PS

edwardyung

http://www.ap.org/Content/AP-In- ... er-who-altered-work

M3fans

Journalist photography is serious business

MYM8

Ethics count

vincecharus

攝影 不等於 半影半畫

Kanedias

我覺得新聞攝影唔得，其他攝影無所謂。
不如又思考下另一個問題，換個角度，刻意crop相又得唔得？
Is omission some kind of fake?

vincecharus

Kanedias 發表於 2014-1-25 00:42
我覺得新聞攝影唔得，其他攝影無所謂。
不如又思考下另一個問題，換個角度，刻意crop相又得唔得？
Is omiss ...

Classically, there are 2 schools.

HCB and Winogrand were against cropping. Their reasoning was basically that if a photographer did not see the picture at the time of the taking of the photograph, taking into account the subject in relation to the scene, no amount of cropping would help later.  What they did was very difficult because rangefinder framing was imprecise and they used the entire viewfinder to frame (HCB using 50mm on M3 1x viewfinder; Winogrand using 28mm on M4 0.72x viewfinder).

Robert Frank and Ansel Adams did crop.

It is worth studying in detail why some photographers crop and why some don't. Then we can develop our own working aesthetic values and protocols.

duncanwong

agree with Jason ching
VF to frame is a kind of cropping already

duncanwong

作為攝影人
不去用PS 造相的同時
都不要太過迷信有一種絕對客觀攝影=>真理
值得去深思
就如笛卡兒的我思故我在

Kanedias

vincecharus 發表於 2014-1-30 20:56
Classically, there are 2 schools.

HCB and Winogrand were against cropping. Their reasoning was bas ...

yes vincecharus ching, i also heard that HCB never crops his photo exactly as the reason you suggested.
however, i also heard that HCB never show ppl his contact sheets, reason being he thought a contact sheet is like a chef's kitchen. Customers (photo viewers) are shown the delicious dish (photographer's perferred shot), without knowing what a mess it is in the kitchen.
So a logical question follows through, if a photographer actually does a "willful" selection among a list of photos, what's wrong if he does a willful selection within a photo (aka cropping)? Doesn't you think it contradictory?

vincecharus

Personally, I allow myself to do some cropping for a number of reasons:

At the time of shotmaking, I already know my shot is imperfect. Nonetheless, I must take the shot or miss it. So I press the shutter, hoping to capture the scene the best I can, leaving problems that I know I can deal with in round 2 (i.e. pp).

For me, the most common problem are framing and perspective.  Rangefinder framing is notoriously imprecise, varying with the focus distance. Framelines are indicative only. So, what I do is to make sure that my picture stays within the framelines, cropping it a little later if necessary.

Native 4:3 aspect ratio sometimes causes problems. Sometimes I want 5:4 (portraits); 16:9 (landscapes); or 1:1. The only way to do it is cropping.

I have an idiosyncratic belief in the verticality of the central line, an essential aspect of my personal style. Since this is difficult to achieve at shotmaking, rotation cropping is a feature that I use frequently.  Another aspect of my style is that whenever architectural features are involved, whether as subject or background, I often (but not always) like to see vertically parallel lines. E-shifting in pp allows me to achieve this.

vincecharus

As to exposure, sometimes I intentionally underexpose. For M9, using ISO 640 and add 2 stops in pp results in less noise than using ISO 2500! Once in a while, i do bracketing and stack the shots to make an HDR photo.

We all tweak the curve a little due to the nature of digital sensors. We all try our best to use as much of a relatively narrow dynamic range as possible, balancing contrast with details. Fine-tuning the curve is the best way to achieve this.
As to color, we all know the limitation of digital sensors. White balance is rarely correct out of the box, so fine-tuning is a must. As to individual color channels, I sometimes try to adjust away obviously ugly hues. As I often take portraits, I also have to make sure that skin tone is not totally out of whack!

A more difficult challenge is in dealing with the inherent limitation of a lens. This problem comes up when I absolutely need across-the-frame consistency in a shot. This means I have to deal with vignetting, loss of contrast and details at the edges, and uneven noise at the same time! It is difficult work but once I get it right I find it very satisfying!

There are other reasons I do pp. I'll share them later.

I really don't think what I do turns me into a cheat, becoz all these things are part of my normal workflow, which doesn't stop at the click of the shutter. Technique wise, I am very much influenced by Ansel Adams. I try to learn from him and adapt his techniques to digital photography.