Is it just my imagination or are there more and more images that are displaying such a degree of 'vibrancy' and 'saturation' so as to take away any vestige of the natural? I don't mean those fantastic images which have been deliberately adjusted in the name of art but, those images of sky, or mountains, etc. which, frankly are verging on the ridiculous!
I know I can be really cranky but is it really just me that's noticing this?
Yes, saturation and sharpness seem to apply across the board these days however photographers at all levels have been "cheating" (i.e. manipulating) photographs since the year dot (just look at good old fashioned dodging and burning or using different papers and chemicals in the darkroom, for instance) so I just let it ride.
I agree with both of you. Yes photographers have always manipulated, but lately, to me, many photos are wayyyy over saturated. I think our society is training ourselves to need overstimulation and we are no longer satisfied or even pleased with natural. I.e. Sugar, action movies, roller coasters and color saturation.
Why isn't a beautiful sunset enough any more?
@creampuff@tigerdreamer
Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favour of editing and manipulating images but there does seem to be rather a lot that end up with colours that have become almost 'High Viz' if you know what I mean.
Subtlety seem to have gone.
@bighotch Yup I'm with you. I'm no expert in editing by any means but personally I find myself doing pretty minimal editing most of the time. I'm all for subtle edits, mostly to get a little closer to what the eye sees, or enhance things slightly, but I don't have much time for way overdone images. My personal pet hates are HDR and probably over-saturation too.
I think we are all being a little cranky on this topic. :)
@aliha It's *bad* HDR that I think you are reacting to. And yes, there is a bit much of that. The challenge is to produce the HDR, or the edit (manipulation if you really must) and to have the viewer not say "What a great HDR!" Or edit, or color, or... but rather "What a great photograph!"
@creampuff@tigerdreamer Over-saturation? Clumsy over-sharpening (those nasty edges)? Yes, I agree people are sometimes careless, but I think those folks are just entranced by the fact that *good* use of these tools can make so much difference. In a very real sense they are not editing enough! Not taking enough time and enough care to smooth it all out and blend it properly.
I've always been moved by bold colors (van Gogh & co.), and not just in photography. So, now that I'm deeply into the hobby, that's how I roll. Definitely not a fan of some of the editing I see on here, and I know not everybody is a fan of MY editing, but that's what's so great about this site! "My project, my rules" is something I learned early-on here. I don't like "criticizing" other peoples' work unless they outright ask for it. But, I take everything in nonetheless. I hope I'm open enough to learn from the masters, the neophytes and everybody in-between. My sage advice to you, Stephen, is if you don't like it, skip it! Have a great week! ;)
Maybe it's your monitor or the monitor of the photographer that posted the photo. It's not like printed photos where we'd pretty much see the same thing (assuming we had the same genetics, were the same age, and viewed it in the same lighting conditions).
The same photo viewed on my calibrated monitor looks different viewed on my laptop (in powersave mode), and very different from my cell phone. The highlights, color saturation and luminosity change depending on capabilities of the technology you are using to view them.
IMO there's too much technology involved for their to be any concept of "natural" remaining. There's the camera, the camera settings, the monitor/device used to edit them, the settings used to export/save them, the monitor/device used to view. Not to mention the compressed algorithms used to upload them to the server where others can view them.
Personally, I love the look of bokeh but it is entirely unnatural. Our eyes do not do that. Anything above or below f/5.6 is unnatural. We don't see everything in focus either. Photos of landscapes or street photography at f/22 drive me crazy. First thought is "this IS NOT what the photographer saw." Humans don't process visual information this way.
Don't get me started on B&W! What are we cats?!
For the most part I'm kidding. I hope you get my point. Natural is dead. It suffocated beneath layers of technology but art and perspective live on.
I know when I first discovered all the digital effects you could inflict on photos I went over the top for a while with chrome and HDR and the like, now I look back at my first monthly boards and cringe a bit at the gilded lilies I produced. I think it is part of the learning process.
I am not a fan of enhancing images to make them stunningly bright as what I see in the countryside just doesn't look like that and I've noticed that some people seem to be making their birds overly colourful and not like the real thing. I suppose it is up to the person posting them but I think birds are very beautiful without the need to over saturate them.
The project belongs to the photographer. If they want to use high HDR or saturation, that's up to them. I almost always increase the saturation. I like it that way. I love bold colors. If you want to do your project SOOC, then go for it. I post SOOC sometimes, too.
Personally for me, this happened for 2 main reasons...
1. We're just trying to recapture the scene as we saw it... what we get out of the camera really doesnt have the same impact that the scene did at the time so we set about recreating it but sometimes going over the top
2. Its a part in someone's journey through photography. I remember when I first found out about the various tools and was like.. wow! So i kept doing it but then after a while I realised that these images just looked.... plastic. Same too with HDR.
