Just blogging this so that I have it captured for future reference. I particularly like the way the artist explains why it wouldn’t be right for him to ascribe a specific meaning to the piece, and the comment on Venn diagrams
Monkey's Wedding? | We are OCA#comment-2033
Thursday, 14 October 2010
Thursday, 7 October 2010
Photomanipulation and Ethics
For reasons that are not entirely clear to me, photomanipulation seems to have become more important as an issue since the advent of digital cameras. It may be as a result of perceptions that it is relatively easy to fake photographs digitally, or it may simply be a function of the relative ease that the internet has brought to the spreading of such concerns. Whatever the cause it is a rich subject for both research and discussion, and as module 4 of DPP1 covers the issue in some detail it seemed worthwhile to add a few thoughts on the issue to this blog.
One of the more common conceptions of photography – particularly in its early days - is that a photograph somehow portrays something that is real or, perhaps more accurately, true. Photos are certainly seen as more real than paintings to the point where early pictorial photographers sought to make their photos look like paintings in order to have them seen as art. Even Barthes considers that one of the essences of photography is that it represents ‘what-has-been’ (although he neatly sidesteps issues of manipulation by writing them off as trickery).
But this has never been a true conception – for a start, and at the most trivial level, a photo is a 2-D representation of something that is 3-D in real life. In choosing an angle and lighting the photographer is already imposing their view of the subject on the viewer. Even at the level of something as automated as a passport photo, the authorities stipulate poses and lighting requirements which remove some aspects of individual character to give a more neutral reading of the subject. This appears to have been realised early in the history of photography assuming this quote is accurately reproduced:
In 1903 Edward Steichen said . . .
In the very beginning, when the operator controls and regulates his time of exposure, when in the dark room the developer is mixed for detail, breath, flatness or contrast, faking has been resorted to. In fact every photograph is a fake from start to finish, a purely impersonal, unmanipulated photograph being practically impossible. When all is said, it still remains entirely a matter of degree and ability. Adobe Magazine 6(3), 104)
What chance then that even an intelligent and thoughtful photographer can really take a totally objective photo of their subject – even assuming we understand what objective means.
Some people have suggested a hierarchy of acceptable behaviour, (Reference)and this also appears implicit in the teaching materials of the course. Typically this concentrates on manipulation after capture, but this article draws attention to a number of ways in which photos can be manipulated prior to photography, including setting something up for effect. Some particularly crass examples of this can be found here (although it seems wise to be careful when citing websites with a name like zombietime). In spite of this it seems to me that most would regard changes in front of the lens as acceptable provided they were not deliberately misleading, but it is worth noting even here, choice of subject lighting location etc can have an impact on the meaning of the photo as Sontag notes in ‘On Photography’.
At the next level of change are simple adjustments that could easily be made in a darkroom, or with a minimum of post-processing skills. Dodging and burning, global contrast adjustments, corrections of colour casts, sharpening, removing dust spots – they can all be used to change the emphasis of a photograph, and so change its meaning. The course material separates these into two categories – Improving and Enhancing
Most photographers would accept changes that compensate for the technical limitations of the camera as legitimate-some referring to them as ‘technical - and even important international photo competitions accept this level of manipulation.
For certain fields of scientific or forensic photography the ground shifts very easily at this point and great care is needed. At what point does simple cropping become removal of an element – and if it is acceptable to remove dust spots, what problem can there be with removing a small black dot produced by a bird on the skyline which disturbs the composition? Both are in the digital negative, after all. But what if that small black spot is a tell-tale piece of evidence in a forensic photo?
At this stage in the hierarchy we are at enhancing. Some would argue strongly that this is inappropriate for photojournalism, and while it may be appropriate in forensic photography to clarify the image elements, great care would be needed to ensure that the final result was an image element and not an artefact of the enhancement.
On the other hand enhancing is clearly a stock in trade for advertising and fashion photographers. If a model has been chosen for his/her radiant smile and the shoot is for a toothpaste manufacturer, is anyone really damaged if their teeth are whitened slightly for effect or the unfortunate boil on the nose of the model is removed in Photoshop?
Even here there is ambiguity, because it would be possible to argue that the whitening, which is generally considered less obtrusive, is more deceitful than the removal of an element of the photo which has little to do with the end use.
