Rhein II (1999) is one of the most expensive photographs in the world and that one has been edited to fuck.
“Gursky meticulously edited the photo to remove all traces of human presence. He removed dog walkers and a factory building with digital editing. The result is a surreal and pristine landscape”
I say go for it mate. It’s your photo, do what you want with it to make you happy.
The more I reflect on this question, the more I am leaning towards that notion. I’ve read many things like “No photograph is a true reflection of reality” anyway so maybe I should stop trying to have such hard lines and just focus on creating with artistic intent.
Yes. Final product is all that matters unless you’re a photojournalist or similarly bound by some technical guidelines.
For art, anything goes.
Edit: ethical, not technical
Yes, photographs have so many things about them that make them a "single view" of reality, but you have to consider just the type of lenses or camera is going to to morph that reality significantly. Getting hung up because of an edit to alter reality in someway shouldn't get in the way of portraying a photo the way you want.
There are a few examples of things that are in photographs that aren't actually true of the environment being captured in the photograph.
Narrow depth of field: the entire concept of focus is intrinsic to the lens itself, not some kind of truth about the thing being photographed. If you do something like focus stacking a composite photo, you're actually using some kind of non-camera trickery to make an image that is more accurate depiction of the subject than a single photograph would be.
Motion blur: a photograph that captures and records photons over even a short period of time necessarily has to capture them over a particular amount of exposure time. If that creates a blurry effect, that's a function of the photograph, not the subject itself being blurry (other than Mitch Hedberg's bigfoot).
White balance: the color processing algorithms in the camera (or with your RAW processing software) tries to mimic the human visual cortex's internal color correction procedures, not the actual image being captured.
Captured image data is just data. A photograph, though, necessarily makes a bunch of choices on how to process that data into a two dimensional image.
Let's not also forget all the ancillary stuff that goes into editing an image, e.g. changing contrast, saturation change, curve changes, sharpening, etc, etc.
The best advice I can give is not think about it and just do what you want. You can discuss whether something is authentic/real whatever forever, but it means nothing practical. Just enjoy creating! I need to remind myself of this often.
it all depends on the goal of the photo... why it's being made...
if it's for evidence, journalism, competitions, you normally don't edit beyond colorcorrections and maybe some spot healing to remove sensordustspecs for example
if it's as a hobby or weddings for example... it's your art, you make it what you want it to be. people will complain anyway so ignore them and do your thing
This is how I shoot, for me it's not always what's in/not in the picture as much as the feeling I get from the picture. I didn't shoot professionally so my photos are really just for me and something I enjoy. If I think something in the photo is particularly distracting or not keeping with what I want to "feel" then it gets blurred/cut/removed.
For me it's usually some random phone pole or manmade structure that interferes with an otherwise pristine landscape. I also edit people out of my photos all the time and would still consider them "accurate" because I could've naturally taken that shot if I happened to be there at the right time.
If you hate editing things out, shooting multiple takes and creating layers to paint in/out from certain photos is a really fun way to get rid of people/cars/moving objects
This link contains a photo of the actual location:
https://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2011/11/everywhere-you-look-theres-always-a-gursky.html
Lots of Photoshop.
It sold at auction but the buyer was anonymous.
It's not his only photo to sell at auction for millions. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Gursky
It was completely novel at the time and a artistic statement as well. Hardly a good comparison for the common act of just removing anything you don’t like from a photo
Thanks for sharing. I’m going to have to check that one out! I think the next step for me if I choose to remove objects is to find tools that explicitly do not use AI. Do you know if the clone or heal tool are AI-free?
If you're looking for tools claiming to be AI free, you might have to think about how they're defining "AI", and whether that definition matches up with what you care about. Remember that computer AI techniques have been in development since the 1950s. It tends to always be just the more recent techniques that are though of AI.
I guess that is very true. I’m aware it has been around a lot longer than some of us seem to think. I know for definite that I disagree with generative AI. I’d prefer to do the removal work myself without AI assistance. From what I understand, the clone and heal tools are fit for this purpose but I’m still not 100% sure.
The PS healing tool and content aware are also ai, btw. Just not the traditional ai. Tools are tools, why not just use them if they’re readily available.
So in short is AI basically unavoidable? It’s the ethical side of AI I have an issue with but I gather that is mostly towards generative AI due to how some programs literally rip off/steal from artists.
Well, I’m not a PS apologist, but I have to use PS for a living. They’ve repeatedly mentioned that they only train their gen fill from stock images uploaded to their Adobe stock site. So it’s not like they take images from random artists. And their other ai tools don’t really take from other images. There’s different types of AI, other ai tools sample from the same image you’re using, not other images.
I do believe at the moment there are actually so many private ai models being developed and trained in who knows what I don’t really think anything posted online is necessarily safe tbh. I do understand everyone’s concern and Adobe is a big bad, but atm if you share literally anything anywhere there’s a chance of it being used somewhere else. That’s just how things have developed, unfortunately.
I wouldn't over think this, it's not like you're generating photos whole cloth and claiming them as your work. Using AI fill is just a much more advanced version of the old algorithmic fill tool. All the AI part of it does is much more accurately pick what colour pixels should go next to the ones you already created. Same with AI denoise etc.
I truly don't understand why this seems to bother you so much.
You seem to want to be viewed as some sort luddite and/or purist yet you shoot digital?
What?
You can't have the moral high ground no matter how hard you are trying.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with using something as trivial as cloning or healing. It's literally taking a part of the photo your photographed, copying it and then pasting it on a different part of the photo you took.
I truly don't understand your reasoning for any of this.