Cheers Stephen... Well maybe it's a fault memory of what the scene looked like :)
Our eyes have a greater dynamic range than cameras do so I was always trying to make it look as vibrant as it was on the day...
I'll put myself up as an example... In my first year I HDR'd the cr@p out of things
I very much understand your point and where you're coming from, out of all processing techniques I think its undebatable that the one done the most often unnaturally is HDR followed by over saturation, and over sharpening / clarity.
I think though it stems from the fact that photography is an individual journey that for each has its own unique path, speed, and destination. Most make at least a brief stop at HDR, over-saturation, over-sharpening, selective color, etc. A few may skip right over some of these popular to the masses processing techniques, while others may linger for a while or even end up choosing it as their chosen style.
I also think it stems from the desire to produce something "different" upon reaching other limitations. It's difficult to come up with fresh images that "haven't been done a million times before" if a photographer is limited in spending as long as it takes trying different compositions and angles of view or is not comfortable creating their own light (reflectors, strobes, etc). But with the incredible range of processing techniques, filters, presets and software available now to the masses, one can transform a "snapshot" into something unique and artful by dragging some sliders around or venturing into the world of compositing. And I don't see anything wrong with that, it is just where that photographer's journey has taken them.
Wrap it all up in the fact that for some reason, the processing techniques you mentioned are still pleasing to the masses even though many photographers feel HDR needs to just go away along with selective color and other outdated looks. Finally, I personally try to adhere to my standard approach produce vibrant but natural images (and always when doing client work). But every once in a while I do like to take one of my own personal images, get on the artistic processing train and see where it takes me. It's all part of the journey.
@dbj totally agree but as an aside, there are some now using HDR very smartly for wedding images. Look at Lin & Jirsa weddings for example... Resultant images look only a bit overlooked from a landscape perspective and the portrait part if it looks great
@toast Yes I follow Lin & Jirsa, some amazing work. In particular I closely follow Pye. The thing is, Pye produces incredible images that I bet many photographers would assume *must* be HDR and they are not, they are just wonderfully balanced strobe/ambient. (I'm not saying that's the case for you, they have in fact done actual HDR and I'm sure that's what you're referring to.) From following Pye, I gathered that Pye doesn't really care for HDR unless that's truly the best viable option...but I could be mistaken. That said, yes, they've put some HDR images out there and I've seen them on their blog and such. I'm mixed emotions about them. When viewing its clearly evident they are HDR, but they're not over the top. But we're talking leaders of the pack here, I would expect nothing but properly produced HDR from these photographers. Unfortunately it's all the rest who try to copy them and miserably fail, or don't know how to properly light a scene so use HDR to "fake it" that ruin it.
But bottom line, I support anyone's choice to utilize any technique of their choice and I would not personally criticize their work as "inferior" if it doesn't emotionally impact me because I know photography is an art and as such is subjective. But I would have to maintain that I think HDR is the most abused technique in so far as using it as originally intended...i.e. to increase the dynamic range of an image, and is now more of an art form in the arena of detail.
@dbj yeah i agree that HDR is definitely abused... Actually I was referring specifically to Pye... He's great in that he's taken alot of various lighting techniques / composites and used it to his advantage in weddings. I was in his workshop in the bahamas where he composited an image near the fountain using 2 strobes to light the room in separate locations and then composited it together.
What he does is set a 2 stop HDR, and then processes it lightly... and then copies the properly exposed image as a layer and uses this to paint over the couple... Heres one we prepared earlier :) Its not exact but alot cleaner than normal i think
But youre right.. this other one we shot was NOT HDR but bringing more of a fashion feel / lighting into a wedding image :
@toast Nice, I've been wanting to attend one of his workshops! So far I've just checked out a few of his workshop videos, maybe the time will be right that I can attend one in person. Your HDR looks very nicely balanced, well done!
@dbj well he's going to be in the bahamas for the fstoppers workshops next week i think... you could always go. Its like a 30 minute flight from miami :)
@bighotch Straight out of Camera - i.e. the Jpeg image delivered by the camera with no further processing of any kind. Some people equate this to a pure unprocessed image which is clearly not the case: manufacturers are not slow to push the advantages of their latest processing engine.
What I see is what you get ! As much as there are some Stunning Pictures posted here and full credit to all of the many very talented Photographers who exhibit their great work on 365. Altered in anyway to make the picture better is fine with me if thats what the person who took the picture wants to do. After all its their work, their project.
As for me its early days and I'm just happy to post a picture of what I see when I took the photo. I'm not into altering, bar some cropping and the use of an enhancement facility on my computer occasionally.
