Photography Saturday: Photoshop
Yet another Sunday edition of Photography Saturday...maybe I should just call these entries Photography Weekend...
Anyone who has heard me rant about photography knows my penchant for film. This does not make me a Luddite. I just like the results better than digital and it feels more honest. And this issue of honesty has been bothering me while taking a class in Photoshop these past two weekends. I feel it's important that I know this software program as it is so dominant these days and if I ever want to get into the graphic design field, I had better know it. The class (another one at ICP) is a intensive workshop on the basics. Some of it has been a little too basic for me, but it's opened me up to some of the tools and workflow processes that I was unaware of. In other words, I've begun to learn how to use the program in the correct way rather than my usual style of hacking through things until I've got something I like. I've also learned how to scan my negatives more effectively which to me was worth the price of admission alone. In general, I've learned that Photoshop is extremely full of ways to alter photos in ways that are unimaginable in the darkroom. This is not always a good thing.
Today we were learning how to print our retouched images. I was working with two scans from negatives. Anytime one works with a negative, whether in the darkroom or in a scanner, there will be dust. Doesn't matter how much air you blow on it or anything else you do, there is going to be a certain amount of dust. Thus, this is where most of the retouching time is spent. The process by which one does this with a regular photographic print is called spotting. It's a labour intensive process by which you take a small brush and a bottle of ink and colour in the parts that are flawed. One can also do this in Photoshop, but there are a wider variety of ways to do it and the precision is much higher. Some of these same tools that allow dust to be covered up also allow one to change other "imperfections." As I was working on an image of Adrienne that I'd shot a few weeks ago, the teacher's assistant walked over to check my work and offer some advice. In her words, she wanted to "help this poor girl." So she went to work. The first thing to change was some of the general contrast and brightness around her face. I was in agreement with this, so I let her continue. I had already done some work similar to that and was interested to see how it might be done better. But then she started to make alterations to Adrienne's eyes. In particular were the crow's feet. When she moved onto making the birthmark on Adrienne's cheek disappear, I had to stop her. It's one thing to alter physical defects in the negative itself. It's slightly more questionable to alter things about the exposure (contrast, brightness, cropping). But to me you start to cross the line when you "improve" on a subject's actual appearance. So after shooing the TA away, I did some of these types of alterations as an experiment. I know these things happen all the time in the magazine world, but the ethics of it are extremely disturbing to me.
Version #1. This is the unaltered original scan of the negative. Hard to see here, but there's a few dust spots. It's also kind of flat, which oddly makes the image kind of severe because it exposes a lot lines in the composition, particularly the hair. However, there's room to work with this.
Version #2. This is my final version. Contrast adjusted and the face brightened. That by itself helps soften some of lines. There's also some darkening to the outer edges of the frame. One alteration I did make, which I'm at odds with, is a hair that was coming down the middle of Adrienne's forehead. I covered it over with the tools in Photoshop. My usual policy with these things is to not make any changes that could not also be done in the real world. This hair could be airbrushed or spotted out. It's much easier to do it in Photoshop because I could do it pixel by pixel if I needed to. But what I learned from this is that I could have solved the problem in the first place by paying closer attention when I was shooting the picture. Diligence on my part would have made me a better photographer and not required me to alter the photo after the fact. This brings us to #3...
Version #3. This is what Adrienne would get with someone who had no ethical dilemmas and frankly this is what her publisher will probably do to the photo that is ultimately selected. She might like it better too (I know she's complained about the crow's feet). So here's what was done here: almost all the lines on her skin taken out; all moles and bumps smoothed over; added whiteness in her teeth and eyes; some further removal of hair in various spots around her neck; and the space between her two front teeth tightened. The reason I have an ethical dilemma with it is this: who is this helping? I question whether I'm doing this to make Adrienne look better or make the photo look better (and by extension, me as the photographer). And there's the larger question as to whether Adrienne needs to look "better." The "flaws" are part of who she is. I don't believe they are defects to be improved upon and it's not my place to interject my opinion as to what is unpleasant about someone's physical make up.
Just because a tool is available and something can be done, does not mean it should be done. There's all sorts of things that this idea can apply to. Version #3 to me illustrates a problem with our culture's willingness to accept life as it is. My alterations are extremely mild by comparison to what goes on in most print publications. Is it any wonder so many young girls have eating disorders? It's that kind of place my mind goes to when I see people take out a birth mark on someone's face.
