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The magic of Photoshop

Basil

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One of the cool things about Photoshop is how you can magically make unwanted items in a picture disappear. A few weeks ago we were in Arizona and visited Page, AZ and the Horseshoe Bend. There was a young Japanese girl sitting precariously on the edge of the cliff overlooking this famous attraction and I wanted to quickly get a picture of her. The picture came out pretty good, but the leg of my tripod was in the picture as well. Enter Photoshop! With PS I was easily able to eliminate the tripod as if it was never there.

Horseshoe_Girl_Ledge-2.jpg

Horseshoe_Girl_Ledge-1.jpg


By the way, there were lots of people risking their lives sitting on the edge overlooking the canyon! Yikes! Not me!

Horseshoe_People_Ledge-1.jpg
 

AngliaGT

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WHY can't people put their phones away?I see it while
they're driving,& shopping (better not get in their way.And it's
not just younger people.
We had a guy fall off McAfee Knob (on the Appalachian Trail.
Luckily another hiker saw him fall,& called 911.They found him &
rescued him,but he didn't survive.
And I was surprised,his family isn't suing anybody - they
accept what happened as an accident.
 

DNK

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Looking at that girl on that edge made my "boys" tighten up
 

Boink

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I'm reminded of that other post about the number of people that have died taking selfies (at an all-time high)... more in India than anywhere.

Off the west coast of Ireland (on the island of Inishmore), there is a cliff that is 300 feet absolutely straight down. I couldn't get within 15' of the edge (as the wind was unpredictable). I couldn't even lie on my belly to creep to edge. Nope, not worth it.

Dscn4447.jpg Dscn4448.jpg
 
OP
Basil

Basil

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Looking at that girl on that edge made my "boys" tighten up

I was very nervous watching not just her, but many other people risking disaster by sitting right on the edge of a sheer cliff. When I took my picture, I stayed back at least 5 feet from the edge, but extended my tripod as high as I could so as to get a shot without the ground underfoot getting in the picture.
 

DavidApp

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A friend in Canada was demonstrating the power of Photoshop to to me one time.
He had the full version and took one of my photos separated areas out worked on them then reassembled the photo. It looked 100% better but he lost me about 5 clicks into his demonstration. He said that was only a quick rough edit.

The saying "A photo does not lie" is no longer true.

David
 
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Basil

Basil

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A friend in Canada was demonstrating the power of Photoshop to to me one time.
He had the full version and took one of my photos separated areas out worked on them then reassembled the photo. It looked 100% better but he lost me about 5 clicks into his demonstration. He said that was only a quick rough edit.

The saying "A photo does not lie" is no longer true.

David

This image is the result of stacking several photos of the total eclipse back in Aug 2017 (taken near Casper Wy). I shot several exposures at different shutter speed to expose different parts of the corona properly. Then used a rather involved process in Photoshop to stack the images, align them, and more or less normalize the exposures of the corona to yeild one image where the corona looks properly exposed from the surface out to very far from the surface.

Composit trial 1.jpg
 

DrEntropy

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David said:
The saying "A photo does not lie" is no longer true.


Precisely why my photojournalism career came to an end: The ubiquity of digital imaging. I.M.O., photojournalism died with film.

And I've said for a while now there will be a Pulitzer awarded to a cellphone image in the near future.
 

martx-5

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Yeah, after working with Photoshop, it's impossible to believe any picture is for real. I routinely "repair" photos now without hardly thinking about it. Anything obnoxious or distracting gets removed. Of course, brightness and contrast, cropping, color changing, merging, etc., just too many manipulations to list. And, it doesn't take too much practice to become quite adept at it.

Here's a photo my daughter sent to me of her son Jake that she wanted a print of. A good picture, but I couldn't leave it alone. Even though she managed to have Jake block out the tree in back of him (probably just luck), the distracting shadow was still there. A couple of clone clicks and it's gone...along with that little white spot on his collar. My photography, and my daughter's have gotten much better since Photoshop came around. :encouragement:

Jake1.jpg Jake1A.jpg
 
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Basil

Basil

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Precisely why my photojournalism career came to an end: The ubiquity of digital imaging. I.M.O., photojournalism died with film.

