eyes. I think it's fine that people have preferences to the photographic process, and I respect that since art is subjective after all. The problem is that preferences are usually due to misunderstanding the technical side of both film and digital photography.

Taking a picture that is good on capture gives me a special satisfaction. It appeals to my sense of seeing something special at a particular place and time. Also, sometimes, I take a picture "on spec." I hope post processing will allow me to tease something interesting out of it. I'm satisfied when that works out. . . I beat the odds and managed to get a silk purse from a sow's ear, or, at least, high quality rayon.

Excellent and proper discussion. People should do what they want the way they want. If there are restrictions it will be from the recipient such as a publisher who may have requirements…. I make photographs with my camera to the best of my ability. Then I use whatever is available to me to create an IMAGE that I hope will be enjoyed. I make no apologies for the tools and techniques I use.

Absolutely agree with you. Some people forget that's a view genres in photography, so there's a view angle to see how it should be. For News, they need some authentic event to serve. But for wedding photographer, they need please the eye with good photos. So, why everybody forced they minds to another that's different genres of photography?

I am an old school photographer who started in the dark room and learned how to use a camera with F stops, shutter speeds, aperture ect. I love digital photography and how I can take a picture and use photo shop tools to create a better picture more easier. In the old days they use to say photography was not an art form but today with these tools we can create a new art form from our original pictures. We can take a picture and tailor it to fit to make a more perfect picture. Thanks for this video I enjoyed it.

Even your ad is pleasant at the beginning, short and to the point, you are just too good

I think a good photographer understands how there tools fit into the workflow. Somethings Photoshop can’t easily fix so it needs to be correct in camera. Others are easy so getting it right in camera isn’t as important.

The joy of editing!

I have no problem editing/tweaking my photos in Lightroom. Just with using AI, I am not so much at ease. Select sky or select main subject using AI blows my mind, and why not. But with more and more AI functions coming, doesn’t it jeopardize the work of the photographer to some degree? Thanks for this interesting upload!

I'm more old school or maybe just old. Editing is not something i spend much time on. But then again i think old records sound better than anything digitally enhanced. Do what makes you happy people that's the how i look at it.

I love the recent series of videos you're releasing, Alex! You're challenging many myths and points-of-view out there that, on my own, has taken a good portion of my 35+ years shooting to unwind-including to stop being a propagation node, as well. I really hope many photographers who might be new or struggling with photography find your channel and land on this series! I personally still struggle with teaching others the idea of learning the tool (technical) then walk the path of doing to eventually find their own voice, when they often want the shortcut to get to "the look" that they "should be" doing-especially when they get into photography via camera gear enthusiasm, as they haven't developed any idea of what they want yet. It's hard to convey to them that it's okay to find a photographer's work that inspires them and mimic them to learn and explore their own reactions to their work and their own work. I suppose even that is just each individual's own journey that we all go through. Great material and topics! Keep them coming!

This discussion raises an important question far grander than any photograph. What is “right” and how do any of us know? And then what stories do photographers tell themselves about themselves when they “get it right”? Conversely when then get it wrong

Great show! I enjoyed watching this video. Thanks for sharing it. 😎 Digital manipulation? That’s what it is -yes! Cheating? No, not at all. Is it Photography? No it’s art, I guess? I no longer edit my pictures, if you can call them that 😂 I’m not a Luddite, The reason is because I got sick of paying a subscription for image editing software over the the past 10 years or more. The only adjustments I do now are minor exposure and saturation adjustments in Apple photos 😙 if I had a commercial business, well that would be another story I’d most likely resume the subscription for the editing software. ✌️

I started photography in the late 70’s as away my Dad and i bonded. He famously said i would have to learn B&W before i could do color. i never wanted to do color as i fell in love with B&W. i would see things in the world as thats where i should shoot or this view from the freeway would be a remarkable photo. The digital camera alows us to worry less on exposure and other details to be to think why did i stop here what is the image im looking at. That continues once your on a computer and looking at your photo maybe it was just this small detail. It can help you in making the leap from photo to a great print more possible.

