CarlottaChampagne wrote:
I just had to throw this video into a photoshop thread. I think photoshop is an amazing tool when used properly. When not... oy vey.

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheRagMagRejects

Is what your saying no one in the real world would recognise you as your images are all P'Shopped.

GingerMuse wrote:
it's Facebook. people just love to talk shit.

All depends who your friends are.

As Brian has stated, 'These are people on Facebook, not necessarily MM members'.
Some are industry professionals.

Ed Woodson Photography wrote:
On another Forum I frequent, there's a guy who give all of the portrait/Glamour photographers untold grief about their re-touching.

His work is just about all landscape photography and he is the most prolific user of HDR of ever seen.

Another poster called him out on it one day and his reply was.  "HDR is not retouching, it's enhancing the image."

Go figure.

MCPHOTO wrote:
What I find interesting is most of them say there should be no retouching at all.That photography should all happen in the camera shouldn't be altered like the old days before digital. They forget that people have been touching up photos to an extent long before digital came around.

True!!  This shows their ignorance.

Gary Melton wrote:
I'm an artistic photographer, and retouching/editing is a part of my art.  IMHO, retouching/editing is every bit as valid as the photography itself.

I think of it like this: a painter/artist does both steps in one - they "take" the picture in their mind, then put their "interpretation" of what they see onto the canvas...so, the painter actually "retouches/edits" as they paint.

Painters aren't criticized for portraying a subject differently than reality...why should photographers?

Exactly! I just barely replied to a comment someone made about how people need to just shoot and leave the photo as-is. And no surprise, I would never shoot with that guy based on what I saw of his work. I love to retouch, and photomanipulations are my favorite, and the whole point of a manip is to create a completely different image. Not just any jerk off the street can use photoshop or have an eye for tweaking an image. I like to look at each photo as a whole when it comes to art. The photographer, the hair and makeup, the llama, and the retoucher all come together to collaborate and make this beautiful work of art. It doesn't make it any less artistic just because it isn't the raw shot straight from the camera!

GRAF wrote:
I was taught in college how to retouch on the negative and on the print. Not to mention how to dodge and burn. Old analog techniques have become new age digital techniques.

The only people that complain either are too lazy to learn or are ignorant of the fact that it has always been done.

^^ This, in a nut shell.

Zorka wrote:
There is no such thing as too much or too little retouching. There is ONLY good and bad retouching.

Light and Lens Studio wrote:
Crap

I have to agreed with the "Crap" comment!

In my opinion and only my opinion, way to may times the "retouching is way too much and the results are plastic looking skin and pictures that now longer look anything like a photograph.

My personal opinion on "retouching" is the removal of scars & blemishes and the like not to completely change the photograph to something that, often times, no longer looks real at all.

Laura Bello wrote:
...
Are people really not used to retouching in photography?...

Maybe they are so used to it they are tired of it.  A "model" is an idealization.  Some people find beauty in other forms.

If someone is criticizing work where the name of the game is to make someone look like a model, then the criticism is out of place.  For general portraiture, if the facial editing catches your attention, then it was too much.

ForeverFotos wrote:

Yep, the people who usually complain the most about photoshop usage are the people who don't know how to use it. Go figure.

This [/thread]

Check out war photographer Eugene Smith who spent weeks in his photo lab dodging and burning 1 photo. It's all been done before, but now it's either ("It's not a photo anymore") or ("Photoshop sucks").. These same people go see movies like Jurassic park with so much CGI in it, the actors could probably stay home.

Anytime a photo is taken, it is no longer real. Film changes color saturations (Velvia = green, Kodachrome = Red), and digitals do the same thing (with their scene settings, sharpness, etc)..

Stop the insanity