And I've said for a while now there will be a Pulitzer awarded to a cellphone image in the near future.[/COLOR]

You're probably right Doc, with respect to Photojournalism.
 
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Basil

Basil

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Yeah, after working with Photoshop, it's impossible to believe any picture is for real. I routinely "repair" photos now without hardly thinking about it. Anything obnoxious or distracting gets removed. Of course, brightness and contrast, cropping, color changing, merging, etc., just too many manipulations to list. And, it doesn't take too much practice to become quite adept at it.

Here's a photo my daughter sent to me of her son Jake that she wanted a print of. A good picture, but I couldn't leave it alone. Even though she managed to have Jake block out the tree in back of him (probably just luck), the distracting shadow was still there. A couple of clone clicks and it's gone...along with that little white spot on his collar. My photography, and my daughter's have gotten much better since Photoshop came around. :encouragement:

View attachment 55922 View attachment 55923

I am into photography for the artistic aspects and the creativity it affords, which is a very different thing from "photojournalism" where it's important that images be seen "as shot." Ansel Adams did "post processing" - he just did it with dark room tricks, for example dodging and burning to change the exposure of seleted areas of a photo. Merging images and even removing unwanted distractions in an image were done in the darkroom. With digital, we do the same things, but it's just a lot easier and you can see the final results as you work. Different types of photography for different purposes. It's all good.
 

martx-5

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I'm into watercolors, and use photoshop to make any corrections before I try to scrub them out or change things on the original. Watercolors are pretty much a one shot deal. It's pretty hard to make significant corrections. Most of the time it doesn't matter. A tree can look pretty much like anything. But, portraits can often be a problem if you paint them fairly tight. Here's one I did, and after finishing it, I noticed several things that I felt needed correcting. The shadow on her lower right side by her mouth, both eyes needed some straightening (I'm still not sure if I got them right), and I thought maybe the colors should be a little warmer. Then I went overboard, and used photoshop to make the portrait look dreamy. It's called the Orton effect. It's all fun stuff.

DSC_1649As.jpg DSC_1649Fs.jpg DSC_1649FsOrt.jpg
 

martx-5

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... Ansel Adams did "post processing" - he just did it with dark room tricks, for example dodging and burning to change the exposure of seleted areas of a photo. Merging images and even removing unwanted distractions in an image were done in the darkroom. With digital, we do the same things, but it's just a lot easier and you can see the final results as you work. Different types of photography for different purposes. It's all good.

Last year, there was an Ansel Adams show here on Long Island that covered a fairly early era. In there were three prints of "Monolith, the Face of Half Dome", taken in 1927. One of them was absolutely spectacular. One was really good, and next to the others, the third one was a disappointment. Of course, the better ones were from a later printing that had the benefit of years of experience and better photo products available.

I used to do a lot of darkroom work and making changes in the prints were generally not such an easy thing to do. Even just dealing with contrast meant making more prints. By the time you got it right, you may have made 10 or 15 prints. And you had better keep track of everything you did or you'll never get another print close to your best. Even then, no two would ever be the same.

Besides being easier to make changes with digital is once you got it right, all additional prints will be the same.

https://shop.anseladams.com/Monolith_Face_of_Half_Dome_p/1901020.htm
 

DrEntropy

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SWMBO is the Photoshop expert, I want nothing to do with it. My lifetime of images are on film neg's or slides. Some have been scanned for printing to various output but none manipulated digitally.

I agree there is a big difference between artistic photography for image impact and the profession of photojournalism, but the temptation to embellish an image touted as "raw truth" after being rum through an image manipulation software is still an untruth. A corruption of the profession that has been demonstrably employed for "news impact" once too often, IMHO.

I call myself a recovering panderer in reflected light images. A recovering photojournalist. P'raps one day I will get a Nikon digital body and take some "pretty pictures". Mebbe even give 'em to Herself to run thru her truckload of kick-a$$ software...
 
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Basil

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Speaking of Ansel Adams, I ran across this quote while looking for a good ND filter system:

β€œYou don’t make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.”
[h=4]Ansel Adams[/h]
 

DrEntropy

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Not sure which I admire more, Adams or Steichen for their mastery of gray scale.
 
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