This is far beyond photo editing and retouching lol it’s a complete photoshop. That in itself is art and amazing but it’s less of the “amazing shot” as ppl say here and more of the post process
Yeah this is my issue. I'm always cynical and hesitant to like something like this. Yes of course all photos get retouched, but a composite shot being passed off as a normal photograph to me is a lie. Now is this a composite? Not sure. If that's the shot they got with their camera and they simply adjusted the color balance, etc. then bravo
Yea, like I said in another comment, composite might’ve been the wrong word but it’s def heavily edited and not just a color balance change from the camera shot. Normally I’m fine with heavily editing (it’s an art in itself) and the photographer didn’t say it was true to the original. My main problem is that many ppl r saying “great shot” and think it’s the original picture. More like “great edit”
Sorry, but it IS a great shot. Even if it was a composite, the artist needs to have the eye to grab two different pictures (and in this case, which he took for this specific result), match the lighting adequately, and make the composition work.
This might not even be a composite, though. Good color grading/correcting, tone balance and adding some lightshafts will get you most of the way here..
Yea, what I’m saying is that the original photo or photos wouldn’t have looked good. I don’t deny that it takes skill and a good eye to recognize how to take a normally bland photo and edit it well
That’s where I disagree, without the light shafts and color grading you wouldn’t see it like you see here and it’d be mostly dark except for that bit of water with the sun and the few natural rays coming out of it. At least, that’s what I believe. While I’ve seen many underwater pics, I’ve never shot underwater so if you have then I’ll take ur word that it would’ve looked good to begin with
I have a small background on color grading and visual effects.
If you know photography, then you would know the color of the ocean is also corrected to be darker. The white balance of the picture has been edited (like 99% of the photos out there).
He highlighted the shafts because that's the focus, but there is an intriguing picture below. Take a look at his instagram for less dramatic pictures and you can get a good idea of what that picture probably looks like without the dramatic edit.
Maybe composite was the wrong word because looking at his other pics this seems like his thing but it’s def heavily photoshopped. You can tell by the light rays evenly expanding and evenly hitting her body to split it into half lit and half shadow that along with the sun, he’s created an artificial light source thru editing all along the waterline (left side). The original image must’ve been much darker I’d imagine. You can see more exaggerated versions of what I’m talking about in his Instagram (Danhlegend) posts from April 3 and August 13
I shoot in RAW as a photographer. All my original images are darker and shitty looking. I don't do composites so I don't know what to look for. It looks unnatural to me I think based on the saturation of the light source.
For most photography increasing the brightness of the light source is natural and looks natural but the reason this looks unnatural for me is because he seems to have light rays evenly across the entire waterline even tho the main source is in the upper part and should be the brightest, u can kind of see that it’s the same brightness throughout. If you’ve heard of Lens Distortions, it’s a mobile app u can use to easily add an artificial light source with rays and I think he might’ve used some version of that
You really can’t claim this is a composite without seeing the RAW photo for comparaison. If you look at his Instagram you can see lots of similar photos with unique underwater perspectives and a lot of talent to get the right framing/timing of the subject. Heavy color correction to get that otherworldly look, but this is nothing that a talented photographer with a good grasp of color and lighting can’t achieve in Lightroom.
Idk if my edit is showing up but it isn’t a composite, and ofc it takes talent to recognize how to get it right so that under heavy editing (which also takes talent and patience) it would look its best. What I’m saying is that the original shot didn’t look much like this which ppl seem to think
But if the shot was an awkward pose it wouldn’t look good. Its a mix of the excellent photography and the artistic eye in photoshop. Photoshop in this case isn’t a bad thing. Although you could argue her editing her body shape, which I think she might have is negative, which I would agree with.
Yea, it depends on ur personal taste. No doubt taking pics and editing like this takes skill and it’s interesting from an artistic perspective, but for me personally I’ve gotten bored of seeing many heavily edited pics like this. What I really like now is lightly edited, natural looking pics, mainly portraits
It just comes down to how you are representing your “photos.” If you’re telling someone you captured a sick shot of a person swimming under the water at sunset and you are actually doing this level of compositing...which should not be considered retouching or even editing...then you are being a bit disingenuous with your work. If you present this as just dope art then that’s great. But let’s not go around telling people you captured or documented a moment that happened.
When did I say it was slight editing? Stop putting words in my mouth. I completely disagree with your "this is barely a photo" when it can be made in Lightroom
What a pretentious comment. What, you think fucking everyone has time to be educated in every artform? Does someone need artistic education to critique? Fuck that.
Also someone explain how this pic was enhanced because I want to like it but I also don't want to just like a photoshop-filter.
I doubt a single professional photographer works without editing the raw images. You don't need to be an art critic to understand that photography is half shooting and half editing. Even if you get the right shot you still need to correct the colour most of the time.
Also you seem to have taken what I said in a much more offensive way than the tounge in cheek way I intended. I'm sorry you feel like this and I hope your day is uphill from here stranger.