This leads us neatly to the next up in the hierarchy of unacceptability -subtraction of photo-elements. This is widely regarded as unacceptable in photojournalism. Maintaining this stance lead to severe consequences for at least one photojournalist although the alterations appear to me eyes, to have little or no consequence to the meaning of the photo. The addition of photo-elements is admittedly more tricky than subtraction of minor elements from the photo that resulted in his suspension, but it the latter that initially got him in to trouble.
The contradiction in this stance is that removal of an element before the shutter is pressed would probably be regarded as acceptable – for example removing an item of litter in a woodland scene. In this example it is clear that the litter is not a natural part of the scene so it is difficult to object, but where does that leave the gentle ‘gardening’ adopted by some plant photographers, removing natural elements such as stray leaves and grass – sometimes permanently with a pair of scissors. This appears to be acceptable to all but absolute purists, whereas removal of the same item in Photoshop would lead to disqualification from some competitions.
Another, and recent example, of the contradictions of this stance is the case of the journalist recording street fighting in. He was eventually disqualified for removing a small piece of irrelevant detail from the photo, when to my mind the greater offence was the fact that the cropping and other traditional darkroom-type ‘improvements’ have significantly altered the visual clues about what is happening to make it seem considerably more sinister and furtive. In other words the meaning has been changed. This appears to have been regarded as acceptable by the judges.
At the top of the hierarchy of unacceptability is addition of photo-elements or photomerging of different elements to produce a different end result.
There are many historical examples of this from pre-digital times showing why this practise is considered unacceptable in photojournalism including a famous picture of Abraham Lincoln and lots of socialist dictators who have had ex-comrades removed from the records. Perhaps the most widely publicised recent example was the tampering of an image of a bombed village in the Lebanon. A journalists stock in trade is their credibility so it is easy to see why this is an ethical issue in their field.
And yet these techniques are the bread-and-butter of advertising and art photography. In the case of the former some attempted deceit is commonplace and a vital part of the creativity of some advertising
A recent billboard advertisement for Bristol Zoo featured a ‘flion’ - a relatively obvious photomerge of a vulture and a lion. I fail to see how this can be considered unethical. It is clearly a manipulation and essentially a visual pun.
Perhaps a more grey area is the use of photography for cosmetics sales, where retouching can easily exaggerate the effects of a particular beauty treatment, and thinning of models is considered by some to contribute to slimming disorders in younger people. But exaggerated claims have always been a part of advertising so it seems difficult to single out photography for criticism.
To round up then, where do I sit in the debate? It seems fairly clear that there are types of photography where certain techniques are acceptable (ethical) and other areas where they are less so. Am I concerned that a photojournalist has removed an item from a shot that has no impact on its meaning – no. On the other hand, I would regard it as unethical if a simple pre- or post-exposure change were made to convey something other than a reasonably objective view. The question is: Is there intent to deceive?
The same is true for any other field of photography. If I am selling landscapes for a living, why not remove the telegraph wires? Most people would prefer the picture without in any case. But by the same token, if I were advertising a hotel based on the beautiful view from the window it would be unethical to remove the large pylon in the middle of it.
For advertising photography in general, everyone understands that the role of advertising is to sell products, and such photos are viewed (in the Western world at least) with a degree of scepticism which permits a level of enhancement. If on the other hand a photo were ‘fixed up’ to illustrate a totally fictitious claim, where the audience could have no understanding or knowledge of the fiction then this would be unethical.
In conclusion I believe that photo-manipulation is generally acceptable provided that it does not fall into the category of deceit, taking into account the purpose of the photograph and the intended audience.
One of the more common conceptions of photography – particularly in its early days - is that a photograph somehow portrays something that is real or, perhaps more accurately, true. Photos are certainly seen as more real than paintings to the point where early pictorial photographers sought to make their photos look like paintings in order to have them seen as art. Even Barthes considers that one of the essences of photography is that it represents ‘what-has-been’ (although he neatly sidesteps issues of manipulation by writing them off as trickery).
But this has never been a true conception – for a start, and at the most trivial level, a photo is a 2-D representation of something that is 3-D in real life. In choosing an angle and lighting the photographer is already imposing their view of the subject on the viewer. Even at the level of something as automated as a passport photo, the authorities stipulate poses and lighting requirements which remove some aspects of individual character to give a more neutral reading of the subject. This appears to have been realised early in the history of photography assuming this quote is accurately reproduced:
In 1903 Edward Steichen said . . .