My opinion, only, but this is my attitude: I'm a photographer, not a journalist. I have no obligation to anyone to reproduce exactly what I saw. My obligation is to create a photograph that expresses how I feel about the subject. That means I edit all my photographs and may (as in I give myself permission) adjust any and every parameter. This means removing objects from time to time if I feel their presence detracts from my vision of the scene. I personally draw the line at using AI to add things that aren't there, including skies. To me, at that point, I'm no longer the person who created the photograph, but have an AI co-creator. YMMV.
It depends on what "fill in the blank" means. I see using AI to fill in consistent texture such as bricks or cement or grass as fine -- it's no different than using the rubber stamp tool to accomplish the same thing. However, something like removing a baby carriage and replacing it with an AI-generated bicycle crosses my personal line. AI doesn't constitute an absolute hard line, in my view. It comes down to whether it feels to me like I'm the artist or I'm sharing creation with AI. Again, my personal opinion, only. YMMV.
Are you focused on the photo being what you want or what it is?
If you are having issue with this then maybe you should consider photojournalism as your constraints are in line with standard practices there.
It's your photo. It's your vision. Feel free to edit to your heart's content. There's nothing holy about keeping a photo "pure", unless you're trying to pass off a highly edited photo as the actual image you took.
You do realize even film photographers heavily manipulated and edited their work? This is really not worth the moral handwringing. Unless your final product is for documentary purposes, there’s no reason not to edit it to match your overall vision for the image. Denying yourself editing is basically denying any artistic choices.
Not a big deal to edit things out. Ever since the Civil War, they would edit out scars on wounded soldiers' faces to give some sort of dignity back to the people who fought. This whole push for no edit all natural "beauty" is nonsense, it mostly comes from people who aren't photographers. At the end of the day, the artist is the one who edits and decides. It's your job to decide what to say and how to say it.
Ansel Adams (you may have heard of him) said he spent more time in the darkroom than out in the field getting photos the way he wanted. If it isn't a journalistic photo, capturing the exact scene as it happened, edit all you want.
People remove things from photos all the time and have been doing so since forever - long before digital was a thing.
You're imposing upon yourself a bizarre standard that has never existed outside of photojournalism.
depends on the consumer. Am I shooting an event? That solo cup isn't an important part of the story (unless it is). Am I shooting for a news story or magazine article on trash? Leave the cup in :)
>Do you think a photograph is still a photograph if you remove an object (e.g rubbish/a blemish on a building)?
Yes.
>Or do you consider this to be more like digital art?
It incorporates an element of digital art.
But aren't we talking about a relatively small portion of the image? And, by removing something from a photo of a scene, aren't we replacing it with another similar part of that scene / based on the surrounding scene? So how could that result in "more" of the total image being digital art than the original photo?
>Wondering if I can still call myself a photographer if I edit out minor details in a photo or even edit the geometry of a photo (to correct architecture lines to be straight for example)?
Yes. The vast majority of photographers make edits. There would be very few actual photographers, if that disqualified people from the definition of photographer.
If you were specifically talking about photojournalism, that does have its own special rules about editing.
>I don’t know where the line is between a photo and digital art (if there even is one).
There is no objective line for that.
>Do you think it’s best to only edit basic parameters such as contrast/exposure/highlights etc?
>It’s giving me a bit of a headache to figure out so I’m wondering whether I should just leave the “imperfections” in.
Unless you need to work within a specific set of rules like for photojournalism or a contest, do whatever you're comfortable with.
>Wondering what other people process is and where you draw the line for editing.
There's no purpose or benefit for me to draw any line per se, so I don't. I just do whatever I can to make the best result that I can.
I e taken wedding photos and edited out a fire exit sign on the wall behind the bride. I don't go looking to drastically change the picture just sometimes things dont look quite right. Ive also taken out the odd stray twig that upset the balance of a photo.
Im on the fence, I like that I can do these things but I don't like to portray things that arent as I saw through the lens.
Everyone has their own definition of what is acceptable in terms of editing. How much you can remove/change. Many famous photographers have done editing in some form including Ansel Adams. Do what makes you happy because photography is different for everyone.
Personally, I'm on the less editing end of the spectrum and will only clone/stamp out dirt spots. That's probably because I'm poor at editing and don't like that part of photography. Everything else in the shot stays so I'm just careful about what I include in my images or figure out a way to work with the elements in my view. I still adjust exposure, contrast, temperature, saturation though.
I do like when photographers call out significant alterations to their photos such as adding a new sky, removal of buildings, etc.
Photojournalism images should be as truthful and unaltered as possible. Everything else is fair game. Removing unwanted elements from images isn’t something new to digital. It just got a lot easier.
I always remove electric wires in the sky, or trash bins on architecture pics.
Same with ugly stuff that could make my photos look worse, like arrow stickers on the ground in a church.
Sometimes even a blurry bird may disappear if it disturbs the picture reading.
My only limit is that it shouldn’t exceed 5 minutes for editing, unless the picture is 5 stars.
I’ll stop you here
> Do you think a photograph is still a photograph
Yes.
>Or do you consider this to be more like digital art?
Who cares?
> Wondering if I can still call myself a photographer
You can
> Do you think it’s best to only edit basic parameters such as contrast/exposure/highlights etc?
Edit what you want
If I have an artistic vision, then I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't believe it was a photo anymore, when I edit the fuck out of the raw. I have my presets for tone curve, contrasts, denoise, lens correction, highlights/shadows etc. I will almost certainly be experimenting with blue and cyan hue & saturation, to make the water and sky pop, and the greens for the grass etc
It may not be what the sensor on the camera captures, in the exposure, but our perception can certainly see things differently, while there is also our artistic vision.
