Is it "OK" to do this?

[squirrel$$$bandit]

So I like to keep my film photos fairly natural. I generally just scan, import into Lightroom, straighten & crop, then adjust blacks and whites, and possibly the vibrance and saturation VERY slightly, for color photos. I might also "heal" away the dust marks in PS.

I'm a sucker for the black frame that scanning (and printing!) from negatives can leave around the edges of the photo. I love its unevenness and softness. Sometimes if one side doesn't have a black frame after a scan--that is, if the frame area is exactly even with the film holder--I'll fill in that edge back in, in black, with a slightly soft brush.

But today I started doing something a little more fake...I took a couple of crooked images (lakeside scenes, and nothing looks worse crooked than a lake), straightened and cropped....

....and then painted the ENTIRE black frame back in. They look terrific, but I know it's not the "real" frame. Of course, I really did scan it from a negative, and the real frame WAS there...but it's not the one you're seeing in the photos. In fact, I even rounded the corners a little to match the original frame.

How much of this kind of tarting-up do you consider "acceptable"?

 

[J J Kapsberger]

If the result is nice, it's acceptable. I keep an open mind. Can you post your image?

 

[lZr]

If you have flatbad scanner, you may want more, like this one

Put the neg on the glass and frame the result after scan

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

I do have a flatbed scanner, but I get Newton Rings when I put stuff on the glass...

Here are a couple of pics...the one with the chickens has the real frame; the one of the lake has the fake one. Both are Contax G1 / Fuji Neopan, BTW

 

[visiondr]

Cheater, cheater pumpkin eater... 😛

Seriously, though, there are no rules, really. It's art, not photojournalism. That's the dividing line for me.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Yeah...I kind of know the answer for me...I feel fine about it. But it gave me pause...

 

[CK Dexter Haven]

I gotta say, as an art director, i find them to be horrific.

I don't mind a natural, organic frame, caused by printing with an enlarger with a filed holder. But, the 'added' straight lines are just ugly. My personal opinion, clearly - but they always remind me of high school yearbooks in the 70s and 80s. "Put a border on it!" Ick. In the samples posted above (no offense), i'm distracted, and my eye gives far too much weight to the line, and less to the image. It's sorta like putting a frame around a photograph without using a matte to isolate the image FROM the frame.

Don't get me started on the full sprocket holes sample shown above.... I don't know where i'm supposed to look there. The film used is given more prominence than the figures and scenery....

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Well, for me, part of looking at, and enjoying, an image is the artifacts of the technology that created it. This is one of the things we like about different film formulations, different lens coatings, etc., right? When we see a daugerrotype, for instance, the distortion introduced by the primitive technology is part of the appeal. We're glad that William Eggleston uses dye transfer prints instead of C-prints, and we appreciate the difference between Diane Arbus's square-frame TLR pictures and her Lecia pictures.

In music, we might like the saturated sound of analog tape, or the scratches from a record. (And maybe in fifty years kids will dig the hideous aliased cymbals of today's low-sampling-rate mp3's...) Anyway, I see the frame in that light. They remind you that you're looking at a photo--that there was a physical hole through which the light poured onto the film, and the frame represents the edges of that hole. So when I had to sacrifice it in order to straighten the horizon, I really felt as though I LOST something. I lost a little of the "photographiness." And this was an effort to add it back.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

I should also add that I can see not being into the frame in the near future. I'm sure I will want my pictures to look less artifact-y at times. Now, though, I'm trying out a lot of different cameras and films and comparing them...and so for now, the technology is really important to me.

 

[dazedgonebye]

Who do you need to approve?
If I say no, will you promise not to do it?

Please yourself and/or please your audience. Personally, I don't mind being fooled. I do mind someone trying to fool me and not succeeding.

 

[CK Dexter Haven]

"....And this was an effort to add it back."

I can follow your rationalization, with regard to music, and 'vintage' photography and what are currently 'alternative processes.' But, those are 'native,' inherent artifacts - scratches, pops, distortions. Or, sloppy polaroid edges, etc. But, this is sorta like adding phony record scratches to a recording. Or, faking a Hasselblad notched frame. Sorta. And, i've done both of those things, as an experiment. But, again, it's false. So, when you're recreating "the light poured onto the film, and the frame represents the edges of that hole," by making a linear, computer-generated line, i don't see how that equates to light pouring onto film. I don't see how that recreates the moment of making the photograph. And, if you were printing it 'for real,' the line wouldn't look like that. So, this Photoshop rule has no context for me. It just seems out of place and forced.