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Why isn't a beautiful sunset enough any more?
Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favour of editing and manipulating images but there does seem to be rather a lot that end up with colours that have become almost 'High Viz' if you know what I mean.
Subtlety seem to have gone.
@aliha It's *bad* HDR that I think you are reacting to. And yes, there is a bit much of that. The challenge is to produce the HDR, or the edit (manipulation if you really must) and to have the viewer not say "What a great HDR!" Or edit, or color, or... but rather "What a great photograph!"
@creampuff @tigerdreamer Over-saturation? Clumsy over-sharpening (those nasty edges)? Yes, I agree people are sometimes careless, but I think those folks are just entranced by the fact that *good* use of these tools can make so much difference. In a very real sense they are not editing enough! Not taking enough time and enough care to smooth it all out and blend it properly.
But it is what it is, and I'm a big believer in "whatever floats your boat".
I try and do whatever I think the image calls for. But I'm more likely to do B&W that highly saturated. But you will find both in my portfolio.
The same photo viewed on my calibrated monitor looks different viewed on my laptop (in powersave mode), and very different from my cell phone. The highlights, color saturation and luminosity change depending on capabilities of the technology you are using to view them.
IMO there's too much technology involved for their to be any concept of "natural" remaining. There's the camera, the camera settings, the monitor/device used to edit them, the settings used to export/save them, the monitor/device used to view. Not to mention the compressed algorithms used to upload them to the server where others can view them.
Personally, I love the look of bokeh but it is entirely unnatural. Our eyes do not do that. Anything above or below f/5.6 is unnatural. We don't see everything in focus either. Photos of landscapes or street photography at f/22 drive me crazy. First thought is "this IS NOT what the photographer saw." Humans don't process visual information this way.
Don't get me started on B&W! What are we cats?!
For the most part I'm kidding. I hope you get my point. Natural is dead. It suffocated beneath layers of technology but art and perspective live on.
1. We're just trying to recapture the scene as we saw it... what we get out of the camera really doesnt have the same impact that the scene did at the time so we set about recreating it but sometimes going over the top
2. Its a part in someone's journey through photography. I remember when I first found out about the various tools and was like.. wow! So i kept doing it but then after a while I realised that these images just looked.... plastic. Same too with HDR.
Commend you for that man, nothing wrong with improving on nature (that's tongue in cheek).
Nice hat, by the way!
I think Vera (@vera365) Sam (@samzee) would love some of your pics!
Our eyes have a greater dynamic range than cameras do so I was always trying to make it look as vibrant as it was on the day...
I'll put myself up as an example... In my first year I HDR'd the cr@p out of things
I think though it stems from the fact that photography is an individual journey that for each has its own unique path, speed, and destination. Most make at least a brief stop at HDR, over-saturation, over-sharpening, selective color, etc. A few may skip right over some of these popular to the masses processing techniques, while others may linger for a while or even end up choosing it as their chosen style.
I also think it stems from the desire to produce something "different" upon reaching other limitations. It's difficult to come up with fresh images that "haven't been done a million times before" if a photographer is limited in spending as long as it takes trying different compositions and angles of view or is not comfortable creating their own light (reflectors, strobes, etc). But with the incredible range of processing techniques, filters, presets and software available now to the masses, one can transform a "snapshot" into something unique and artful by dragging some sliders around or venturing into the world of compositing. And I don't see anything wrong with that, it is just where that photographer's journey has taken them.
Wrap it all up in the fact that for some reason, the processing techniques you mentioned are still pleasing to the masses even though many photographers feel HDR needs to just go away along with selective color and other outdated looks. Finally, I personally try to adhere to my standard approach produce vibrant but natural images (and always when doing client work). But every once in a while I do like to take one of my own personal images, get on the artistic processing train and see where it takes me. It's all part of the journey.
Natural Images - now what's wrong with that?
But then again I don't see what's wrong with a bit of editing... :)
But bottom line, I support anyone's choice to utilize any technique of their choice and I would not personally criticize their work as "inferior" if it doesn't emotionally impact me because I know photography is an art and as such is subjective. But I would have to maintain that I think HDR is the most abused technique in so far as using it as originally intended...i.e. to increase the dynamic range of an image, and is now more of an art form in the arena of detail.
What he does is set a 2 stop HDR, and then processes it lightly... and then copies the properly exposed image as a layer and uses this to paint over the couple... Heres one we prepared earlier :) Its not exact but alot cleaner than normal i think
But youre right.. this other one we shot was NOT HDR but bringing more of a fashion feel / lighting into a wedding image :
As for me its early days and I'm just happy to post a picture of what I see when I took the photo. I'm not into altering, bar some cropping and the use of an enhancement facility on my computer occasionally.