I believe photography becomes art, at the hand of the photographer’s vision. Such gorgeous interesting stuff. But nowadays I look at a lot of photos and wonder ‘what did that subject/scene REALLY look like to the naked eye?’ I’m sure that’s not what the photographer intends me to do.

It depends on how much editing is done. If you add a unicorn and elves, then it crosses into digital art, instead of photography. It is still art. Moreover, if it's something a client commissioned you to do, then it's fine to give them what they want, within reason. In the end, it's a personal choice. Just don't misrepresent what your photos are.

Personal choice. No right or wrong. I personally try to strive to get it right at time of taking the picture

One of your best videos. It touches on a a couple of topics of the digital age that have bemused me for some time. As someone who started photographing in the late 1960s where your camera was by default "manual" and image manipulation typically meant hours in the darkroom. I can't help but roll my eyes at the "must be right as it came out of the camera" and you "should shoot manual" nonsense. I'll go with Bill Brandt: "Photography is not a sport. It has no rules. It's the result that counts, no matter how is is achieved".

I never knew New York City had so many mountains. I really must visit one day.

I enjoy getting my exposure and composition as good as I can in camera, but I also then enjoy some editing.

I’ve come to view the act of pressing the shutter button as collecting raw data. In the editing process, I not only refine the photo, but also refine the creative vision I initially had.

Hi Alex, nobody can get everything right in camera everytime they go out to photograph, even professional photographers. Editing our photos is part of photography as long as you don't over edit. Every Smartphone you buy has editing tools, and there are a lot of free editing Apps. Even in Laptops and Desktops that are nearly as good as Lightroom. They are there for a reason to help us improve the look of our photographs. And it doesn't mean we are not real photographers. Many thanks 😊

Interesting conversation as always. I suspect the more ‘right’ you get it at each phase - from the camera to Lightroom to printing - the better the final result.

I am very much in agreement with this. I started photography as a hobby 50 years ago. Although I’ve never had my own darkroom, I was lucky enough to have access to one for many years and always preferred to say that I “made” photographs rather than I “took” photographs. When digital cameras began to appear, I was an early user. The joy in using them was that I could now do at home, even with the very basic image processing software that was then available, what had previously required a trip to a darkroom. These days, much of the photography that I do is with a phone and edited on the phone using Lightroom mobile.

Yes, get as much in camera as you can is so true! At 18 that’s how I learned, shooting with a Pentax Spotmatic and TriX400. It was the darkroom work that was the best part for me. In 2019 I started shooting again the same way I did when I first started and I love my post-processing workflow, and I rarely do a second exposure. I still have my old Spotmatic too!

I need to get it as right as possible in camera as I do not have access to a wet darkroom AND because I'm really lousy at photoshop. As Ansel Adams is a treasure trove for quotes here's another one: The negative is the score and the print the performance. The doggy picture is heavly cropped for the final version but the contact sheet shows that the photographer had it in mind when taking the pictures but the cropped version was the best expression of what he had in mind, IMO. We also see how many pics did not stand the test of examination. We don't print that much anymore but Adams would love today's possibities, I'm sure. And I agree that wet printing B&W was not witch craft. When in school my brother and I once did the pupils' pictures our teacher photographed and had not the time to enlarge himself. Nowadays "straight out of camera" seems to be a proof of honesty or so. The picture out of camera is the basis and as they "If you want to build high towers you need to spend a lot of time at the foundations" (Anton Bruckner) so get it as right as possible and work your way up from there. Sorry that was lengthy and thanks for another interesting topic.

Totally agree Alex. From day 1 photographers have been manipulating the end result to develop a certain style, from choice of camera, film and processing. If we are viewing photography as an art form then manipulation is totally acceptable. Perhaps the exception to that may be photojournalism, where creating the outcome to match that what was witnessed by the eye is key.

I will say that learning on film and shooting with film for many years does help reduce the need for digital editing. Film photography is a craft that takes skill to master while with digital photography there is an element where the computer can make anyone a master at it if they don’t have the skill. I love to use filters but with the computer I can just apply a filter even though I didn’t use one when I took the photo.