In the very beginning, when the operator controls and regulates his time of exposure, when in the dark room the developer is mixed for detail, breath, flatness or contrast, faking has been resorted to. In fact every photograph is a fake from start to finish, a purely impersonal, unmanipulated photograph being practically impossible. When all is said, it still remains entirely a matter of degree and ability. Adobe Magazine 6(3), 104)
What chance then that even an intelligent and thoughtful photographer can really take a totally objective photo of their subject – even assuming we understand what objective means.
Some people have suggested a hierarchy of acceptable behaviour, (Reference)and this also appears implicit in the teaching materials of the course. Typically this concentrates on manipulation after capture, but this article draws attention to a number of ways in which photos can be manipulated prior to photography, including setting something up for effect. Some particularly crass examples of this can be found here (although it seems wise to be careful when citing websites with a name like zombietime). In spite of this it seems to me that most would regard changes in front of the lens as acceptable provided they were not deliberately misleading, but it is worth noting even here, choice of subject lighting location etc can have an impact on the meaning of the photo as Sontag notes in ‘On Photography’.
At the next level of change are simple adjustments that could easily be made in a darkroom, or with a minimum of post-processing skills. Dodging and burning, global contrast adjustments, corrections of colour casts, sharpening, removing dust spots – they can all be used to change the emphasis of a photograph, and so change its meaning. The course material separates these into two categories – Improving and Enhancing
Most photographers would accept changes that compensate for the technical limitations of the camera as legitimate-some referring to them as ‘technical - and even important international photo competitions accept this level of manipulation.
For certain fields of scientific or forensic photography the ground shifts very easily at this point and great care is needed. At what point does simple cropping become removal of an element – and if it is acceptable to remove dust spots, what problem can there be with removing a small black dot produced by a bird on the skyline which disturbs the composition? Both are in the digital negative, after all. But what if that small black spot is a tell-tale piece of evidence in a forensic photo?
At this stage in the hierarchy we are at enhancing. Some would argue strongly that this is inappropriate for photojournalism, and while it may be appropriate in forensic photography to clarify the image elements, great care would be needed to ensure that the final result was an image element and not an artefact of the enhancement.
On the other hand enhancing is clearly a stock in trade for advertising and fashion photographers. If a model has been chosen for his/her radiant smile and the shoot is for a toothpaste manufacturer, is anyone really damaged if their teeth are whitened slightly for effect or the unfortunate boil on the nose of the model is removed in Photoshop?
Even here there is ambiguity, because it would be possible to argue that the whitening, which is generally considered less obtrusive, is more deceitful than the removal of an element of the photo which has little to do with the end use.
This leads us neatly to the next up in the hierarchy of unacceptability -subtraction of photo-elements. This is widely regarded as unacceptable in photojournalism. Maintaining this stance lead to severe consequences for at least one photojournalist although the alterations appear to me eyes, to have little or no consequence to the meaning of the photo. The addition of photo-elements is admittedly more tricky than subtraction of minor elements from the photo that resulted in his suspension, but it the latter that initially got him in to trouble.
The contradiction in this stance is that removal of an element before the shutter is pressed would probably be regarded as acceptable – for example removing an item of litter in a woodland scene. In this example it is clear that the litter is not a natural part of the scene so it is difficult to object, but where does that leave the gentle ‘gardening’ adopted by some plant photographers, removing natural elements such as stray leaves and grass – sometimes permanently with a pair of scissors. This appears to be acceptable to all but absolute purists, whereas removal of the same item in Photoshop would lead to disqualification from some competitions.
Another, and recent example, of the contradictions of this stance is the case of the journalist recording street fighting in. He was eventually disqualified for removing a small piece of irrelevant detail from the photo, when to my mind the greater offence was the fact that the cropping and other traditional darkroom-type ‘improvements’ have significantly altered the visual clues about what is happening to make it seem considerably more sinister and furtive. In other words the meaning has been changed. This appears to have been regarded as acceptable by the judges.
At the top of the hierarchy of unacceptability is addition of photo-elements or photomerging of different elements to produce a different end result.
There are many historical examples of this from pre-digital times showing why this practise is considered unacceptable in photojournalism including a famous picture of Abraham Lincoln and lots of socialist dictators who have had ex-comrades removed from the records. Perhaps the most widely publicised recent example was the tampering of an image of a bombed village in the Lebanon. A journalists stock in trade is their credibility so it is easy to see why this is an ethical issue in their field.
