Finding it more difficult to distinguish 'photoshopped' images vs. originals?

[uphereinmytree]

I use photoshop often and like to think of it in terms of legitimacy. Dodging and burning is done as analog or digital and is legitimate when used to overcome shortcomings of film or paper etc., but when it's done to overcome shortcomings of a photographer, then I feel it's illegitimate. Also, some digital post processing results in ridiculous looking images that seem illegitimate. Most people don't have the privilege of encountering truly fine prints so the bar is set ever lower by quick clicks in software, phone cameras and instagram. I recently encountered a photographer who was selling prints where the overexposed sky was pulled back into range with little regard to the alarmingly obvious horizon transition. People were buying and the prints weren't cheap.

[Nathan Potter]

The degree of "Photoshopping"or any other manipulations of reality in photographic prints has never bothered me; I enjoy the creativeness. Manipulations of reality pervade all other forms of art - sometimes in the extreme.

Possibly in the case of heavily "Photoshopped" images, inkjet or giclee should be replaced with Mixed Media as the medium descriptor.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[Ken Lee]

I have no idea what you mean by "photoshopped." That's about as meaningful a verb as saying a print was "darkroomed."

Yes !

The original question contains an implicit supposition that photographs which come from a darkroom (enlarged ? contact printed ?) are inherently more direct or objective - and that being more objective is better. With all due respect, that may be an incomplete view.

I stumbled across this today while going through a Zone VI Newsletter from 1978:

Picaso was once told, "That doesn't look like a fish" to which he replied "it's not a fish, it's a drawing of a fish". When someone told him "I have never seen a sunset like that" he said "What a pity."

[Ari]

Making an image is in and of itself a manipulation, if I were to really extrapolate.

"All photographs are accurate, none is the truth."

[DanK]

I have no idea what you mean by "photoshopped." That's about as meaningful a verb as saying a print was "darkroomed." It can mean anything from minor sharpening to the most extreme manipulations possible and thousands of things in between.

I was considering more severe manipulations of the actual content of a scene, ie. permanent fixture or element altered or removed from a scene - where unless an individual was familiar with the reality of the actual scene - wouldn't know (and not stated otherwise).

[Mark Stahlke]

I use photoshop often and like to think of it in terms of legitimacy.

I prefer the word authenticity. I recall reading a story by an artist who was proud of all the research he had put into creating a digital daguerreotype. He made a print that looked just like a daguerreotype. And yet his print had all the authenticity of a genuine fake Rolex, it was not a daguerreotype and never would be.

[tgtaylor]

Photoshopping: Photo manipulation (also called Photoshopping or --before the rise of Photoshop software-- airbrushing) is the application of image editing techniques to photographs in order to create an illusion or deception (in contrast to mere enhancement or correction), through analog or digital means.[1] Websters Dictionary.

Recently I showed a B&W darkroom print of a barn that I shot with a soft-fucus lens on film and everyone assumed that it was "photoshopped." They were shocked when I told them that it was film!

Thomas

[Ken Lee]

I remember seeing an original print of Ansel Adams "Winter Sunrise from Lone Pine, 1944" back in 1974. If you looked closely, you could see that every print had to be retouched to remove a large sign from the side of the hill.

There's a nice video here on Youtube which shows Ansel printing that photo, burning in the sky quite heavily. As far as I know, he never changed the title of the photo to reflect the strong "photoshopping" which went into its making. The first 8 words of the video are "He manipulated the work tremendously in the darkroom."

We all get to draw the line wherever we like: burning, dodging, retouching, choice of camera and lens, choice of film and developer, how the image is framed and lit... ad infinitum.

[Peter Lewin]

I think the real problem is defining what a "photograph" is. Already very early in the history of photography, it was common to use the sky from one negative, combined with the remainder of a scene from a second negative. But since these were collodion or albumen prints, no one said "that is not a photograph." Then we have some of the surrealists who really started to manipulate prints, probably a continuum up to Jerry Uelsmann, who constructed his "photographs" on multiple enlargers. But since we are still talking about silver prints, there wasn't any question that these were indeed photographs. But somehow when we got to Photoshop and ink-jet printers, the definition started to become more fluid, and one can question whether an image made up from multiple sources, exactly what Uelsmann was doing, is still a photograph. I think what has happened is that the new technology has forced us to consider the final "image" without as much concern whether it represents the "craft" that we used to identify with photography. I suspect that this is especially difficult for us Large Format photographers, where "photographic technique or craft" still plays such a large role in our own work.

[Michael Kadillak]

While the effort to make digital look increasingly closer to analog, IMHO one will always be able to tell the two apart.

The fact remains that working with a single negative image utilizing or excluding exposure light to lighten or darken details or subject matter retains from an esthetic perspective the original scene and it maintains its visual truth credibility in the sense that you can go to some of the locations where his images were made and see them intact. The in camera negative is the key. Aside from the fact that well executed silver gelatin and particularly carbon has a three dimensional look that just cannot be replicated by digital, I am put off by the fact that the ability to truly differentiate oneself becomes one dimensional related to subject matter because to me it seems that the equipment and the process is rapidly becoming generically universal. Give a dozen photographers the same lens, film, developer and silver paper and you will see a myriad of differing tonalities that are all pleasing. In what I see in digital it all appears relatively driven by the technical capabilities of the software and many push things to a degree to be unique.

Standing at the edge of the parking lot at the Dallas Divide in Colorado one crisp morning with my friend Michael Roberts, I was simply amazed at the massive gathering of digital photographers all lined up with their Canon 5D cameras and identical lenses. I set up my 8x20 and Michael had his 1895 Century 8x10 waiting for the dawn to break. Afterwards a group of the digital guys and gals came over to see what this view camera thing was and when asked why I chose this venue I simply stated that for me it is not about quick and easy it is about a commitment to the end result I like to see. The darkroom is not quick nor is it easy. The true alt process guys are so far down this road that I have absolutely nothing but respect for what they do and hope to join hands with them shortly. As a function of time this whole process will come full circle as the point and shoot cameras are being supplanted by the phone cameras as billions of dollars change hands. At Costco yesterday I saw a new digital camera set up that for only $2,900 you can own - the latest 24 MP SLR.

The sound of a printing metronome, running water and the smell of fixer is terribly rewarding to me.