Actually PhotoShop takes away from the image. By using PS we throw away things we think unnecessary. When the initial shot is as a good as it can be (photograph is done right in-camera) we have more stuff to choose from, we have more stuff "to throw away". Of course we have tools or even abilities to add to a picture but that would be always a risk. Let's say something is cropped from the original image and missing. To re-create that is always a bigger pain and more prone to failure than have a picture with that missing part and giving me a chance to cut if I want. For me this is why "do right in the camera" attitude is so important. Side note: I still take pictures to negatives, mostly in medium format but even 8×10" and that is "slow photography" by nature that lets me consider lot more things than the "briskier" and fast-paced digital photography. Thank you Alex, you just nailed it I'd say ;)

I shoot mostly film, and when editing my film photos I try to only do what I could do in the darkroom. Mainly because I feel that anything more is somehow dishonest (my feeling isn't entirely rational, I agree) but also digital editing tends to really stand out in film photos.

Photography has gone through so much change since it's inception, and change will continue when we are (long) gone from this world, because change is inevitable...

A great video. Well said.

As a mental exercise I would agree that it’s a good idea to do one’s best to get the best possible composition in-camera. That said, I’ll take a properly cropped photograph over an indifferently composed photograph - or no photograph at all - any day.

Excellent chat - there is no difference between editing in the darkroom, or the digital darkroom. They are both tools, and for the tools to be effective you need as good a starting image as you can achieve. I was having this conversation just the other day with someone who wasn’t impressed when I mentioned that I’d edit the images… your point about cameras processing to produce the jpeg is spot-on, and I wish I’d though of it!

Truth is, I have a lot more time to fiddle with photoshop at home than I do with the camera when I’m out and about. I don’t really care if I’m considered a “real” photographer or not. What I care about is the end result, how my photos look, not how I got them. I remember how horrible some of my prints looked when they came back from the developer. Well, that just doesn’t happen anymore, because now I have control over the process.

When I started out in photography I found that I was always needing to apply hours of editing to create a passable image but now it’s different. Now the first thing that I am concerned with is capturing an image in-camera that will ultimately become my finished prior conception. The final image now in all probability still receives post-editing but because my image I now take is laid out with accurate in-camera settings with the final goal of rendering my final composition I am no longer spending time applying fixes to an image taken with an incorrect camera setting. Now, a tweak here, a tweak there and voilà! The most incredible fine art created by a modesty individual like myself.

Interesting Alex, thanks. I've had the opportunity to view Ansel Adam's "Moonrise Hernandez" original negative and contact print, a test print, final prints of different sizes, as well as the 5x7 card with printing guidelines, which he would create for each of his images. This was at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson, which holds his archives along with archives of many other greats Trust me, there was some serious post processing going on there! You mention Ansel and digital. In 1975 I attended a talk he gave on campus announcing the creation of the center in concert with then University president John Schaefer, an accomplished photographer in his own right. Ansel actually mentioned digital image capture in his talk. With keen interest, I might add. Most of us in the audience knew little or nothing about the subject in those very early days of R&D, but he certainly did.

Brilliant video. One of your best. Spot on and very relevant.

It's profound and excellent advice - in the sense that if you're not prepared to give the subject your best shot, why are you even bothering to press the button? But for me, "your best shot" should start with understanding something of what caught your attention and could happily include moving around to optimise your framing (when circumstances permit) and bracketing your focus and exposure - and people would do that back in the day when they thought it important enough!.I don't actually care whether the result is multiple negatives or RAW files - and if there's nothing interesting in there, neither will anyone else

In my experience so far, getting the image as correct as can be out of the camera shortens post processing. And they said: "garbage in, garbage out". Of course, I also experienced some crappy images with considerable post pro work turned to be pretty pleasing.

I couldn't agree more, as I had done some film photography early on, I also thought that tools like LrC or PS were not appropriate, now a days however, I see them as tools of improvement or expression, some would take full advantage of the tools and do things that no one else could have imagine, others would do just enough to represent what they saw at the time of taking/making the picture.