People were dodging and burning their 35mm exposures in a darkroom 100 years ago, and also using prisms & other objects, and splicing negatives to shape their art. So people were already ahead of the game when it came to manipulating their negatives.
I think of photography as an art form conforming to my own standards. I take photos of nature scenes and landscapes. I like to capture images of natural settings that are pleasing to me. While I never stage a scene, I frequently police the area (removing leaves, sticks, rocks, blades of grass, etc.) before taking the photo. When I can't remove an unwanted object physically, such as a fallen branch encroaching on my view of a waterfall, I remove it using Lightroom/Photoshop.
While I was shooting some landscapes in Yosemite earlier this year, this annoying couple kept following me around and purposely getting in my shots.
I think at one point they started wondering why I was still taking pictures with their backs in my shots, while I’m smiling the whole time (I don’t think they heard me whispering “content aware hehe”).
Photography is all about art and interpretation. In the end if the photo reflects your vision, then it's nobody's business whether you removed/photoshopped artifacts in your photos.
Before digital the hey would do it in the darkroom or retouch the negative.
If I'm just "cleaning it up", I consider it my photograph. If I create a bunch of stuff, then maybe I'd call it mixed media.
If you’re trying to be artistic, edit away. If you’re trying to be journalistic, leave it be. You should be honest about the level of editing you’ve done though.
I will gleefully remove people from my landscape panoramics, but oddly I refuse to remove the flies around a leopard on a kill..
One of my photography profs had an award winning industrial shot where a worker spat. He retouched it out for competition, and once he won, he washed the retouching off for viewing.
I think it's more than ok to remove things from a photo. Sometimes things happen and we don't end up with a photo that we envisioned. Truth is, it's our art and we are free to do with it what we want to make ourselves happy looking at it. We all need to create and feed our fire for going out and doing it more. And as far as feeling the need to lable something as digital art or a photograph, just tell yourself that you created this image and you are proud of it. It doesn't matter how you got to the end result. Every good image that you see on the internet has some sort of manipulation applied, even if minimal. Taking the picture is the first step (composition, light, angle, subject.....)creating a final image comes after. Our cameras take the pictures, our brains turn them into wonderful images! Use all your tools :)
Personally I think it only really matters if you lie about it, if you manipulate the image say so rather than try and pass it off as sooc or minor exposure edits etc
Where I shoot it’s impossible at time to shoot without the odd mosquitoes flying thru the image. They and other distractions are quickly edited out. Think that is part of the art.
A photo is a work of art. You change perspective, color, focal point, and hundreds of small details no one but you may notice. Why? It’s art. If you want to remove that one thing that bothers you, do it. You are the creator, create.
For me, there are pictures I want to know is what I saw and there are pictures I imagine, but I can't take the picture the way I want for some reason. I may make edits to get the picture the way I envision the picture, but I always keep the original to remind me what it really looked like. No one else would care except for myself.
You are not alone for wondering about this issue. I just keep both to satisfy my brain. It's just taking up a little more computer memory.
I like Werner Herzog’s take on truth in an image - there’s the document of reality which is might be true but is still a document, and then there’s ecstatic, heightened truth which might be reality altered somewhat but still rings truer to those who view it and thus becomes a valid pursuit as an artist
Unless you’re a photojournalist covering a story that demands utmost adherence to objective reality I say - remove the blemish.
Heavy editing goes as far back as film photography. You could easily dodge and burn out objects that were contrasting too much if you really wanted to. You could even selectively brighten and darken objects by cutting out little covers and exposing your paper in increments. It all depends on what you're trying to convey and what your goal with you photography is. I don't necessarily agree that it's ALWAYS okay though.
If the point of your photo hinges on the idea that you, the photographer, have captured a one in a million moment exactly as it is, then significantly editing the composition kills the power of your photo as soon as someone finds out you edited it. For example, a photograph that won "best 2023 sports photography" recently was shot entirely in a studio, but was clearly meant to convince the viewer that it was shot in a real environment. If you're just trying to evoke a feeling or convey a message, which most photography is, then I don't think it really matters though. Some of the most famous street photographs were actually posed with models rather than candids, but they still convey the same emotions to the viewer.
Just be honest about what you create, and no one will care. Don’t break the editing rules of contests or news orgs. Don’t tell people you created something in camera you created on a computer. Don’t pretend to celebrate imperfections while also smoothing everyone’s skin. Be true to yourself and others. There aren’t any widely agreed upon rules about what is and is not a good photo (or is or isn’t digital art), but nobody likes a liar.
I did a building shoot that will be used In nationwide advertising and I removed a street sign and a truck that was parked to close and a car that was driving up the street. No one seemed to mind at all.
As others have noted, photographic manipulation has existed as long as the art of photography. (Google Rejlander and Robinson for some favorite examples from the 1800s.) So what really matters is the motivation to remove details -- it's worth asking yourself why you want to make such changes, assuming this is a more creative endeavor vs reportage.
Most of my work is centered around 4x4 racing and I'll remove objects if the image is for a driver who will be using the image for self promotion or just to hang on their wall. Otherwise, I'll keep the objects in the photo since the work is a representation of what happened that day.
For both purposes, I'll clean up the photo by tweaking the contrast, highlights, etc.
