<p>I have been fascinated by imagery and photography since I was a small boy. I have been involved, in one way or another; with cameras since I was a pre-teen. I took a photography class in high school and have owned various different film and digital point and shoots. Although, I have gone in and out of states of activity with my cameras, this most recent stage has been since 2007. The last 2 years of that, since April 2010 when I received a Nikon D3000 for my birthday, have been the most active.
Now, throughout that time, I have heard progressively more and more about Photoshop specifically, as well as software of the like and their effects on imagery. In the last ~18 months, since Christmas 2010 when I received Photoshop Elements as a gift, I have officially become a user.-o, I started to hear and then get personally in touch with some controversy surrounding this application. Personally, I think the name Photoshop has become synonymous with editing software, in many times, a general descriptor for the type of wild and crazy hacking of public images into comical or bizarre "art".</p>
<p>But that type aside, I noticed that there is a deeper belief in there. Especially when you use that term in the context of "real" photos, taken by "real" photographers for what can arguably be called "real" reasons or purposes. It is here that I am most interested in exploring. </p>
<p>Now, this is a great time to dispel a common myth, one that I myself believed and until just recently learned. A digital image, from any camera, just like a film negative, is not developed and requires processing. A camera simply cannot portray reality as we see it with our naked human eye. Due to this fact, any developing to be done requires Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Gimp, and ACDSee or any of what are likely hundreds of photo editing software. Now, to the extent you are editing or processing is to whether you will use Microsoft Office Photo Editor or CS5. </p>
<p>So, with all of that out of the way and not including the obvious overt edits that are relegated to exclusively posting to the internet for viral distribution and the real developing done by real photographers for weddings, professional settings and the like; what is left.</p>
<p>It is here that I want to paraphrase a section from the book "Physics for future presidents" that talks about the issues with photographs. The author breaks down the usage in military surveillance and meteorological implementations. He talks about how much interpretation is required to decipher these images from the field. His point, made very well, is that photographs are not nearly the object of fact that we have come to treat them as. They are much more a piece of art, due to the amount of personal and subjective evaluation that is required. Show a picture to 10 different people and you will get 10 different responses; both in what is there overall but also to the extent of the specifics. </p>
<p>So why is there so much controversy about using Photoshop or not. There appears to be a belief, running under the surface, that using it is equal to lying or misrepresenting something. As if to use it is bad and wrong the purveyor cannot or should not be trusted. I get it too as I have experienced myself in my own work. It started out that I was unwilling to do any auto correction type changes and was very upset when I first started printing my images from my D3000 and they corrected them. Then, as I learned about developing, began to consider editing. But, I will say in that beginning, it had to be small edits, such as removing a small bird or helicopter from a shot. I have since attempted some larger ones, but have mostly opted for changes in my shooting over more post production work. But still, there is something there, almost like abortion.
Consider the age old scenario where abortion is made okay in most circles. A women is assaulted and becomes pregnant; what to do with the baby? It seems to touch on something deeper than photography, the images or even what they represent. It seems to touch something near our core, deep inside, beyond what is comfortable to talk about most of the time.
I have even touched on HDR here, which in its own right, has been quite confused and bastardized. The truth there is that high dynamic range techniques have been used since the beginning of photography because it is part our striving for more realistic images. That is constant. That is because the images from any camera, barring some extreme or highly expensive products, are simply not 100% of what is that which we saw with our eye. And its not that our eye has the best most comprehensive view, but its our eye that is our doorway into the perspective. It is what it is. Its all we have.
I don't believe anyone does something for malicious intent. That is not to say that we do not do harmful things, but to think that someone is acting with a priority of hurting me before something they want or need just seems crazy to me. You decide how you feel...Photoshop / edited photographs; good or evil?
Perhaps neither perhaps both...depending on your perspective...
So what is your perspective?
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