Another great video. Loved hearing your thoughts. I for one have embraced the 'digital' medium over film. I can now really express myself so much easier today than compared to working in the darkroom. (I do however miss the addictive smell of the chemicals)

I feel that context is important. Many photographers focus on creating art with their imagery. It's less about the technical accuracy of the original scene, and more about how the final image makes you feel. If you're doing press or documentary work, it would be ideal if the final images were reasonably faithful to what they're depicting. However news outlets and have already been busted for publishing doctored photos. Even an undoctored image could still be framed or cropped to lead the narrative away from the truth. What's that saying... "Don't let truth stand in the way of a good story?" Human vision, as well as cameras have their limits with what they can see. Astrophotography in particular frequently makes use of very heavy image processing just to make clear images of things that are difficult to see with our eyes, and would otherwise disappear into the noise floor of an image sensor. The question has come up in one group I'm in about what's an appropriate level of tweaking to do with aurora images. Some photographers have clearly boosted the saturation to the point that they look like glowing neon apparitions. The way I look at it, auroras are often very faint to the human eye. It's not like the colors don't exist. Why not make them available to the range of perception of the human eye? Our astronomical observatories make images all the time of "invisible" phenomena using infrared and ultraviolet cameras, as well as with radiotelescopes. When they do it, it's considered science.

Completely agree!!

Thanks for the info. I never miss

Love your videos, so excited to meet you in SF

I think that we should simply make room in photography for different conceptions of the medium. I hugely admire ((read: idolize), though not for the reason that follows) someone like Cartier-Bresson who would sometimes even show the spokes(?) of the frame in the final print to show that the composition was captured in camera. I also love someone of the modern photographers that make gorgeous composites and do amazing things with color in Photoshop.

I couldn't agree more!

I'm more proud of an image, that has little of my postprocessing on them, then the ones I do more manipulation on them. Because it's more of the beauty around us, but less artistic. I compare it also like climbing a mountain by foot, is more rewarding, than watching the same view when using a cable car to get up. And as you say, everybody should do what they like most. 😊 I think it's more difficult to draw the line, where a photograph changes into a piece of "art". After all, we all swim in the same soup. 😂 Perhaps some Rooibos in your cup?

You are absolutely correct, and I cannot understand why people are thinking digital processing is NOT photography. I even did spotting and negative retouching by using various techniques. Especially about Uelsmann and his enlargers (I used ONLY 3 for multiple printing!). I think the problem is when a "photographer" intentionally do something to fool other people, BUT it also happened with traditional photography. I source of this type of photography in my library is "Photo Fakery" by Dino A. Brugioni (1999) and the excellent book by Thomas Wheeler "Phototruth or Photofiction" (2002).

It’s a something to strive for. I stopped editing my images all bar crop, b&w conversion and contrast. Most of the time I don’t bother with any of them, the image is either right or its not.

Thanks for the toughts about these Alex. Used more than twenty years ago to shoot 6x6 on Kodak Tri-X, I always approach photography on the slow side. Today, with my Fujifilm XT3, it didn’t change much. Still think as I have 12 exposures to make the best of it. 1:1 and Acros film simulation, paired with a -G - R or R filter of coursec in the most cases..

I tend to be a visual photographer, trying to capture what I see through the lens as the end result. I believe there are many photographic artists who are more haptic. The image out of the camera is more of a beginning (or mid step) in their creative process. The digital 'dark room' is where their creativity shines. I spend most of my day behind a computer screen, in work not related to photography. For me, spending more time behind a screen post-processing is simply painful. This does not stop me from enjoying the creative work of others.

Greatly enjoyed this video and your insightful comments on some things that need to be said about ridiculous "rules" that seem to thrive and contaminate photography. Most specifically here, those about cropping. My background is more founded in painting than in photography, so all the constipation over not cropping an image as it comes from the camera strikes me as totally absurd. Especially as the most popular aspect ratio in photography is so lacking in aesthetics,. The 2:3 aspect ratio is one of the most unfortunate choices in the history of photography (a 20x25 mm framing would have been a much better choice). You will likely never see a painting in a museum with that 2:3 aspect ratio. And other than a 20x30 inch canvas used mostly by amateur landscape painters, you cannot even buy a pre-stretched or mounted canvas in that aspect ratio. Painting aside, look to photography -- photo print paper, 8x10, 11x14, 16x20, etc. All 35 mm photos printed on those papers are cropped to fit the paper (or the paper has to be trimmed to fit the photo). One has to ask why no one ever made a 6x9, 8x12, 10x15 paper size? Okay, there were those little 4x6 snap shot prints from your local One-Hour Photo, pharmacy, etc., -- but strictly consumer stuff. I applaud your showing the Elliot Erwitt photo which appears to be cropped by at least 75%. Wish you had also showed one of the most famous photos of all time, Cartier-Bresson's man jumping the puddle. About 1/3 of the original was cropped because he took the photo through a fence. Oops, and another faux pas of "photography rules", the figure is leaving the frame instead of entering it. It is unfortunate that photographs are so often judged by so-called "rules" rather than artistic expression. As my design instructor years ago harped on again and again, "There are no rules in art."