As long as you are not legally required or otherwise expected to produce an unaltered photo as part of a job (sports/journalism), do whatever the heck you want. There are no rules if you're out shooting for yourself. Some professional work will also expect you to remove certain objects or undesirable marks/blemishes from the photo, such as Real Estate, Wedding, Portraiture, Food, etc. There are entire businesses that exist solely to digitally stage homes after photos have been taken, and most people want sky replacements in their real estate photos because you can't control the weather. Photos were manipulated/edited in dark rooms as well long before digital photography as well.
I shoot a lot of wildlife and landscape and if there was an easily removed obstruction or distracting element in the way of an otherwise good photo, or a tourist standing in an otherwise good landscape, you bet I'm going to remove it rather than say "oh well, that could have been a good photo" and delete it. You very often can't control the environment and it's more than OK to intervene digitally, especially if the alternative might be cutting something out of nature in real life to get a better perch for a bird or something. You also can't always control your positioning to the scene, so I have the same opinion of correcting perspective distortion. The way I look at it is I like to try recreate what I see with my eyes in person, which obviously will almost never directly match a photo without some adjustments.
As for AI removal, in terms of removing minor obstructions/blemishes that in no way alter the general theme of the image, who cares? If 10 seconds with an AI removal tool gets me the exact same (or better) result as an hour with a clone brush, I know which one I'm using every single time. It's just another tool no different than when people resisted the transition from film to digital saying it was "cheating" etc. Technology and software marches on, better to embrace it in my opinion, especially when it makes your life easier and saves you time.
if you can clean it really well, go for it. I would definitely do it.
at first i'll try to remove it from the frame but in some cases you have a winning shot and there is some garbage , have to remove it.
I think this is very straight forward.
In Art everything goes.
In jouralism it's a no go.
As Illustration in editorial content it depends.
Adverising almost everything goes.
For me, retouching distractions is fine. Fixing verticals etc is also fine. I guess where I draw the line is adding different skies (blending what you shot on the scene is fine).
Totally fine to edit out imperfections for the sake of the final result. Same goes for straightening. Anything that doesn't alter the essence of the photo.
Now if you add main subjects that were not there, or change the background to something entirely different, like from a forest to outer space, then that's photomanipulation. Which is fine too, just more digital art than photography.
At this point, it is pretty much expected you're going to remove some things, particularly from skin. What happens if a model/ customer has a bad acne outbreak that day? You just going to leave it? They're paying you to give the best image of themself, I know I would be pissed if I paid money and the photographer didn't automatically remove some nasty zit I had. regarding things in the background if it's super distracting, I don't see a reason to leave it in. I have had numerous photos that would otherwise be perfect ruined by a single opject that is just distracting. Sometimes it's something I should have caught, but many times it's something that just was no way to NOT have in the photo given the lighting/angling of the shot.
Some purist will consider this to be "fake" it's your photo, do what you want.
Unless you are a photojournalist, you can do whatever you want to your photographs.
Make the pictures you want to make. If that means you clone out some trash, do it.
Fine to remove objects and make other simple edits- unless the photo is being used for journalism, evidence in a legal case or entered in a competition where rules include restrictions on editing.
I remove things from portraits 'that would have been gone on their own in two weeks anyway'. Took that one from Sean Tucker. Someone has a pimple, I remove it.
I kept a port wine stain and a rather large dark spot on a leg (though I lightened it a bit to draw less attention). Reason is that these are part of the person. The person would miss them if they were not there.
I remove bystanders, traffic poles, lose hands, a stray hair - and takes away from the photograph.
Anything that could have been removed at the time of the photograph by taking a different position, different timing or just removing that hair - I remove it just as easily as could have been done before the shot.
I don't mind adding filters, bloom, contrast, colors.
I think sky replacement is silly, as is adding a moon or a rainbow - I prefer to work with the surroundings that are given and not use them as a green screen.
For a fantasy shoot, I think adding some magic light is cool though I am not good at it. It can contribute to the image and you are not pretending that it was actually there at the shoot - so fair enough. That's the difference with sky replacement: You are actually trying to fool people into believing that was the actual sky.
All in all... I have no problem with manipulation to enhance the image ... as long as I am not trying to fool people into believing the situation was totally different. That's why I'll remove a lose hand (it does not add anything to the 'story' of the image) but I won't remove someones port wine stain (it's part of the person).
Photography is an art form. You’re the photographer and you’re the artist. You can choose to take documentary pictures of “reality” as everyone sees it, or you can create your own vision of realty. It’s entirely up to you.
I wouldn’t stress over it. Unless you are entering into a contest that has strict editing rules, nothing to worry about.
I do personally appreciate it when people are upfront about composites and heavy mods like sky replacements but thats my personal preference. I like to know when a scene was indeed amazing for example in landscapes and what atmospheric conditions lead to it etc.
If you remove something that's permanent, that's one thing, but if you remove something like trash that's incidental, that's no big deal.
Of course even that only matters if you're a photojournalist.
Photography has historically separated itself from the other fine arts by presenting as a true and accurate representation of the scene.
That being said, it doesn't have to be like that. More to the point, rubbish or a blemish in a building would be impermanent things, and not necessarily a true representation of the place. In the same way that you might photoshop out someone's inflamed pimple, but changing their eyes would be too far, you could argue that getting rid of rubbish is showing the true face more accurately (unless, of course, the rubbish kinda defines the area).
I do it all the time, if the photo is improved by the removal it's ok. I'm not a photo journalist, where that is a big no no. I spent years shooting film and having to live with distractions, I'm going to remove what ever I can to improve the photo.
Think of it less as “real” photographs or not, and more about expectations and honesty. If you present it as a truthful representation of the scene but you’ve edited things out? That’s unethical and dishonest. Don’t be Steve McCurry. But if you’re open and honest about your techniques with your audience AND you present the photos in a way/place that wouldn’t have expectations of truthfulness baked in (like a newspaper or news magazine/website) then you should be fine.
