Whats wrong / right with this picture

Vads

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I used to dabble a little in photoshop but never really touched any of my pics with it. My opinion is anything other than sharpening / light touches is no longer classed as photography (my opinions actually grey where the boundaries are lol).

So i decided to have a go at editing a shot i took tonight.

Can you spot what i have done? did i go too far? what would you have done?


8507638783_c78936ff04_b.jpg


link EXIF
 
Nice image, I'm not sure what you've done, it's not strikingly obvious to me, but seems a lot of light on the horizon. Maybe combined a sunset with a moonlit sky?

I'm not sure the black bars add anything though.
 
Hate the bars tbh. Not a bad pic though.
 
Overlayed the moon with a shorter exposure for just the orb?
 
Definitely a composite I reckon - I'm going for the bottom half being a darkened version of the beach/water in sunlight - possibly sunrise/sunset with the evening moon shot superimposed to replace the backround and sky.

Black bars are pretty intrusive and especially with the water reflection merged with the bottom one...

Nicely done though

Jim
 
allymac123, spot on, I replaced the moon with shorter exposure.

other changes i added stars (photoshop dots varying opacity) and darkened contrast on bars on top / bottom.

I think it's morally wrong to do this much editing, but what are your thoughts?
 
TBH whilst I'm not in favour of "compositing" I think the replacement moon exposure is o.k. provided it's the same moon (and yes I know that we only have the one moon ;)) and not a totally different shot from elsewhere - everything else is fine for me except manufacturing the stars :)

Jim
 
It's a tricky one for me.

Firstly, I disagree with adding stars. If they weren't there or visible on the much brighter exposure then it's too much to add them. By adding them you are creating fictional constellations etc

I don't like the white bars but I view that as just a border effect and some people have a thing for borders.

By replacing the moon with that of a lower exposure you are only replicating what you likely saw when you were there and so are only using photoshop to overcome the dynamic range that your camera is able to capture. This is assuming that you did when at the scene take one exposure for the reflections and another for the moon itself.
I do think it's important to state what you have done to the image. By doing so any viewer will know if they tried to capture the same thing straight on to their camera they wouldn't be able to.
 
I think it's morally wrong to do this much editing, but what are your thoughts?

I think it's morally wrong to photoshop or stage a photo for a news story. I really can't see how morals come into this at all. What you've done here is no different to what people like Ansel Adams did in the darkroom.

If you photoshopped a mermaid in I wouldn't care though. As long as it was an interesting photo and decent photoshop skills what does it matter.
 
I do think it's important to state what you have done to the image. By doing so any viewer will know if they tried to capture the same thing straight on to their camera they wouldn't be able to.

I'm not sure why a photographer has any more obligation to present 'truth' than say a painter. I wouldn't expect to see a disclaimer next to a painting in a portrait gallery saying 'Actually a lot uglier in real life'
 
I'm not sure why a photographer has any more obligation to present 'truth' than say a painter. I wouldn't expect to see a disclaimer next to a painting in a portrait gallery saying 'Actually a lot uglier in real life'

+1x10 to the power of infinity :D

Art is art, news is news.
 
What i'm getting at is i can't pass the shot off as skill / talent or art as using a single tool (the camera) to produce beauty. It feels more a cheat to say yes i took the picture but it's actually 2 pictures glued together in a computer to create the final product.

The second I tell someone yes i took the picture but edited it on the computer afterwards feels like a cheat to me. Or do people omit the complete details and just say "yep i took that"?

PS the moon i used was taken from same spot at same time.
 
I'm not sure why a photographer has any more obligation to present 'truth' than say a painter. I wouldn't expect to see a disclaimer next to a painting in a portrait gallery saying 'Actually a lot uglier in real life'

Because a painting is what someone has drawn. It is what their brain has put on paper. It can be a complete work of fiction or it could be a study of something real. Painting is not the tool you use to reflect reality. Give 10 photographers the same camera and lighting the same distance from a pre-arranged subject and the photographs will be almost, if not exactly, identical. Give a group of painters the same paper, brushes, paints and tell them to paint the same subject and the results will be different. Certainly a lot less similar than the photographs.

People expect photographs to represent reality. The passport office wouldn't accept a painting but they do accept a photograph. Likewise you don't paint jewellery for your insurance you photograph it.

Photography is the record of light. To me that means as long as you are recording light you are within the aspects of photography. Ansel Adams adjusted the light in his photographs he didn't create scenes or parts of scenes.

If you want to go beyond recording light then I personally think you are no longer JUST a photographer producing a photograph. You are more than that. You are a photographer and digital artist too. Why would you not want celebrate that by telling people?
 
A digital artist, as I see it, is creating something which may be art (depending on the definition of art) but its artificial.
Photography is reality in my eyes and should be (my opinion). To manipulate the light, which is creating the photography, with lenses, sharp or blurred sections, a distinct bokeh or light temperature is OK though.
 
What i'm getting at is i can't pass the shot off as skill / talent or art as using a single tool (the camera) to produce beauty. It feels more a cheat to say yes i took the picture but it's actually 2 pictures glued together in a computer to create the final product.
I also used to have this opinion, but not so much now. Think of it in a different way. If you were standing looking at this scene your eyes would be able to see the moon pattern clearly, and at the same time be able to pick out the rest of the detail fully. The camera can only ever be a compromise to the power of your eyes, it has less dynamic range than your eyes have (well its a little more complicated than that as your eyes actually flit round a scene registering detail, but you get my meaning). What you have done is try to represent the scene as your eyes saw it at the time. Just because you needed to use 2 digital images to do it is neither here nor there, really.

A different example. If someone shot 2 exposures on a single section of film to get an abstract image, is that any different to using 2 images overlayed in photoshop ? Photographers have pushed boundaries and used what is available to get the image they want since the start.

I think that for me is the key - I can do whatever I want to get the image I want. Morals don't come into it (unless you are trying to win a competition under false pretences for example).
 

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