I argue there is no such thing (and never has been) such a thing as straight out of camera. Back in the day, a "good" photographer would choose from different film stocks, choose a lab (or process themselves) choose a type of paper, etc etc etc, even ignoring things like framing, exposure and "camera" stuff. Now a "good" photographer can use the tools available in the digital world. In my opinion, the biggest advantage of digital vs. analogue is ctrl+z (undo) without waisting film, paper, and chemistry. ... and as an aside, one of my favourite portraits of my sister was made from a bad negagive. I forgot what kind of film I had in the camera and massively overexposed it. It was a lot of work to recover the image in the darkroom, but it turned out quite stunning.

I see myself as an artist (or try to be) who uses photography and digital editing as my tools

What people don't realize is that EVERY photograph, whether digital or film, is processed. Even slide films all have different color palettes, so which one is "correct"? Whatever software you use to open your raw images, or what your camera created if you shoot in jpeg mode, the image is manipulated to some degree. Actually, digital images "straight out of camera" are quite muddy and lifeless. Get trial versions of different image editing programs and open the same photograph in each of them, and they will all be different. I started using Capture One, and I will be stuck on this because of the way it handles skin tones. Other programs, straight out of the camera, aren't quite as good.

This is reminiscent of the analogue v’s digital in music. Neither is better or worse, just different.

Excellent

It is all in the photographic process,

Everything right in camera. Yes, like you said... as right as we can. It just makes everything after taking the shot so much easier. Less to crop, less exposure adjustment, less fuss all around. I try... and fail most of the time. Still trying. Still learning. Still fussing at myself over silly mistakes! Almost none of my photography is seen ( even by my kids ) so it hardly matters at all.

One of the great things about modern cameras is the things that make a picture unusable: not getting focus, camera shake, exposure problems generally can be avoided in camera with good technique. I do enjoy coming to edit an image and bring pleased with it as-is. But for those of us with aged kit, the editing software is a key part of getting the most out of those older sensors and lenses.

I'm from the Old-Skool era of photography, so I naturally think differently from later generations, in that I try to get everything right at the photographing stage; the only time I engage in post shoot editing is when I need to combine a series of images to increase Depth-Of-Field which can't be done if a photo is taken using a telephoto lens. I never eliminate skin imperfections using software as this goes against the idea of portrait photography, which is to capture a person's natural character. So I consider post shoot editing to be cheating.

‘Bad negative’ is subjective. The truest photo is solid white. Settings (Shutter speed, aperture and iso) start the editing. Photography is editing.

I will say, when doing street photography, protecting what is important, then using editing as required seems to be a goal. If shooting for detail, preserve that. If a persons face is important, be careful to not under or over expose to much -- protect the image. If the subject might have blown highlights -- protect the highlights. Shots which have the luxury of time to take, just shoot over and under by as much as needed, as in just how much harshness you are viewing. You are adjusting film in the lab processing, and you are adjusting digital on a computer -- same difference, as the old saying. No big deal. Yes, of course the modern way is easier and most forgiving. - Loren

A couple of vidoes back the concept of photography being the art of strippong back ead shared. Briliant concept. A plethora of digital tools does not instantly make everyone better. We' all seen (and probably perpetrated) digital over processing of an image. The real skill is knowing just the right combination of digital tools to use for the image you want to create. Strip back the digital tools, in other words. Whatever the gatekeepers say, the digital genie is not going back in the bottle.

Thoroughly agree with you on manipulating photos being legitimate. I’ve always done it, including in the darkroom 50 years ago.