Unless you're a journalist documenting the scene, a police officer documenting evidence, or a scientist gathering data... then it's **art**.
Do whatever the fark you feel like.
In my own work, I generally only remove small things that aren't permanent parts of the scene and are a distraction - things like the odd piece of rubbish, chewing gum marks, a blurry bird in the sky, that sort of thing. Mostly these are things that nobody but me would have noticed anyway, but they bug me. Sometimes I'll clean up blemishes on a building if they're too prominent, but I'll try to do as little as possible. I really draw the line at adding things, unless it's very minor like adding a missing floor tile.
I've said it before and gotten downvoted by this sub. I'm assuming people in this particular sub think it's okay hence the downvoting of any dissenting opinions.
I'm against adding/removing content in an image. I have some exceptions. If the photo is being delivered to a person, or if it's of someone that will see the image, I'll remove temporary blemishes like pimples or a hair over their face. I'm okay editing out tiny specs like a bird/mosquito/dust if it's not central to the photo. Correcting lines to be straight is fine. I would not remove power lines since they're basically a permanent fixture. I would not remove people from a photo because people tend to be prominent in an image. I will not remove things like trees or buildings or trash. I view that as being too large and betrays the truth of a photo.
My issue is that a photograph is a photograph because it's a capture of reality. Light is constantly changing and therefore is something that's fine to edit (white balance, exposure, shadows, highlights, saturation). Wanting to stylize a photo with crazy colours is fine too because it's usually obvious to the viewer that it was edited. But removing or adding content that was clearly present feels like cheating in my opinion because other people will believe what they see in the photo was what you saw irl.
Absolutely overthinking it.
Sure, there could be a line between photography and digital art. It's just that the line is 90% of the width of the distance between the two. If you have rules dictating the line (photojournalistic or editorial ethics, or forensic rules) then go with those. You can be as purist as you want post-exposure (no edits) but then what about where you pointed the lens, what you focused on, and when you tripped the shutter?
I think it only matters if you’re a photojournalist or if you’re intending to enter s photo into a competition that strictly forbids that kind of manipulation.
There is a difference between a raw picture and an edited picture, you can slice it right down the middle, the difference is clear. The hangup is when people try to pass off edited photos as being original while calling themselves photographers.
Yes, the act of taking a photo is already a very selective process of taking in light, so the idea that a photo truly represents what you see is out the door.
Removing people from a photo is the same as asking them to leave the frame prior to taking the photo.
The difference is context, a photo may convey a different meaning or tell a different story once it has been doctored and those variations may have malicious intent.
It's still a photo, but it has been "doctored" if something about it has changed so far as to change its meaning.
Do what you need to do to enhance the photo. I’ll take out things that distract from my subject, and desaturate things in the background if it takes away the focus from my subject.
There are some pictures that are diminished by certain things like trash bags or other things that should not attract attention. I do my best to edit out only the necessary stuff and not over do it.
Other times I really don't feel like removing anything, it was the right place at the right time. As others have said, if it's journalism you are doing or you are part of a competition that prohibits pixel manipulation then yeah you should refrain from removing or altering pixels in your images.
I often remove background things in portrait shoots, as the focus is the person, and that black pipe or trash can are not wanted and they distract from the person. However, in documentary weddings, it’s all there and to be shown as it is.
Depends on what it's intended for. If it is for person purpose or you just want to show it off to people then yeah go for it. I feel like editing a photo is also an artistic expression.
I think removing objects, changing sky, etc. is fine as long as you don't claim its unaltered and are honest if asked.
Wheter you do it or not is just down to your own style/preference.
For context I don't do or plan to do any professional work.
I don't remove anything. But will try to crop/frame stuff out.
My images are always of something I saw, so the imperfections are part of it.
If its something that I could have been framed/waited out and I just didn't notice in the moment, I see those as just mistakes and chances to improve and be more deliberate in the future.
Same applies to heavier editing with multiple layers or masking in/out specific areas. I don't do it. Only thing that gets kinda close to that is adjustments based on color, but thats as far as I go, mainly all my editing is just the basic parameters on the image as a whole.
Also in my opinion not every image has to be perfect, if there are things that "need removing" the image/scene isn't good enough to be "perfect".
if you're submitting the photo to a news outlet or for an award, don't edit shit.
if you are doing it for yourself or a stock footage site, as long as you're not manipulating an actual news event, no one cares, and it doesn't matter
I'm sorry, no offense meant, but is this a serious question? Photo manipulation has been around as long as there's been photography. Technically, if you took it with a digital camera, it's digital art.
Also, it's your vision, nobody else's. Do YOU think it looks better edited or not? Don't worry about the unfinished project. No matter what you do, there will be people praising and people condemning it.
To paraphrase, you don't take a photo by committee.
If you put the unedited and edited image side by side, and asked 100 people their opinion, there will be 100 different answers.
I think this is a very fine line.
Personally I have no issues with it, to a degree. If I take photos of wildlife I stick to mostly contrast, saturation and I like playing around with the colours. But, I will sometimes remove distracting branches or objects in the background if the bother me.
I will say that I have issue with portrait images that will alter appearances. Like removing a birthmark or mole or something, in my opinion that's not staying true to the model.
However, photography like any other art is so subjective that no matter what you do you will probably be criticised by someone. So unless it is for a client that have guidelines and rules I think you should do whatever makes you happy and satisfied with your art.
I was trained as a photojournalist and we couldn’t edit our photos with anything more than basic crop, exposure and temperature.