And yet these techniques are the bread-and-butter of advertising and art photography. In the case of the former some attempted deceit is commonplace and a vital part of the creativity of some advertising
A recent billboard advertisement for Bristol Zoo featured a ‘flion’ - a relatively obvious photomerge of a vulture and a lion. I fail to see how this can be considered unethical. It is clearly a manipulation and essentially a visual pun.
Perhaps a more grey area is the use of photography for cosmetics sales, where retouching can easily exaggerate the effects of a particular beauty treatment, and thinning of models is considered by some to contribute to slimming disorders in younger people. But exaggerated claims have always been a part of advertising so it seems difficult to single out photography for criticism.
To round up then, where do I sit in the debate? It seems fairly clear that there are types of photography where certain techniques are acceptable (ethical) and other areas where they are less so. Am I concerned that a photojournalist has removed an item from a shot that has no impact on its meaning – no. On the other hand, I would regard it as unethical if a simple pre- or post-exposure change were made to convey something other than a reasonably objective view. The question is: Is there intent to deceive?
The same is true for any other field of photography. If I am selling landscapes for a living, why not remove the telegraph wires? Most people would prefer the picture without in any case. But by the same token, if I were advertising a hotel based on the beautiful view from the window it would be unethical to remove the large pylon in the middle of it.
For advertising photography in general, everyone understands that the role of advertising is to sell products, and such photos are viewed (in the Western world at least) with a degree of scepticism which permits a level of enhancement. If on the other hand a photo were ‘fixed up’ to illustrate a totally fictitious claim, where the audience could have no understanding or knowledge of the fiction then this would be unethical.
In conclusion I believe that photo-manipulation is generally acceptable provided that it does not fall into the category of deceit, taking into account the purpose of the photograph and the intended audience.
Monday, 4 October 2010
Digital Photographic Practice 1: Exercise 21 – Enhancement
Another photo of my daughter for this exercise. She agreed to the portrait session in return for a copy for her Facebook avatar – which seemed like a fair deal. Anyhow – here is the original. Lighting is natural overcast daylight with a standard umbrella as a backdrop – so totally diffused! Frankly I was delighted with this as it stood – almost seems a shame to play with it. All mods completed in Lightroom 3 – using the adjustment brush for selections.
First up a slight increase in brightness and contrast – it’s quite subtle but I didn’t want to go too far as it looked un-natural.
This certainly draws attention to the face, and the ‘back’ eye appears brighter and attracts attention. I think the slight hotspots at the top of her cheek and above her necklace are slightly distracting.
I interpreted this exercise as asking us to look at each change individually, so the next shot is the original exposure, but with the eyes brightened and extra saturation
Quite a subtle difference I think, but overall I prefer the effect – the skin hotspots are less distracting and the blue of the eyes is quite a powerful draw on the attention.
Next up is again the original exposure, but changing the colour of the eyes – my daughter liked purple, but I preferred this green. I didn’t want to go too intense – this level feels natural to me.
At this stage I thought I would take the exercise to a logical conclusion by adding a couple more tweaks not required by the text. Back to the original exposure and eye colour, but this time I brightened her smile slightly (as if it wasn’t cheerful enough already)
Finally – LR offers a skin glow adjustment which reduces the clarity slider and results in a pronounced softening of the skin. I tried that together with the eye and teeth adjustments. As the overall effect was to brighten the image along the lines of the first adjustment, I also toned down the hotspots to produce the following:
This is a little too plastic for my tastes – perhaps because I’ve overdone the effect - but is far from uncommon as a treatment for females celebs and on the cover pages of magazines. In truth I moved the clarity slider backwards and forwards a dozen times, but could never seem to find the right balance between smoothed and plastic – this version was the best compromise. I suspect that part of the problem is that I’m too familiar with my daughters face!
Conclusions
This was certainly a fun exercise – I feel I am beginning to get to grips properly with the degree of control afforded by Lightroom. But of course the underlying theme is – is this acceptable?
Personally I see no issue with the versions that have simply lightened or highlighted key features to make the face more attention-grabbing. Nothing has been fundamentally altered as a result. The green eyes could be considered less acceptable as they are altering reality, but it is unlikely the same objection would be raised if the effect had been achieved with coloured contact lenses.
I also struggle to find anything unacceptable about the skin smoothing effect – other than it looking a bit un-natural in this case. Again, good make-up might well achieve a similar (and similarly un-natural) effect and few would object to that approach.
