Is using Photoshop cheating and how far would you go to create the perfect street picture? 

Another great video, and another great topic. In my humble opinion if this is photography, you can keep it. I can except a tone change, a crop or even an artistic alterations. What I don't get is adding things that were not there, or creating your own scene, or using Ai. We might as well stop wasting money on camera gear, stop walking the streets and just sit at home and type our commands into a computer. For people like me, who uses a real camera, some crop and a few tone slides, people will not believe us when we take a GENUINE photograph.

I do think we have finally tipped the scales when it comes to “cheating”. That decisive moment has been taken away when you can just make the whole thing up.

I will never manipulate my street photos but I do often enhance the lighting, composition and tones to get the desired effect that I have in my mind, much like what I used to do with films and photo paper developing. I believe in the true spirit of street photography, which is about capturing a scene as it happened.

Great discussion … as soon as I saw the title I wondered whether you would include the iconic Fan Ho image. Incidentally, I recall reading about one of Turner’s masterpieces, the Temeraire, which by the time he painted it, had been long decommissioned and everything of value had been removed. The ship had actually been auctioned off for timber. Not withstanding this, many great artists (Da Vinci for one) created their masterpieces from a series of sketches and imagination. Of course you only need to look at the Magnum contacts Book to see how photography has always applied poetic licence … one of my favourites is the iconic James Dean image walking through a misty, bleak Manhattan by Dennis Stock.

fantastic video. i used to do a lot of burn and dodging trickery, back in my darkroom days. a lot of us did.

Staged pictures don't resonate with me at all. The very idea is a huge turn off although that doesn't make such a thing "wrong". For me, a photograph is about showing the world that special moment my eyes have just seen. Of course, I don't have a problem in making small enhancements to a photograph, but at most that would involve maybe straightening an image or making tweaks to contrast or color saturation. I would never think of adding or removing an object or person to make a picture work. The minor enhancements I make on a computer today are simply the digital equivalents of the ones I made in the darkroom many years ago.

Short answer…. YES!

L’essentiel est la rencontre Nous pouvons rester chez soit et voir la vie à travers un écran

Amazing examples which show us that there's hardly a limit to what you want to "tell" as a photographer. Thanks Rupert.

In photojournalism, manipulation of an image beyond contrast, tone and color curves and fixing dust spots is considered unethical for journalistic purposes. However, I have seen at least one cover photo on an issue of National Geographic where the repositioned the pyramids at Giza in the darkroom. It caused a stir mainly because it was a journalistic deception.

No one questioned Caravaggio why he used his face in his paintings, example; The Road To Damascus and the Beheading of St. John. As an also painter myself, I only draw what I want not everything that I see. So why are people so judgemental about manipulating images since its been happening since the beginning of photography, Oscar Rejlander in the 1800’s comes to mind.

Nothing wrong with it in my opinion, as long as you’re up front about what has been done.

Thank you! Such beautiful examples!

I must admit the photo from Phan Ho was a favourite and to be honest, having now learned of its true technique used in its creation, I have a sour taste in my mouth. I honestly thought he timed that photo so the desired shadow at a certain time of the day would have formed. The inclusion of the subject is fine, whether she was planned or not but the fact the shadow(which is the hero of the photo) was added is saddening. I have mixed emotions now. I can only assume how many other photographers are out there, trying to emulate that particular photo by positioning themselves in the street, at a certain time of the day, waiting for a certain shadow to form only to realise you could just go back home and do it all in Photoshop. I could not live with that. I would feel far more proud to walked the streets in search of the wall and the shadow. The inclusion of the shadow may be “burning” , the creation of the shadow is wrong in my opinion. Something so important as that shadow should have been reserved as a real life moment and not dark room trickery. Placing a shadow in that photo would be as sinful as placing extra mountains in a landscape scene, unforgiving in my opinion.

Really fascinating analysis from a Master!

I think this debate adds to the argument that photography is art, not some objective depiction of reality. Even the un-postprocssed image is “pre-manipulated” by the artist’s choice of subject, framing, perspective, etc. It’s always (even in “photojournalism”) an expression of the artist’s world view: what do they think is important and how do they interpret it?