High key / low key photography breaks the photography rules of "proper exposure" yet you can still get beautiful photographs.

I just like to take a correctly exposed image then to find the white and black points and 'usually' I'm happy with the result. Nice argument.

People are jealous creatures is why we try to knock down the tall poppies. I try to do everything in camera to save time but I also will edit in Lightroom tto convert raw and to improve the image if needed, it's not cheating it's just like you said about Ansell Adams we are just presenting our best work on the final product. Photography is art and your camera is the brush and the digital image is the canvas, it's up to you how you paint the picture.

Snapshooters post SooC JPGs to their social media. Photographers post-process (and print!) from RAW files. It's as simple as that. Part of the problem with modern photography (especially phone-based) is over-reliance on the "easy button"--many people don't even want to think, much less make an effort beyond tapping a screen to produce an image. They'd rather leave it to AI or an algorithm (e.g., the camera's JPG engine, which kind of makes any image a collaboration). Even with digital, there is much joy and satisfaction to be derived from every step of the process, from seeing the opportunity for a potentially great image, to determining what focal length, camera position, settings, filtration, etc. will likely yield a great RAW file, to viewing/curating the images on a (large) screen, to opening a RAW in your preferred processing software* and making your vision take form, to determining the best size and paper type for the print, and finally enjoying the magic result emerge (all too slowly) from the printer. *DxO for me--it just feels more like what I wish I would've had during the darkroom days. Ansel would indeed have loved it (and I'm sure he'd have loved MFT as well--why schlep bulkier/heavier gear than you need?).

You get straight to the main point: "SOOC snobbishness" is actually that. Not least for disregarding the fact that every modern camera processes every image with built-in algorithms. One could also say a word of two about the different ways that sensors and humans see things. Thus, "real" photographers may indeed have a point when deciding on how their images look.

I want a photo too look like it would to a person who stood at the same spot and saw the image with their own eyes. Since the human eye can handle more contrast than any camera, tweaking an image to better match what you actually saw is fine. I sometimes tweak the contrast, white, and black balance so the detail I could see in person matches what's in the photo. I occasionally increase saturation or vibrance on an image so the colors I remember so through the photo. What I really don't like seeing is an image that is oversaturated to the point it looks cartoonish.

This discussion has been going on since the mid 1990's. All digital editing is to me is an easier/faster way to edit/manipulate images. To get what my minds eye saw that the camera couldn't quite capture. I do have a limit to whether or not it's cheating is whether or not the person is honest about it. I personally try to get as much in camera as I can. I prefer RAW over JPEG because I don't want the camera to make the decision for me. That is my preference. I'm still only mediocre on my best day.

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Why are Ansel's photos attributed to Joel Meyerowitz? Indeed, the SOOCers are sometimes the bane of my existence. So here's a story. On a Facebook group, a woman about 40-50 years old posted that she never edited her files. She said something close to, "Why buy expensive camera equipment if you are going to edit [the files]?" I responded, more with curiosity than anything, and she gave as her reason for SOOC, "I learned photography when editing wasn't an option!" I pointed out that prints were edited in the mid-nineteenth century, that I had taken editing courses in the Sixties, and that Photoshop 1 was released in 1990. Since I am picking on her, I want to point out that there is a whole Generation DX that has grown up with no understanding of the history of photography as both craft and art. They have literally no concept of the film darkroom. Someone a while ago said that lots of photos must have been "printed straight". I mentioned contrast grades, developers, edge burning, etc. I might as well have been speaking Latverian. Mentioning that I edit images to get the emotional context drew blank stares.

I never add things to my photos however I do remove things. Especially name brand logos and things such as that

Great video and true, they're all photographs and the only person that creates images that isn't a photographer is one who uses no photographic elements in their image. The most interesting aspect is the today you need to be a balance of artist/photographer and technician, there's no way around it. Some of the problems and to define each one is a 1,000 word essay, the terms we use are so vague, better, how do we define it (insert 1,000 words), in terms of color, accurate. Any intelligent logic can only come to the fact that there no accurate or technically correct way to convert a large color space to a small color space. Technically correct, yes and no, however if the artists vision is a technical error, who are we to say? RAW, you have to process, just like you have to breath. Best equipment, what is best? Best for your needs, best specifications, best balanced on your abilities. Photographs and photographers are are mosaic, you put the pieces together and gain knowledge.