The caveats from previous exercises about photojournalism and forensic photography still apply, but without these techniques I suspect the advertising and fashion businesses would struggle. It is possible to argue that the use of such techniques in these industries is deception and therefore un-ethical, but such industries have always sold an ideal, and in many senses digital enhancement draws on the aspirational imagery of the idealized families and household products which have always been a feature of these industries.
Footnote
A common use of enhancement techniques is to thin down a limb or reduce a waist size. Done clumsily such actions can have unfortunate, but hilarious results, as featured in this website – Photoshop Disasters.
First up a slight increase in brightness and contrast – it’s quite subtle but I didn’t want to go too far as it looked un-natural.
This certainly draws attention to the face, and the ‘back’ eye appears brighter and attracts attention. I think the slight hotspots at the top of her cheek and above her necklace are slightly distracting.
I interpreted this exercise as asking us to look at each change individually, so the next shot is the original exposure, but with the eyes brightened and extra saturation
Quite a subtle difference I think, but overall I prefer the effect – the skin hotspots are less distracting and the blue of the eyes is quite a powerful draw on the attention.
Next up is again the original exposure, but changing the colour of the eyes – my daughter liked purple, but I preferred this green. I didn’t want to go too intense – this level feels natural to me.
At this stage I thought I would take the exercise to a logical conclusion by adding a couple more tweaks not required by the text. Back to the original exposure and eye colour, but this time I brightened her smile slightly (as if it wasn’t cheerful enough already)
Finally – LR offers a skin glow adjustment which reduces the clarity slider and results in a pronounced softening of the skin. I tried that together with the eye and teeth adjustments. As the overall effect was to brighten the image along the lines of the first adjustment, I also toned down the hotspots to produce the following:
This is a little too plastic for my tastes – perhaps because I’ve overdone the effect - but is far from uncommon as a treatment for females celebs and on the cover pages of magazines. In truth I moved the clarity slider backwards and forwards a dozen times, but could never seem to find the right balance between smoothed and plastic – this version was the best compromise. I suspect that part of the problem is that I’m too familiar with my daughters face!
Conclusions
This was certainly a fun exercise – I feel I am beginning to get to grips properly with the degree of control afforded by Lightroom. But of course the underlying theme is – is this acceptable?
Personally I see no issue with the versions that have simply lightened or highlighted key features to make the face more attention-grabbing. Nothing has been fundamentally altered as a result. The green eyes could be considered less acceptable as they are altering reality, but it is unlikely the same objection would be raised if the effect had been achieved with coloured contact lenses.
I also struggle to find anything unacceptable about the skin smoothing effect – other than it looking a bit un-natural in this case. Again, good make-up might well achieve a similar (and similarly un-natural) effect and few would object to that approach.
The caveats from previous exercises about photojournalism and forensic photography still apply, but without these techniques I suspect the advertising and fashion businesses would struggle. It is possible to argue that the use of such techniques in these industries is deception and therefore un-ethical, but such industries have always sold an ideal, and in many senses digital enhancement draws on the aspirational imagery of the idealized families and household products which have always been a feature of these industries.
Footnote
A common use of enhancement techniques is to thin down a limb or reduce a waist size. Done clumsily such actions can have unfortunate, but hilarious results, as featured in this website – Photoshop Disasters.
Digital Photographic Practice 1: Exercise 20 – Improvement
The base photo for this exercise is my daughter caught in dappled shade in a woodland, as follows:
While not as extreme as the example in the workbook the lower half of her body is quite well hidden in the shade and the upper half is also broken up by shade patterns.
Before trying the suggested Photoshop (PSE2) techniques I tried improving the shot directly in Lightroom 3 (LR) using the adjustment brush to loosely select all of the shaded areas in the foreground and the whole figure bar her face. I then slightly increased brightness and adjusted the contrast to retain a more natural feel. I also increased the saturation in the selected area a little. By careful use of the feathering control I was able to minimise the need to accurately select the figure. This was especially useful around the trousers where the edge was not always clearly defined.
The end result is here – and is a clear improvement on the original:
My next attempt was using PSE2 – I exported the original as a TIF and selected the figure using the selection brush. I did this by working on a layer which I had brightened to improve visibility of the trousers against the dark background. I then saved the selection, deleted the layer and imported the selection into a new layer.On the first attempt I only selected the figure, and the following is the best I could achieve with the brightness, contrast and levels tools. To my eye this is inferior – with the girl beginning to look a little washed out while her trousers are still lost in the shadow.
