Light Touch - Heavy Touch
This week you get to vote: How much “enhancing” is too much?
In digital photography it seems to have become mandatory to run each photo through “post-processing”. There are small adjustments of exposure, cropping to get that perfect composition, and a myriad of other refinements and effects. For many the objective is to present a masterpiece photograph, for others the goal is an image that is merely based on the photo, “based on a theme …”.
Each week I present a “work”, a piece of “derivate art”, over in Silver Canvas. Those are meant to be just playful “café art”. In Gallery Ludwig, on the other hand, I present photographs – not works of art, just, hopefully, enjoyable images.
So the question becomes, were is the line? When is a photo no longer a photo. A while back I explained that I have an arbitrary demarcation, and when one of my images crosses that line, I place a signature on the picture. Photographs, realistic images, even when enhanced, don’t get a signature.
So today three images – all from the same exposure. All with post processing. Photos, or “derivative art”? You be the judge. Your comments are invited.
.:.
© 2011 Ludwig Keck
Ludwig, I looked at the photos presented several times. The first is obviously smaller, but I was hard pressed to see significant differences between the second and third photos. I have on occasion played around with various effects through photoshop or even Picassa, but usually our blog photos are presented "as is" aside from some cropping and contract adjustments. There are a couple of reasons, first I like the natural effect and figure you should show just what was seen; second it sometimes takes too much work to "adjust" a photo just to post on a blog. And if you have more than a single photo it can become too much of a chore.
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