Film photography is more popular now than it has been for years, I believe that the process of photography is as important as the end image for some, in many competitions there are rules on how much you can alter an image, and this is important so we have a level Plainfield, Many paths to follow, choose you path and don’t criticise others for their choices

The technical context behind "getting it right in camera". Everything right in camera? (A) Exposure - people talk about dynamic range (DR) without qualification. The DR of cameras is just its operating range in light levels. What it can capture in one shot is much less and I call that "Contrast Envelope" (CE). Then there's the DR of the subject and this depends on light levels. If you have a pure black and pure white subject then the black is always 0 while the white depends on the light level. Less light, less subject DR. So the problem of exposure is twofold: (1) where to place exposure - the camera's CE - relative to subject DR in case the subject DR is larger than CE. To the right and you have no/few blown out highlights. To the left, and you have detail in the darkest image zones but blown out highlights. You need to do some HDR in order to capture it all. This was the same in the film days. (2) in case the subject DR is smaller than the CE, you still have a choice of to the right or left. This impacts gradation - nuances. Expose to the right and gradation is compressed. Expose to the left and gradation becomes more easily distinguishable - this is due to the logarithmic basis of exposure. (B) Depth of Field (DoF) and sharpness. People are completely - including fluencers - in the blind regarding DoF. They often know three parameters in the formula: distance, focal length, aperture. What they generally don't know is that DoF has a fourth parameter called "Circle of Confusion" (CoC [1]). DoF is a perception thing. You thought your image was sharp, looking at the rear display of the camera. On the desktop monitor at 400% it may be clear it is not. Similar applies to DoF. In this light, to be right in camera is actually not really easy when you are critical to these things - for artistic effect. You may want motion blur and have to repeat a pose with motion blur in hair or dress until you get the preconceived shutter drag effect. And DoF may require a wide open aperture for a smaller print/display size, but slightly more closed down for a larger size. You could shoot HDR in camera with bracketing but render it in soft contrast to retain all the details but not make it look like HDR. Now imagine a shot where you did all this right and you have the subject DR equal to, or smaller than, camera CE. You have all the details on the left and right side of the histogram. Now what? How to depict or print? Soft contrast, or hard? Light or dark? Very dark with hard contrast that still has all the details - Goth - or rather light with little contrast - contemporary lifestyle. Or plain neutral to resemble the original situation. That's an artistic choice. Ytoober/fluencer Ken Rockwell shoots everything SOOC JPEG. Everything looks like "on the vivid side of neutral". Little or no post processing. Saves an awful lot of time. He implies to have commercial clients "buying" that, and that's fine for him. I don't see these images end up in an art collection or art museum, though. Ansel Adams would have his images test printed and then made annotations for his assistant. Overall brightness (exposure) and contrast. Dodge this, burn that. Crop this way. Richard Avedon worked that way too, but occasionally would have his assistant replace person A's head in shot 1 by their head in shot n. Adams may never have composited, Avedon has. With these artists, we never expect journalistic reportage or nature/wildlife, and all is allowed. In journalistic, reportage, or nature/wildlife this is another story. One camera brand has developed a hidden watermark or metadata thing that can indicate nothing was altered in an image. That can be important when you admit your artistic wildlife shot to a competition. Learning how to get all the finesses of Adams's or Avedon's B&W prints may take you years of learning in the chemical darkroom, by the way. [1] CoC is a blended parameter, not a fixed constant. Smaller CoC gives shallower DoF. It combines the effects of: (i) Camera-sensor/film resolution; more resolution, smaller CoC; (ii) Lens resolution; more resolution, smaller CoC; (iii) Processing; better processing can give more resolution so smaller CoC; (iv) Display resolution; more resolution, smaller CoC; (v) Display size; larger gives smaller CoC; (vi) Distance between display and on-looker; closer by gives smaller CoC. Your lens's DoF scale abstracts away from these nuances. Your DoF app has no clue about most of these and probably ignores CoC completely, using a single dummy number.