As a final comparison I used PSE2 but adopted the same approach as in the LR version – selecting all the shadow area as well as the figure. the result (below) is a significant improvement on the previous attempt, but I felt that overall the selection process was more long-winded than in LR, and the results were still not as good – in particular the hair colour is less saturated and the area visible between the legs of the jeans looks less natural. I’m sure that with further work this could be improved, but this is already a more long-winded process than LR and suffers from the quality disadvantage of not having the RAW data to work with.
Conclusions
Firstly – and not the primary aim of the exercise – it is clear that in spite of the flexibility of Photoshop Elements there are some real advantages to the workflow in Lightroom.
Moving on to the primary aim of the exercise - I have no doubts that all these adjustments are perfectly legitimate in most cases, for a number of reasons:
While not as extreme as the example in the workbook the lower half of her body is quite well hidden in the shade and the upper half is also broken up by shade patterns.
Before trying the suggested Photoshop (PSE2) techniques I tried improving the shot directly in Lightroom 3 (LR) using the adjustment brush to loosely select all of the shaded areas in the foreground and the whole figure bar her face. I then slightly increased brightness and adjusted the contrast to retain a more natural feel. I also increased the saturation in the selected area a little. By careful use of the feathering control I was able to minimise the need to accurately select the figure. This was especially useful around the trousers where the edge was not always clearly defined.
The end result is here – and is a clear improvement on the original:
My next attempt was using PSE2 – I exported the original as a TIF and selected the figure using the selection brush. I did this by working on a layer which I had brightened to improve visibility of the trousers against the dark background. I then saved the selection, deleted the layer and imported the selection into a new layer.On the first attempt I only selected the figure, and the following is the best I could achieve with the brightness, contrast and levels tools. To my eye this is inferior – with the girl beginning to look a little washed out while her trousers are still lost in the shadow.
As a final comparison I used PSE2 but adopted the same approach as in the LR version – selecting all the shadow area as well as the figure. the result (below) is a significant improvement on the previous attempt, but I felt that overall the selection process was more long-winded than in LR, and the results were still not as good – in particular the hair colour is less saturated and the area visible between the legs of the jeans looks less natural. I’m sure that with further work this could be improved, but this is already a more long-winded process than LR and suffers from the quality disadvantage of not having the RAW data to work with.
Conclusions
Firstly – and not the primary aim of the exercise – it is clear that in spite of the flexibility of Photoshop Elements there are some real advantages to the workflow in Lightroom.
Moving on to the primary aim of the exercise - I have no doubts that all these adjustments are perfectly legitimate in most cases, for a number of reasons:
- nothing has been added or taken away from the picture – the content is as it was
- technically we are not doing anything in these pictures that might not have been achieved to a similar level of success with fill-in flash – and I don’t think anyone suggests that is unethical
- the end result is probably closer to the visual impression the photographer would have received because of the way the eye works – so we are, once again, compensating for a technical limitation of the equipment.
Caught ‘in the black’ | We are OCA
In the spirit of a Learning Blog, I thought I should capture my contribution this link, which discusses the ethics of an entry in a recent photography competition.
Caught ‘in the black’ | We are OCA
Caught ‘in the black’ | We are OCA
Friday, 1 October 2010
Saving JPEG Photos Hundreds of Times
Found this in my twitter stream today. It seems relevant to Exercise 11 – The Value of RAW. The link contains a couple of video clips showing the effect of saving a jpeg at high compression several hundred times. Obviously, this is an extreme example, but it is a very graphic demonstration of how, over time, even small loses of data can build up to corrupt an image.
Saving JPEG Photos Hundreds of Times
Saving JPEG Photos Hundreds of Times
Thursday, 30 September 2010
Digital Photographic Practice 1: Exercise 19 – Correction
The opening part of this exercise concentrates on removing dust shadows – something I have never had to do because of the effectiveness of the sensor-clean system on my camera. To complicate matters the current re-build of the OCA student website means I can’t download the example file. So instead I have gone with this shot from my own collection. The blemishes are in fact defocussed raindrops on the window I was shooting through. From examples elsewhere on the web – here for instance – I’m comfortable that this will pose the same challenges.