Lines can be drawn and crossed, or not crossed, but everyone might draw those lines in different places and there should never be any such thing as a VAR check for offside in photography. Before we get to post-processing or the wet darkroom, I think it is important to remember that the camera itself can record and produce an image that our eyes and brain do not see in real life: No matter how well composed, the photograph is two dimensional. A decision to shoot on black and white film or decide to use a black and white digital workflow at the scene is going to produce something our eyes cannot see in real life. What we leave out of the frame and what we include in composition is a type of manipulation. A long exposure of moving water or clouds will always produce an image that our eyes cannot ordinarily see, even if our minds can imagine it. While I am not in favour of adding stuff that was not there to begin with, I do admire fine images produced that way, but I like to know what was done to achieve the image. I don’t like to be deceived, and I do not like to deceive viewers of my work. I think this has become such an emotive subject because photography does produce very life-like images. Despite the cynicism that many attach to digital photography, leading to phrases, such as “It’s been Photoshopped” or “you must be really good at Photoshop” there is an underlying subconscious expectation among viewers that the photograph they are viewing is real. That last phrase about being good at Photoshop is particularly irksome when somebody says it with no appreciation that the photographer might have got up at 3AM and hiked five miles in freezing conditions to make one photograph, which turns out to be an absolute banger. My biggest fear is that generative AI is used to produce fabricated news images to suit the political agenda of an unscrupulous, morally bankrupt newspaper proprietor.

Thank you for the video, it was great! It and the comments/conversation have really given me a lot to think about. I try to do as little as possible to my photos because for the most part *I* want to remember the scene for what it truly was. However, some of the points made in the comments are very thought provoking. This issue has definitely caused quite a stir and I'm torn on where the line should be drawn on manipulating images.

If you stage a scene it’s not street photography it’s cheat photography. Let’s face it you want the viewer to think that you are a great photographer and that you actually caught that moment it’s really kinda sad. As for making color/light adjustments have no problem with that. Every Ansel Adams image had massive dodge and burn adjustments albeit with very few tools back then. That said photos presented as Art I.e wild imagery, Ai, multiple exposures etc.. I’m all for. That’s creativity and it can be interesting. The “photography” there is secondary. The “wow” is the idea.

Very intresting!

A very timely post as I've just started taking photographs again after many years. I look at some images and to my eyes they scream staged and I will admit that does detract from the image for me. It could well be that the images aren't staged at all, I'll never know. Personally I like to do as little as possible in lightroom.

To make some minor adjustments as to exposure or cropping is fine but to do major surgery such as combining images from several different images, that's no longer photography, at least not street photography. Having said that, I will accept the highly manipulated images as some sort of "art" but let's not call it photography, or street photography - maybe digital art?

Set up locations are one thing but in action it’s all I can do to get focus where I want, camera angle, not blow out highlights and getting everything I want to capture in the frame. The rest is up to Lightroom. Does that make me a bad person?😊

If the context is art, I don't see using Photoshop as cheating (and as well staging the subject, setting up lighting equipment etc etc). Basically the same old principles used from the film/analog era. Buf if the context is photojournalism, then I definitely will be much much more careful. Some amount of highlight/contrast adjustment? No problem. Cropping, object removal? Most likely no, unless it doesn't alter the general message. And of course, some photojournalists asked their subjects to pose on some certain situations with well-meaning intentions. Definitely lots of "subtleties" here. Well, I don't consider myself as a street photography enthusiast like few years ago, and my images are the way I intend them to be, not how I saw on the LCD/viewfinder.

This probably is simplistic and somewhat of a cliche, but I try to abide by the 80/20 rule, where at least 80% of the image was made as I saw it, in a once-in-a lifetime moment.

Fan Ho's image is the photographic equivalent of fiction in literature - and none the worse for that. Funch's images are brilliant social comments - and we can do with more of those....

As Bill Brandt said, "Photography has no rules; it is not a sport. It is the result which counts, no matter how it is achieved." I always believed that the aesthetic quality must be intrinsic to the image. The quality cannot come from some external factor the viewer may or may not be privy to. Having said that, it is often disappointing to learn that some magical moment in a photo never existed and was assembled from various bits and pieces on the computer.

Star trails made using digital cameras are almost always done using software that takes multiple to hundreds of images and creates the trails by connecting the dots, so to speak. We can never see the star trails in real life as they are depicted in a single photograph.

Street art photography vs street documentary photography imo neither one is the “right” way to do it. They’re different things and it’s up to the person behind the camera to decide what they wanna do/create. I do have a problem with people creating things and trying to pass them off as authentic.

That's why street photography should be captioned with the location at the very least....