As an artist who loves editing, the bigger question to me is…I wonder if Jerry Uelsmann, Bob Carlos Clarke, Dennis Stock, Ansel Adams, etc etc ever spent much time wondering what all of the real photographers thought about their work…I hope it didn’t keep them up at night. But I digress, I don’t know if digital has made things “easier”, however what is undeniable is that it’s made it more accessible.

Today Ansel Adams would be saying "The raw file is the score and the jpeg is the performance" - OK, he would probably still say "print" rather than "jpeg", but that's not too important. The point is that he would understand the dynamic range that the raw file gives him, and he may well use HDR techniques to extend that. He wouldn't care that some "vanilla" processing of his raw file couldn't produce a great jpeg or print. He would use Lightroom or whatever tool he chose to extract every bit of information from his raw file(s) to create a great jpeg for printing. That would specifically mean complex maps of the tones recorded in the raw to the tones that could be expressed in the jpeg and print. It would mean masking to handle every section of the image differently. That... is what... he did in the darkroom. That... is... the reason behind... his zone system. He would not only understand how his raw files worked, and how jpeg was able to represent tones. He would have calibrated his camera, his monitor, and his printer. That is how he worked with the tools he had available to him then. He was calibrating before anyone else did so. BTW I only very roughly calibrate my monitor and I don't own a printer worthy of printing photographs. I have my prints made commercially because I see digital printing as a mechanical rather than creative exercise. The jpeg creation is my equivalent of darkroom printing and the actual printer is just like the tray of stop or fixer - not even like the tray of developer where you can snatch the print out if it's going too far. My output is the jpeg and I can predict what my print-shop's printer will do with it, at least to within my own tolerance - Adams would no doubt be far more demanding.

It's easier to get it right in camera rather than trying to post produce the photo that you should have made in the first place. There are many photography's and not all photography's are equal. At what point does photography morph into graphic design? What differentiates a photograph from graphic design?

Part of the problem may be that not everybody knows that photographers of the past could actually manipulate the development of their negatives and manipulate even further on producing the final prints. On the other hand, they see that any idiot can manipulate "image files'" to any desired extent. For example, replacing the whole sky and emulating the lighting of a summer day. The extreme case is of course banging in a couple of prompts and letting AI generate the whole image. No camera involved. The simplest manipulation - that was always there - is cropping. This can have quite a striking effect - as the famous doggy picture shown in this video exemplifies. What tools are used how much at what stage depends a bit on who or what the photo is for and what the aim of the photographer is. Artificial lighting is in fact already a manipulation tool. I myself fulfill several different goals. More or less realistically recording a vacation, producing something slightly bizarre and arty and, last not least, portraying a relative, usually under somewhat adverse circumstances, and making them look really good. Sometimes I get everything perfect in the camera, sometimes the image has to be tweaked a little. Another goa I have had product photography for selling steff on ebay. How much you manipulate or even have to manipulate depends on the purpose of the photograph.

It's like saying a farmer who uses a tractor isn't a real farmer... only a farmer who uses a donkey and plough is a real farmer. People should do what works for them, that gives them satisfaction, and that they can have pride in.

Me: Takes a Raw image, composed and exposed as well as I can using my photography knowledge learned over years of learning and practice. I bring this file into Lightroom using editing knowledge gained again, through years of practice and trial and error. Through this process I manage to create the image that I wanted at conception to share with the world or print for myself or others. Person who pressed a single button and let Apple/Samsung do all the work and make all their choices to me: "You're cheating by editing." Totally agree that photography now is way easier than the film days but I think outside of the photography sphere there's a huge misunderstanding about what 'editing' actually is and just how edited the popularised single click image actually is these days.

Took a photo this weekend, overcast sky and there are power lines in the background. Take the lines out,was impossible before PS,sky "could"be replaced. After some work I made the decision to de-saturate and add grain for a vintage effect. Have one each way, color,B/W. both look "right". Even photographers of yesteryear hand tinted portraits and landscapes. When I shot film I wanted 2 cameras, b/w film and color...never happened. LOL

When i spent time in my darkroom in the past dodging and burning people thought my images were amazing, now when i use the same identical technique in digital media some call me a cheater 😮