I used the Spot Removal Tool in Lightroom 3 to remove the very obvious grey blobs – here it is in action:
In general terms you select a diameter for the tool suitable for the blemish, and click on the centre of the blemish. the system automatically selects a nearby area to cover the blemish. This can be tweaked manually if required. This manual tweaking makes it very similar in behaviour to the clone stamp tool in Elements, although it is slightly less flexible because you can’t ‘paint ‘ with it for a large area correction. The end result is here:
.
Moving now to flare correction – I tend to reject obvious examples of flare – so I have very few in my collection, and again no ability to download a sample from the website. With this in mind a deliberately introduced flare in this photo, taken on holiday in Egypt. Note the peculiar shape and colours of the flare highlight at the bottom of the picture. This is a characteristic of the extreme wide-angle lens I used which has a very large front element which is difficult to shade from the sun – it is clearly visible in the viewfinder , and can normally be avoided at the point of capture. I think it is clear from the outset that selecting this ‘blemish’ and applying a curve adjustment will be ineffective as the colours have covered the detail in the grass.
It is however , simply corrected using the Lightroom Spot removal tool – using several overlapping spots to cover the lower blemish:
Perhaps a less dramatic example is this one – taken a couple of days earlier:
This one was cleaned up using the clone tool in Darken mode, as suggested, although the end results were very similar to use of the Lightroom Spot Tool.
Acceptability of this type of clean-up
I struggle to understand any real objection to this kind of clean-up, except perhaps in forensic or other photography where recording the precise detail of the scene is critical. For example, the corrected pyramid contains some fine detail in a small area of stonework that is different from reality. This has no practical importance unless the photo is specifically for record or analytical purposes. Otherwise the scene is indistinguishable from my memory of the day.
The suggestion that you should deliberately leave your mistake in as a more ‘accurate’ version seems totally illogical. On that basis, should we simply be required to retain all our mistakes? There is an interesting parallel with the use of a spell-checker. Would anyone seriously suggest that in the interests of truth that I should publish this blog with all the spelling mistakes and typos that my banana-fingered typing introduced at the first pass. Of course not, and I can see no reason for doing the same with a photo. The flare/dust spots were introduced by the photographic process, and (subject to the provisos above for the special cases mentioned) it seems perfectly legitimate to remove them.
I used the Spot Removal Tool in Lightroom 3 to remove the very obvious grey blobs – here it is in action:
In general terms you select a diameter for the tool suitable for the blemish, and click on the centre of the blemish. the system automatically selects a nearby area to cover the blemish. This can be tweaked manually if required. This manual tweaking makes it very similar in behaviour to the clone stamp tool in Elements, although it is slightly less flexible because you can’t ‘paint ‘ with it for a large area correction. The end result is here:
.Moving now to flare correction – I tend to reject obvious examples of flare – so I have very few in my collection, and again no ability to download a sample from the website. With this in mind a deliberately introduced flare in this photo, taken on holiday in Egypt. Note the peculiar shape and colours of the flare highlight at the bottom of the picture. This is a characteristic of the extreme wide-angle lens I used which has a very large front element which is difficult to shade from the sun – it is clearly visible in the viewfinder , and can normally be avoided at the point of capture. I think it is clear from the outset that selecting this ‘blemish’ and applying a curve adjustment will be ineffective as the colours have covered the detail in the grass.
It is however , simply corrected using the Lightroom Spot removal tool – using several overlapping spots to cover the lower blemish:
Perhaps a less dramatic example is this one – taken a couple of days earlier:
This one was cleaned up using the clone tool in Darken mode, as suggested, although the end results were very similar to use of the Lightroom Spot Tool.
Acceptability of this type of clean-up
I struggle to understand any real objection to this kind of clean-up, except perhaps in forensic or other photography where recording the precise detail of the scene is critical. For example, the corrected pyramid contains some fine detail in a small area of stonework that is different from reality. This has no practical importance unless the photo is specifically for record or analytical purposes. Otherwise the scene is indistinguishable from my memory of the day.
The suggestion that you should deliberately leave your mistake in as a more ‘accurate’ version seems totally illogical. On that basis, should we simply be required to retain all our mistakes? There is an interesting parallel with the use of a spell-checker. Would anyone seriously suggest that in the interests of truth that I should publish this blog with all the spelling mistakes and typos that my banana-fingered typing introduced at the first pass. Of course not, and I can see no reason for doing the same with a photo. The flare/dust spots were introduced by the photographic process, and (subject to the provisos above for the special cases mentioned) it seems perfectly legitimate to remove them.
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