Note #1: My advanced apologies to Adrienne for using her as example. She's become an unwilling participant in this entry and she may not like that very much.
Note #2: This is the first in the Photography Saturday series that will deal with photographic theories or ethical issues. I wanted to vary up the content and not just present an image to talk about all the time. There will still be those kinds of entries forthcoming though.
Anyone who has heard me rant about photography knows my penchant for film. This does not make me a Luddite. I just like the results better than digital and it feels more honest. And this issue of honesty has been bothering me while taking a class in Photoshop these past two weekends. I feel it's important that I know this software program as it is so dominant these days and if I ever want to get into the graphic design field, I had better know it. The class (another one at ICP) is a intensive workshop on the basics. Some of it has been a little too basic for me, but it's opened me up to some of the tools and workflow processes that I was unaware of. In other words, I've begun to learn how to use the program in the correct way rather than my usual style of hacking through things until I've got something I like. I've also learned how to scan my negatives more effectively which to me was worth the price of admission alone. In general, I've learned that Photoshop is extremely full of ways to alter photos in ways that are unimaginable in the darkroom. This is not always a good thing.
Today we were learning how to print our retouched images. I was working with two scans from negatives. Anytime one works with a negative, whether in the darkroom or in a scanner, there will be dust. Doesn't matter how much air you blow on it or anything else you do, there is going to be a certain amount of dust. Thus, this is where most of the retouching time is spent. The process by which one does this with a regular photographic print is called spotting. It's a labour intensive process by which you take a small brush and a bottle of ink and colour in the parts that are flawed. One can also do this in Photoshop, but there are a wider variety of ways to do it and the precision is much higher. Some of these same tools that allow dust to be covered up also allow one to change other "imperfections." As I was working on an image of Adrienne that I'd shot a few weeks ago, the teacher's assistant walked over to check my work and offer some advice. In her words, she wanted to "help this poor girl." So she went to work. The first thing to change was some of the general contrast and brightness around her face. I was in agreement with this, so I let her continue. I had already done some work similar to that and was interested to see how it might be done better. But then she started to make alterations to Adrienne's eyes. In particular were the crow's feet. When she moved onto making the birthmark on Adrienne's cheek disappear, I had to stop her. It's one thing to alter physical defects in the negative itself. It's slightly more questionable to alter things about the exposure (contrast, brightness, cropping). But to me you start to cross the line when you "improve" on a subject's actual appearance. So after shooing the TA away, I did some of these types of alterations as an experiment. I know these things happen all the time in the magazine world, but the ethics of it are extremely disturbing to me.
Version #1. This is the unaltered original scan of the negative. Hard to see here, but there's a few dust spots. It's also kind of flat, which oddly makes the image kind of severe because it exposes a lot lines in the composition, particularly the hair. However, there's room to work with this.
Version #2. This is my final version. Contrast adjusted and the face brightened. That by itself helps soften some of lines. There's also some darkening to the outer edges of the frame. One alteration I did make, which I'm at odds with, is a hair that was coming down the middle of Adrienne's forehead. I covered it over with the tools in Photoshop. My usual policy with these things is to not make any changes that could not also be done in the real world. This hair could be airbrushed or spotted out. It's much easier to do it in Photoshop because I could do it pixel by pixel if I needed to. But what I learned from this is that I could have solved the problem in the first place by paying closer attention when I was shooting the picture. Diligence on my part would have made me a better photographer and not required me to alter the photo after the fact. This brings us to #3...
Version #3. This is what Adrienne would get with someone who had no ethical dilemmas and frankly this is what her publisher will probably do to the photo that is ultimately selected. She might like it better too (I know she's complained about the crow's feet). So here's what was done here: almost all the lines on her skin taken out; all moles and bumps smoothed over; added whiteness in her teeth and eyes; some further removal of hair in various spots around her neck; and the space between her two front teeth tightened. The reason I have an ethical dilemma with it is this: who is this helping? I question whether I'm doing this to make Adrienne look better or make the photo look better (and by extension, me as the photographer). And there's the larger question as to whether Adrienne needs to look "better." The "flaws" are part of who she is. I don't believe they are defects to be improved upon and it's not my place to interject my opinion as to what is unpleasant about someone's physical make up.
Just because a tool is available and something can be done, does not mean it should be done. There's all sorts of things that this idea can apply to. Version #3 to me illustrates a problem with our culture's willingness to accept life as it is. My alterations are extremely mild by comparison to what goes on in most print publications. Is it any wonder so many young girls have eating disorders? It's that kind of place my mind goes to when I see people take out a birth mark on someone's face.