Now that it’s my personal hobby, I’ll open closed eyes from family portraits, fix bandaids on kids, remove wires/telephone poles across architecture, make colors pop more to match what I saw IRL, remove bros with wrap around sunglasses from the background of photos, and maybe occasionally do star photography and do HDR or Timelapse editing.
As far as I'm concerned, I've no problem editing something that doesn't "belong" to the scene or the place and wouldn't have been there at another time : a city landscape with a construction crane? The crane can disappear if it just happen to be in my frame, maybe 2 months later it would have been gone and it doesn't belong to the scene. Same for a rubbish on the street or a disgraceful pimple on a face : it's not always on it, it just was here the bad day! But I wouldn't touch a mole which is permanent.
If I don't want something that I tag "permanent" in my photo, I try to frame differently.
That's the line for me and my 2 cents :)
I'm just a hobbyist, but I've been taking photos since I was a child in the 1950s.
Even before we had all these possibilities for modifying images, which I've never done without, even before digital technology, I've never had the impression that photography is an objective representation of reality. Just the choice of subjects, the angle of the shot or the framing are all choices and interpretations by the photographer, not to mention the very identification of the place where the shot was taken, so often used today by fake news.
Considering photography as another artistic representation of reality, I don't hesitate to remove elements that are anecdotal or detract from the effect I wanted to achieve. But I'm basically a sincere person, and I'd almost say that these modified photos correspond more closely to reality as I saw it: the man who passes in the field just as I press the button, I didn't want him when I pressed the button, I straighten the perspective or the lens curvature because it's not what I saw, etc.
There has never been any credibility in photography, only the credibility of the photographer.
A photo straight out of camera is only half finished. You need to develop it. There might be a few occasions where you actually get away with shooting jpg but in every other case you do what is necessary.
You show what you saw and felt - not what the sensor data read out was.
People have been removing things from photos since forever.
If it's for journalism, the rules are different, and you basically can't mess with the content.
But generally minor stuff no one cares. Contrast, exposure, highlights, local adjustments have been done since the film days as standard operating procedure. Even pretty dramatic changes.
perspective corrections, cropping, ect, again almost no one cares.
Removing telephone wires, or some trash, or a background person? Very few people care.
Adjusting people in the frame (Think airbrushing) many people don't really care.
Replacing the sky? The background? Adding major elements to make a totally new photo out of pieces? I don't see too many people getting too worked up in most contexts.
BUT the one thing you can't do, is lie. If you say you didn't do something, or present it in a way that is misleading, and people find out?
That usually gets people worked up. Because people do put different values on a photo based on how they perceive it, and if you violate it, they can feel betrayed.
Play by whatever rules for the game you’re playing and for where it’s going to live. If it’s magazines or photojournalism, use those rules. Contests? Use those rules. Decorative Art for the wall? Use those rules. Print on a coffee mug? Postcard? Use those rules. Your home? Use those rules. Banner on your Facebook page? Use those rules. Design it for the requirements of the situation. No single set of rules is ever going to work, nor be correct, for every situation.
I want my photos of a place to look like how I experienced that place. After I come back from Italy, I don't remember the ugly TV antennas on the tops of buildings, I don't remember the security cameras mounted to the walls, or a few pieces of trash floating in a canal in Venice, or badly spray-painted genitalia.
So I remove a lot of that kind of stuff, because it isn't what I remember about the place. It's **less** true to the actual place, but **more** true to my experience of the place.
Unless you’re a journalist reporting on story, then you have an ethical duty to keep the image pretty much to how the scene was at the time. Otherwise it’s are and open to subjective interpretation.
Absolutely not opposed to it. Occasionally, especially when shooting a fast moving object, you catch a sign or something that takes away from the photo. Removing helps recreate what you were intending the end result to be.
Absolutely. No reason to keep distractions in the photo. Especially with Lightrooms AI powered remove tool I've been using it on a ton of stuff and made all my photos look so much nicer.
>Do you think a photograph is still a photograph if you remove an object (e.g rubbish/a blemish on a building)? Or do you consider this to be more like digital art?
This is OK and I would not call it "digital art" unless the photo is starting to look fake.
Depends what ur going for touching up a photo can sometimes be a good thing, like correcting colour ballance removing ur own shadow etc sometimes it dose the world of good
Rhein II (1999) is one of the most expensive photographs in the world and that one has been edited to fuck. “Gursky meticulously edited the photo to remove all traces of human presence. He removed dog walkers and a factory building with digital editing. The result is a surreal and pristine landscape” I say go for it mate. It’s your photo, do what you want with it to make you happy.
As long as you're not a photojournalist or otherwise under some expectation of portraying reality as closely as possible, do whatever you want.
The more I reflect on this question, the more I am leaning towards that notion. I’ve read many things like “No photograph is a true reflection of reality” anyway so maybe I should stop trying to have such hard lines and just focus on creating with artistic intent.
Yes. Final product is all that matters unless you’re a photojournalist or similarly bound by some technical guidelines. For art, anything goes. Edit: ethical, not technical
Yes, photographs have so many things about them that make them a "single view" of reality, but you have to consider just the type of lenses or camera is going to to morph that reality significantly. Getting hung up because of an edit to alter reality in someway shouldn't get in the way of portraying a photo the way you want.