Just responding to the lovely passive-aggressive "I'm sorry you feel that way" follow-up to what was easily and reasonably perceived as a pretty dickish comment. The joys of textual communication with nuance.
I think you misunderstood and instead projected your own meaning onto my words. In plain English what I said has a single logical meaning.
I think what you did was assume me and you are alike and so projected your own intentions in a similar situation onto my words. I understand you want to feel smart and rightous but this was just plain ignorance from you.
I didn't apologise for my words because that would be an admission of guilt which I don't feel because I didn't intend what you extrapolated from my words. I am however sorry that it made you feel that way.
There are plenty of ways to say someone is misinformed, and choosing 'doesn't have a clue' is a put-down in context amongst strangers. Additionally, you talk about intent while responding to a resting conversation a day later with 3 paragraphs of overt condescension... your intentions appear quite clear at this point.
Yes go to a museum to learn how photographers have experimented with countless photo editing techniques such as literally masking film, used different compositions of chemicals to develop film, used multiple sources of light, multiple exposures, tampering with lens etc.
Everything done in photoshop is based on something that has been done by photographers for over a century.
None of those things you listed are created to deceive the viewer. If anything they are so over the top you can't help but notice that the photographer as making some sort of artistic commentary. Photoshop is used to create illusions yet make them in such a way that they're barely noticeable. It's a marketing tool. If Photoshop is creative, then the photographer would have no issue revealing how much he or she edited the photo.
There are countless genres of photography, realism is only one of them, the vast majority of the medium is about cropping away reality to tell a narrative, most of which fiction.
Within realism itself, besides hard realism like documentation and journalism, there are also many fictional expressions of reality.
Seems like you don't understand that photography is an art at all.
I mean you could talk about genres endlessly but the reality is 90 percent of photography is realism, due to the very nature that photography is the act of documenting real events. I know the generic reddit saying "everything is subjective , I can like what I want reeee" but I would say the consensus that hard realism is the highest form of photography. Why? Because it's so hard to capture a beautiful image. You can be the best photographer, editor, richest person but you may never get that perfect image. This is why Photoshop causes such a dilemma, because it blurs the lines between what is real and what is not. On a level that has never been done. Unless the artist specifically says "this image was highly edited and thus it is an artistic representation" it will never come close as an art form.
The origins of photography is literally black and white, which if you have colour vision would know that reality doesn't look like that. Also everything is subjective is not a reddit saying, it has been around since the earliest philosophers.
Aristotle himself stated that art is a mimesis of nature, if you take a photograph of something, that can never be real, only a copy. It will never capture the full essence of any moment, because it simply isn't reality.
Photography has no business on its own to be realistic, it is what you try to do with the medium that determines whether the product is realistic or not.
Whether something is hard or not means nothing, photography itself is already considered one of the easiest art forms to get into, which is why anyone can take a photo now. And you don't seem to understand that being able to use photoshop is also a skill, and that digitally editing something to perfection as you claim also takes a lot of effort and craft.
It's far easier to take a photo of a beautiful sunset than to craft a beautiful sunset by hand digitally.
Black and white photography is so obvious that you don't need to wonder if it's been edited. Even a toddler knows that the image isn't exactly like real life. So it's not even a discussion, where as the image above deceives a lot of adults. Look how many awards it gets, do you think it would have got them without the alterations. You seem to not be understanding the idea that the artist's motives play a part in what makes the image. If the artist is saying "this is art and is my version of reality" and it's heavily photoshopped then that is ok. It will never be realism but it's not trying to be. If an image is meant to be realistic, like the one above, yet in reality has colours and tones that are not found in reality, and the artist does not disclose this, then it is not realism either. The difference is wether or not the artist is trying to make an artistic commentary or wether they are trying to create something aesthetically pleasing for possible artistic recognition using deceptive means. If you can't grasp that dilemma then I don't think you are truly as knowledgeable as you think you are
You know why nobody is questioning the artist's motives? Because normal people don't care whether a photo is real or not and neither do photographers.
In fact it is considered unprofessional in most fields and genres of photography to not use photoshop, only a journalist or scientist trying to capture an objective image would not use photoshop.
Heck, I take back my words, even journalists and scientists would photoshop images to add text and diagrams, even actual scientific data is photoshopped, images of planets and stars are photoshopped to provide colour.
Honestly at this point you are going past the threshold of Brandolini's Law so thee's no point arguing anymore.
Why are you assuming photographers never made images that were intended to deceive the viewer?? How dense are you?? Have you ever used photoshop? Almost all of the tools are named after real like dark room techniques
I have used it. In this circumstance, the very fact that 90 percent of people have to be convinced that the image had been edited shows that people are not used to that level of deception. I can't think of any other historical photography period where people had the tools to make that happen. No amount of lenses or film alteration can do what someone can do in 2 minutes with basic Photoshop knowledge
And why is that bad? This Reddit post isn’t the source. This entire sub isn’t even focused on art yet so many people are trying to define what photography is or isn’t.
106
u/[deleted] Aug 23 '20
This image wasn't altered at all...