As i said, it reminds me of designing yearbooks in high school. This was in the early/mid 80s, and it was all mechanical. We had spools of thin black tape.... And, the rationalization was that you wanted to separate the photo from the page.... It really was only 'necessary' if the photo had white areas on the edges, but whatever - it was just a generally applied rule. And, now, if you look back at those yearbooks, they're horrid. In contrast, look at any contemporary photography book designed by a competent art director. The look is so much cleaner.

The phrase i learned from my graphic design mentor: Honor The Photograph.

But, hey, you're certainly supposed to do what pleases you. After all, HCB's pictures in books typically have some fine black border. Perhaps that's part of the reason why i don't like his images. It's definitely a major reason why i despise the way his books look.... You only have to please yourself. Until you need to publish, display, or sell your work. Then, you have to please an art director or curator. Worry about it then.

 

[smiling gecko]

it is "ok"

it is "ok"

it is absolutley, positively "ok"... oops, then again who am i to say that?

it's your image, your vision, and it's the outcome you like.

the opinions of others are as important or as insignificant as you choose to regard them. an old saw holds "one man's treasure is another's garbage". so it goes with art, critics and opinions.

enjoy, enjoy, enjoy...and to the rest: ne vous inquitez pas a son sujet.

take care,

kenneth
NEVER FORGET BESLAN
www.neverforgetbeslan

p.s. as it was said so well by rick nelson in the song 'garden party' :
"You can't please everyone, so you got to please yourself . . ."

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Who do you need to approve?
If I say no, will you promise not to do it?

Of course not! I was just trying to spark discussion.

CK Dexter, I hear where you're coming from. I think you're right--it's like slapping a scratchy-record plugin onto a track. That said, some kinds of fakeness...can be kinda nice.

That said, you've more or less convinced me that you're right. I think I'll leave the next roll borderless up on my flickr page and see how they look. (And BTW, I have never added a frame to a digital photo...that'd be too corny even for me.)

But I'm surprised you feel so strongly. Does a border really, honestly ruin a photo for you?

 

[David Goldfarb]

Including the film rebate says, "this image was composed this way using this format in the camera." Sometimes this motif is called the "verification border," and it is making a claim about the truth of what the lens saw. If you're comfortable saying "this image was composed this way using this format in the camera" when the truth is otherwise, then that's up to you, but for it to be an interesting artistic choice, I think it should be a conscious one. Art lies.

When the film rebate is Photoshopped in for advertising, it sometimes creates amusing situations, like formats that don't exist or images that are inconsistent with the suggested format.

I've read that Avedon's portraits were heavily manipulated (not unusual for large format portraiture, but he also had access to techniques more associated with commercial photography like masking and stripping), and sometimes that included adjusting the film rebate, so it's not strictly a digital issue.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Sometimes this motif is called the "verification border," and it is making a claim about the truth of what the lens saw. If you're comfortable saying "this image was composed this way using this format in the camera" when the truth is otherwise, then that's up to you, but for it to be an interesting artistic choice, I think it should be a conscious one. Art lies.

I think that's really, really well put. Ultimately, then, my tree/lake photo above is fundamentally dishonest, while the chicken one isn't, even though they look more or less the same.

 

[Tom A]

The famous "black edge" purism on photos is strange. The rangefinder cameras has a less than exact view of what you get, so I tend to shoot for a bit more and crop later. In "wet" darkroom I try to keep my shots with the black line, mainly because they are usually printed for publication or just for me. Nothing to do with being pure, just being lazy having to move the enlarger head up/down or adjust the easel blades.
Having worked for newspapers and magzines, you spend an inordinate time to make the perfect print, black lines and all, only to have a picture editor taking scissors to it and "crop"!
I would like to do it in Lightroom, but I havent figured out how! The adjustment for contrast and spotting is about as far as I have managed in one year.
On a screen the black line "lifts" the image a bit and separates it from the background. One day I will figure it out!

 

[titrisol]

Sometimes black frames just look right...
I used to add them by having large black cardboard pieces that I had cut roughly
After exposing the picture right, I exposed one "corner" of the black frame,
then the other for a few seconds (enough for deep black) and presto!

 

[MikeCassidy]

You can also scan a nice frame in and then use that on all your images - paste them into a layer. That is what we do on my magazine.

 

[MikeCassidy]

BTW I do not know what 'natural' means; if 'wet' print would that mean you would not burn and dodge? never use to developers, only use contrast 2.5 paper etc??