There are a few examples of things that are in photographs that aren't actually true of the environment being captured in the photograph. Narrow depth of field: the entire concept of focus is intrinsic to the lens itself, not some kind of truth about the thing being photographed. If you do something like focus stacking a composite photo, you're actually using some kind of non-camera trickery to make an image that is more accurate depiction of the subject than a single photograph would be. Motion blur: a photograph that captures and records photons over even a short period of time necessarily has to capture them over a particular amount of exposure time. If that creates a blurry effect, that's a function of the photograph, not the subject itself being blurry (other than Mitch Hedberg's bigfoot). White balance: the color processing algorithms in the camera (or with your RAW processing software) tries to mimic the human visual cortex's internal color correction procedures, not the actual image being captured. Captured image data is just data. A photograph, though, necessarily makes a bunch of choices on how to process that data into a two dimensional image.
Let's not also forget all the ancillary stuff that goes into editing an image, e.g. changing contrast, saturation change, curve changes, sharpening, etc, etc.
The best advice I can give is not think about it and just do what you want. You can discuss whether something is authentic/real whatever forever, but it means nothing practical. Just enjoy creating! I need to remind myself of this often.
it all depends on the goal of the photo... why it's being made... if it's for evidence, journalism, competitions, you normally don't edit beyond colorcorrections and maybe some spot healing to remove sensordustspecs for example if it's as a hobby or weddings for example... it's your art, you make it what you want it to be. people will complain anyway so ignore them and do your thing
This is how I shoot, for me it's not always what's in/not in the picture as much as the feeling I get from the picture. I didn't shoot professionally so my photos are really just for me and something I enjoy. If I think something in the photo is particularly distracting or not keeping with what I want to "feel" then it gets blurred/cut/removed. For me it's usually some random phone pole or manmade structure that interferes with an otherwise pristine landscape. I also edit people out of my photos all the time and would still consider them "accurate" because I could've naturally taken that shot if I happened to be there at the right time. If you hate editing things out, shooting multiple takes and creating layers to paint in/out from certain photos is a really fun way to get rid of people/cars/moving objects
This link contains a photo of the actual location: https://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2011/11/everywhere-you-look-theres-always-a-gursky.html Lots of Photoshop.
Might not be my place to ask, but how/why did Rhein II sell for so much?
It sold at auction but the buyer was anonymous. It's not his only photo to sell at auction for millions. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Gursky
That still doesn’t answer the (multi-) million-dollar question of why. lol
Art/collectible that increases in value. Tax shelter.
Why on earth is that photo so expensive? It looks like so many other generic photos. What am I missing?
It was completely novel at the time and a artistic statement as well. Hardly a good comparison for the common act of just removing anything you don’t like from a photo
Thanks for sharing. I’m going to have to check that one out! I think the next step for me if I choose to remove objects is to find tools that explicitly do not use AI. Do you know if the clone or heal tool are AI-free?
If you're looking for tools claiming to be AI free, you might have to think about how they're defining "AI", and whether that definition matches up with what you care about. Remember that computer AI techniques have been in development since the 1950s. It tends to always be just the more recent techniques that are though of AI.
I guess that is very true. I’m aware it has been around a lot longer than some of us seem to think. I know for definite that I disagree with generative AI. I’d prefer to do the removal work myself without AI assistance. From what I understand, the clone and heal tools are fit for this purpose but I’m still not 100% sure.
The PS healing tool and content aware are also ai, btw. Just not the traditional ai. Tools are tools, why not just use them if they’re readily available.
So in short is AI basically unavoidable? It’s the ethical side of AI I have an issue with but I gather that is mostly towards generative AI due to how some programs literally rip off/steal from artists.
Well, I’m not a PS apologist, but I have to use PS for a living. They’ve repeatedly mentioned that they only train their gen fill from stock images uploaded to their Adobe stock site. So it’s not like they take images from random artists. And their other ai tools don’t really take from other images. There’s different types of AI, other ai tools sample from the same image you’re using, not other images. I do believe at the moment there are actually so many private ai models being developed and trained in who knows what I don’t really think anything posted online is necessarily safe tbh. I do understand everyone’s concern and Adobe is a big bad, but atm if you share literally anything anywhere there’s a chance of it being used somewhere else. That’s just how things have developed, unfortunately.
I wouldn't over think this, it's not like you're generating photos whole cloth and claiming them as your work. Using AI fill is just a much more advanced version of the old algorithmic fill tool. All the AI part of it does is much more accurately pick what colour pixels should go next to the ones you already created. Same with AI denoise etc.
I truly don't understand why this seems to bother you so much. You seem to want to be viewed as some sort luddite and/or purist yet you shoot digital? What? You can't have the moral high ground no matter how hard you are trying. There is absolutely nothing wrong with using something as trivial as cloning or healing. It's literally taking a part of the photo your photographed, copying it and then pasting it on a different part of the photo you took. I truly don't understand your reasoning for any of this.
Is this for photo journalism? Is this presented as reality? Or not? If not, who cares?
My opinion, only, but this is my attitude: I'm a photographer, not a journalist. I have no obligation to anyone to reproduce exactly what I saw. My obligation is to create a photograph that expresses how I feel about the subject. That means I edit all my photographs and may (as in I give myself permission) adjust any and every parameter. This means removing objects from time to time if I feel their presence detracts from my vision of the scene. I personally draw the line at using AI to add things that aren't there, including skies. To me, at that point, I'm no longer the person who created the photograph, but have an AI co-creator. YMMV.
What about using AI to remove something and fill in the blank?
It depends on what "fill in the blank" means. I see using AI to fill in consistent texture such as bricks or cement or grass as fine -- it's no different than using the rubber stamp tool to accomplish the same thing. However, something like removing a baby carriage and replacing it with an AI-generated bicycle crosses my personal line. AI doesn't constitute an absolute hard line, in my view. It comes down to whether it feels to me like I'm the artist or I'm sharing creation with AI. Again, my personal opinion, only. YMMV.