Hello. I don't like digital photography, as it removes most of the preparation and creation of the image from the shooting process. Film photography is the mastery of technique, starting from vision and ending with development and printing. Digital photography lacks documentality, in fact, these are ordinary drawings using Photoshop. where there is no sense of proportion. Such a photo is designed to entertain people, which is why most said that changing the picture is creativity, they are waiting for something unusual. With the creation of Neural Networks, my dream of sharing classical photography with its big history and empty pictures began to come true. These are two completely different directions, and I believe that those who study photography will not recognize it without trying to develop an image on their own, feeling the Magic of turning an idea into a document Thank you, I adore black and white photography and watch all your programs.

People can debate the ethics and aesthetic merits of photo manipulation through Photoshop, AI or old-fashioned darkroom dodging and burning forever. But, I wonder, if photographers, like those featured in this video, clearly indicated that the amazing images they produced were produced, in large part, by technology and not how life spontaneously expressed itself, if those same images would have been so greatly admired. I know that I would admire them less.

If I want to view a movie, I can go to the theater. If I choose to capture real life, I can photograph the street. If someone left a beer bottle somewhere on the street and it works in a phone, I would shoot that image without turning or moving it in any direction. Adjusting that image after it is taken to achieve say better lighting, is not cheating, as the human eye can discern light variations far better than your camera, though I can see how it could be taken too far as well. Staging events is just good theatre. It appears that even the greats could not resist creating a scene, instead of filming real life. Those images should be set apart as a different classification than street photography. It is like a street portrait is just that - a portrait. - Loren

Photography is what I do.

A B&W image could be regarded as abstract, regardless of what’s done to it in post (as we don’t see the world that way). So why not use software to get an image looking the way you want it. Even Leica monochrome files often look completely flat & lifeless straight out of camera & need some tweaking. With regards to staged/composite/a.i, street shots - I think they only work when facial expressions are not key to an image.

Maybe it’s time to stop celebrating the perfect image, and start celebrating the imperfect image. Time to embrace the flaws of our photographs. Life is flawed and we are flawed. The flaws are where we find our humanity.

When I realized the ,majority of the photos I admired were edited or staged I was a little disappointed but it still required some creativity so it’s still art. However, AI generated photos are definitely cheating.

I so much want to be a purist and say you can’t manipulate photographs for it to carry artistic value, but I am afraid that’s not an winnable argument. Even before you press the shutter, we’re manipulating the scene, by where we stand, the angle, the time of day choice etc. How about use of flash? What about hair and make up? Manipulation is always there and has always been “the interpretation” of the artists, regardless of the art form. Did it jump the shark by proliferation of things like AI? Yes. Can we do something about it and “cancel” its existence? No. All I can expect and where I draw the line is not being lied to.

Nothing wrong with using photoshop. A lot of the things you can do in Photoshop could be done in a darkroom, it's just a bit trickier and a lot more fun doing it the old way in a darkroom but a h**l of a lot more comfortable to do it in Photoshop.

The problem is not whether the image is good or bad, if it fits into the (hard to define) definition of street photography. The problem is when you lie about it. If you used models and directed them to pose and position themselves in a particular situation, you can't then say it's a candid street photo. If the whole image was generated by the use of AI, don't say it's a photo. I think most people don't mind modern darkroom manipulation because it's too frequent nowadays that you'd adjust contrast, shadows, and highlights. Thus we don't expect it to be straight from camera. (If you edit your photo and then brag about it being straight from camera, then you're as in the wrong as the people who set up a scene and then call it candid)

Cheating. I've been a photographer for 50 years, never had photoshop. The great Peter Lindbergh once said "Photoshop should never have happened"

For me, minor adjustments e.g. Contrast, shadows and slight cropping are OK. Anything else e.g. Sky Replacement & object removal etc…….you are cheating…….YOURSELF!

Unless you are shooting black and white film or using a monochrome camera and your shots are black and white then you are manipulating the the shot. For me the results justify the means

If a photographer, particularly a street photographer, creates images using AI, does that make them any less of a photographer?🤔🤔🤔🤔

When you take a photo and your camera digitally manipulates the image as it sees fit, surely it's ok to post process the image to make it as near as possible to look like how you saw with your own eyes in terms of light, shade, colour, contrast etc? Wouldnt the image be a more honest representation of what you saw than what the camera initially gave you? (Sorry for the long sentences 😂)

Adjustments of highlights, shadows, tones etc from a shot you took is fine, but AI integration and putting it up as a photograph is cheating. There should be a separate understanding of a shot edited, and AI.

I never crop an image and only make minor lighting adjustments when I scan film. I believe that most of the process should be done within the camera (specifically for street photography).

with AI and photoshop's generative fills, digital photography has become meaningless