how valid is photoshop...?

There are no arguments. Only amateurs argue over this stuff. Professional photographers and artists are using photoshop and no one cares. Its just one more tool in your bag.
 
Even some amatuers use it or similar post processing apps, with no qualms. How are they otherwise going to emulate darkroom techniques long used? Or are they also up for debate?
 
I think there ARE increasing arguments, even among pro users. PS was not originally for photographers so much as the print preparation industry andn they have only hung onto their market slot by constantly uprading. This has lead to a massively complex product that pro photographers are now seeing has some important gaps despite even more expensive 'add-on' items such as 'Lightroom' etc. To take just one exmple; the RAW coverter is often not the best for a particular camera sytem so serious photogs need a separate piece of software for that despite the huge size and cost of PS.

As a separate issue Adobe software is not exactly friendly, in fact it's a bit of a monster.
 
I gather we're talking post processing software generally and not just Adobe photoshop?

I certainly have no issue with it ... as Chris says just another tool for a photographer to use!
 
Digital images shot to RAW formats always require some adjustment. It would be a conceit to claim otherwise.

I guess those with the necessary skills all set our own personal boundaries regarding how much we feel we should interfere with an image.

When I do photography in relation to my job anything goes. It's mostly product or corporate and the pressure is on to make it look as perfect as possible (though I must state that I try to get it right at the time of pressing the shutter as it can save me hours when retouching).

However I do have boundaries when doing my personal work. Partially because I feel the images must be honest and also because retouching frankly bores me.

I don't feel the need to tell anyone where I draw the line or to tell others where to.
Although I don't keep secret what I've done to an image if asked.

Surely the only area where this kind of question is even relevant is in journalism, a medium in which honesty was a burning issue before the camera was invented.
 
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I think the blogger's point was that you shouldn't take an attitude that good photography is made in PS, rather than in the mind and camera. I think that is true. You can't remake all mistakes in PS any more than you can in the darkroom. After all, how much of PS is just a digital way of doing what was done in the darkroom. It is just less expensive overall in PS. You only waste time, not chemicals and paper.

In the darkroom, different developers and developing times; then contrast of printing paper, dodging, burning, bleaching, etc. But to constantly decide to just get an image and fix it in the darkroom isn't going to get you a lot of good prints. Same with PS.
 
cat amongst the pidgeons.

i use photoshop for all my post processing although i shoot a comb of film and digital. check out my link to my current work...

www.cameraman.carbonmade.com be worksafe, if you dare.

without photoshop...and some hand drawn analogue filter overlays not available in photoshop... i rely on and use it as a post processing tool. and sometimes even think about photoshop when i am shooting or planning a shoot.

as for the cat, i find that in this forum there are rarely any grey matter mindsets...either right or wrong, is or isn't. i was interested in reading this blog, sent to me by a former student, as it seemed to emulate the black and white opinions. thus over to the pidgeons.

photoshop is part of us, now. it has become an art process. i was introduced to it as part of an inservice training when i taught design at melbourne university back in the days of Version 1 for Mac and it came on a floppy disc set.

my method of working is to create A3 transparency overlays on acetate, drawn and textured by hand, then overlaid onto a digital or wet-process printout and then re-scanned and tweaked in photoshop. then spat out on A3+ and larger, via photoshop. but it wont be long before my overlays become jpegs and it is all done on the monitor.

analogue vs digital meets an argument of ideologies, digital likely to win for the type of work i do. but i do still like the purity of knowing i have done the odd wet print that has only been dodged and burned. nothing like a meter-read good exposure to start with.

i have my health and my memories. i've been at this game as a pro for over 40 years. photoshop is indeed part of the toolbox. much as the camera is a machine for grabbing a spot of light.

that was an enjoyable exercise. i wonder where it will go.

cat or pidgeons...?

-dd
 
yep, i just read the blog fully also and beaten by oftheherd. The blogger was not inflicting boundaries on anyone,

I think the blogger's point was that you shouldn't take an attitude that good photography is made in PS, rather than in the mind and camera. I think that is true

Thats what i got out of it using the english i know
 
>PS was not originally for photographers so much as the print preparation industry andn
>they have only hung onto their market slot by constantly uprading.

It was bundled with the first Kodak DSLR's in the 90s. It had the TWAIN driver bundled with it as well, for communicating with the camera. That was Photoshop version 3.0. I started using it with Digital cameras at work long before using it with scanned film files.
 
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pakeha said:
yep, i just read the blog fully also and beaten by oftheherd. The blogger was not inflicting boundaries on anyone,

I think the blogger's point was that you shouldn't take an attitude that good photography is made in PS, rather than in the mind and camera. I think that is true

Thats what i got out of it using the english i know
Click to expand...

well that looks a wee bit like a boundary to me, why should it not be?

Bob; I have a compulsion to make it clear on photos I’ve altered in post production that I couldn’t do in a darkroom
 
I don't think photoshop has made a whit of difference (and I use Photoshop every day). There is as much bad photography as ever and as little really good photography. Just the tools have changed. However, I think that trying to limit "photography" to the part involving the original framing and click of the shutter completely misses the essence of the art.
 
Brian Sweeney said:
>PS was not originally for photographers so much as the print preparation industry andn
>they have only hung onto their market slot by constantly uprading.

It was bundled with the first Kodak DSLR's in the 90s. It had the TWAIN driver bundled with it as well, for communicating with the camera. That was Photoshop version 3.0. I started using it with Digital cameras at work long before using it with scanned film files.
Click to expand...

those were the days! photo-paint and photo-shop bringing ones computer to a standstill of conflict resolution
 
Sparrow said:
Bob; I have a compulsion to make it clear on photos I’ve altered in post production that I couldn’t do in a darkroom
Click to expand...

Ah ha, another boundary!

But seriously, I don't really go any further than electronic 'darkroom' techniques (a comfortably vague term) on my personal stuff, though if I did I may feel a similar compulsion.
 
I've been using Photoshop since version 1.07, back in 1990 or 91 on my Mac. Used it for newspaper ad design mostly, though. Didn't really start using it for photos until the late 90's.
 
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Image corrections, such as eliminating Red Eye from a Photo, can be found in books teaching advanced darkroom technique and image restoration technique. Techniques for adding people into group portraits have been around for over a century. I tend to limit myself to using Photoshop for my scanned images to eliminate dust and scratches, and to correct color and contrast in the same style that I would do in a darkroom by selecting polycontrast filters. Much beyond that, I need to write my own software to accomplish the goal.
 
Sparrow said:
those were the days! photo-paint and photo-shop bringing ones computer to a standstill of conflict resolution
Click to expand...

I preferred Photostyler 1.1. Had a much better user interface, and allowed you to switch back and forth between the TWAIN driver and the image Editor. To bad it got bumped off early on.
 
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