Note #1: My advanced apologies to Adrienne for using her as example. She's become an unwilling participant in this entry and she may not like that very much.
Note #2: This is the first in the Photography Saturday series that will deal with photographic theories or ethical issues. I wanted to vary up the content and not just present an image to talk about all the time. There will still be those kinds of entries forthcoming though.
I'm cool.
I feel much the same way you do about this sort of thing. I actually had the experience of having a photo fairly severely altered once to make me look... younger? less battered? I'm not sure what the goal was, but it made me uncomfortable. I'm not a Barbie doll, you know? 33 years on the planet have left their mark. I find my lines and bumps -- signs of age in general -- kind of surprising because I don't notice them on the average day, but they're MINE. It's weird, as you say, to have someone else make a judgment about how I should look, what might be better. There's certainly a part of me that wants straight teeth and flawless skin and the whole bit, but that's just not real.
Besides all that, I went out to dinner with Jason on Friday night and we both got a beer and the waitress totally proofed me and not him, so I'm not too hopelessly old yet. (It was the best, too, because Jason was all, "But she's older than me!*" And the waitress was all, "But she looks really young, doesn't she?" Awesome.)
*eight months, in case you're wondering, which just added to the wonderfulness of the whole encounter, as far as I'm concerned.
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I should point one additional modification I made to version #2 -- the appearance of the left ear is eliminated. While a bit heavy handed, this is something I could have done with a real print by burning that portion of the image down. What I didn't like about it was the odd bump it made to Adrienne's cheek. Again, this is something I should have and could have eliminated by paying closer attention when shooting.
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I find that #3 not only doesn't look like the Adrienne I know, but also doesn't look nearly as interesting or real as she does in person.
Take a look at the photos at this site:
http://jpfaces.zenfolio.com/
I think you might enjoy looking at his work.
This is a prof from my daughter's school. (History teacher actually). But I love what he does with a portrait, especially his B&W shots. (There's also some on the home page at www.Albright.edu.)
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Thanks for the link and comment, wplmom. I like this guy's portraits a lot. I wish I could get my lighting to come out like that. Plus he seems like an interesting person.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/fashion/13nimoy.html
An interesting article about Leonard Nimoy, photographer.
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I like #2 because of the shadow minimalization. #3 looks strange. It doesn't look like her at all.
If someone were to doctor a photo of me, I'd like to remove my 2nd (and 3rd) chin and make my face smoother and less blotchy. I'm ok with the wrinkles. I've earned them. I'm ok with the teeth & hair imperfections too. I guess they're all just part of me
It would be very cool to have someone touch up a photo of me & be able to see what I'd look like with everything fixed the way I'd LIKE to look. (Face slimmed, teeth whitened and stretched across the whole width of my mouth, eyes bigger...)
So, if you ever need another test-case, let me know!! I'm up for modifications!
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Send me a pic you'd like to redo and I'll see what "magic" I can accomplish.
I agree that #3 doesn't look like her, and you can bet that if it were in a magazine it would look a lot less like her. Case in point:
http://www.pistolwimp.com/media/56176/
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*THAT was WILD!!
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Version 3 is not our Adrienne it is some pod person. Your whole entry echoed a conversation I had with our photography teacher and a community partner. She said that while programs like photoshop and digital photography is the way the industry is moving she still likes the film, darkroom, and "old" way. Her comment was actually, "Working in the darkroom gives them an understanding of what photoshop allows them to do." She said they need the foundation and it makes you a better photographer when you learn about the chemicals, exposure, etc. It's nice to know that there are other people out there that agree with you.
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I completely agree with your colleague. It especially seems odd to me that people in Rochester would be jumping on the digital bandwagon so willingly considering the devastating impact it has had on Kodak.
One thing I do admire about the process of Photoshop is that not only can do a lot of the same things you would do in a darkroom, but you can save that process. As much as I prefer the exposure of film and paper, once it's done it's done. With Photoshop, everything aside from your initial camera exposure is completely maleable. Still, I would never be able to fully appreciate that had I not worked in a darkroom with real materials. It makes you stop and consider your choices much more rather than plowing ahead willy nilly. Considered thought before acting is certainly a skill that kids should learn and hopefully some of that gets through in the photo classes your school offers.
And how cool is it that you work at a school that offers photo classes?
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More of the same...
http://homepage.mac.com/gapodaca/digital/bikini/
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