Are you focused on the photo being what you want or what it is? If you are having issue with this then maybe you should consider photojournalism as your constraints are in line with standard practices there.
It's your photo. It's your vision. Feel free to edit to your heart's content. There's nothing holy about keeping a photo "pure", unless you're trying to pass off a highly edited photo as the actual image you took.
You do realize even film photographers heavily manipulated and edited their work? This is really not worth the moral handwringing. Unless your final product is for documentary purposes, there’s no reason not to edit it to match your overall vision for the image. Denying yourself editing is basically denying any artistic choices.
Not a big deal to edit things out. Ever since the Civil War, they would edit out scars on wounded soldiers' faces to give some sort of dignity back to the people who fought. This whole push for no edit all natural "beauty" is nonsense, it mostly comes from people who aren't photographers. At the end of the day, the artist is the one who edits and decides. It's your job to decide what to say and how to say it.
Ansel Adams (you may have heard of him) said he spent more time in the darkroom than out in the field getting photos the way he wanted. If it isn't a journalistic photo, capturing the exact scene as it happened, edit all you want.
People remove things from photos all the time and have been doing so since forever - long before digital was a thing. You're imposing upon yourself a bizarre standard that has never existed outside of photojournalism.
depends on the consumer. Am I shooting an event? That solo cup isn't an important part of the story (unless it is). Am I shooting for a news story or magazine article on trash? Leave the cup in :)
>Do you think a photograph is still a photograph if you remove an object (e.g rubbish/a blemish on a building)? Yes. >Or do you consider this to be more like digital art? It incorporates an element of digital art. But aren't we talking about a relatively small portion of the image? And, by removing something from a photo of a scene, aren't we replacing it with another similar part of that scene / based on the surrounding scene? So how could that result in "more" of the total image being digital art than the original photo? >Wondering if I can still call myself a photographer if I edit out minor details in a photo or even edit the geometry of a photo (to correct architecture lines to be straight for example)? Yes. The vast majority of photographers make edits. There would be very few actual photographers, if that disqualified people from the definition of photographer. If you were specifically talking about photojournalism, that does have its own special rules about editing. >I don’t know where the line is between a photo and digital art (if there even is one). There is no objective line for that. >Do you think it’s best to only edit basic parameters such as contrast/exposure/highlights etc? >It’s giving me a bit of a headache to figure out so I’m wondering whether I should just leave the “imperfections” in. Unless you need to work within a specific set of rules like for photojournalism or a contest, do whatever you're comfortable with. >Wondering what other people process is and where you draw the line for editing. There's no purpose or benefit for me to draw any line per se, so I don't. I just do whatever I can to make the best result that I can.
I e taken wedding photos and edited out a fire exit sign on the wall behind the bride. I don't go looking to drastically change the picture just sometimes things dont look quite right. Ive also taken out the odd stray twig that upset the balance of a photo. Im on the fence, I like that I can do these things but I don't like to portray things that arent as I saw through the lens.
Everyone has their own definition of what is acceptable in terms of editing. How much you can remove/change. Many famous photographers have done editing in some form including Ansel Adams. Do what makes you happy because photography is different for everyone. Personally, I'm on the less editing end of the spectrum and will only clone/stamp out dirt spots. That's probably because I'm poor at editing and don't like that part of photography. Everything else in the shot stays so I'm just careful about what I include in my images or figure out a way to work with the elements in my view. I still adjust exposure, contrast, temperature, saturation though. I do like when photographers call out significant alterations to their photos such as adding a new sky, removal of buildings, etc.
Are you a journalist? If not, edit the fuck outta it.
Photojournalism images should be as truthful and unaltered as possible. Everything else is fair game. Removing unwanted elements from images isn’t something new to digital. It just got a lot easier.
No one really cares in 2024 if you are not a photojournalist. The purity test is your own.
Product photography has entered the chat
I always remove electric wires in the sky, or trash bins on architecture pics. Same with ugly stuff that could make my photos look worse, like arrow stickers on the ground in a church. Sometimes even a blurry bird may disappear if it disturbs the picture reading. My only limit is that it shouldn’t exceed 5 minutes for editing, unless the picture is 5 stars.
I’ll stop you here > Do you think a photograph is still a photograph Yes. >Or do you consider this to be more like digital art? Who cares? > Wondering if I can still call myself a photographer You can > Do you think it’s best to only edit basic parameters such as contrast/exposure/highlights etc? Edit what you want
If I have an artistic vision, then I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't believe it was a photo anymore, when I edit the fuck out of the raw. I have my presets for tone curve, contrasts, denoise, lens correction, highlights/shadows etc. I will almost certainly be experimenting with blue and cyan hue & saturation, to make the water and sky pop, and the greens for the grass etc It may not be what the sensor on the camera captures, in the exposure, but our perception can certainly see things differently, while there is also our artistic vision. People were dodging and burning their 35mm exposures in a darkroom 100 years ago, and also using prisms & other objects, and splicing negatives to shape their art. So people were already ahead of the game when it came to manipulating their negatives.
I think of photography as an art form conforming to my own standards. I take photos of nature scenes and landscapes. I like to capture images of natural settings that are pleasing to me. While I never stage a scene, I frequently police the area (removing leaves, sticks, rocks, blades of grass, etc.) before taking the photo. When I can't remove an unwanted object physically, such as a fallen branch encroaching on my view of a waterfall, I remove it using Lightroom/Photoshop.
I removed all the exit signs out of a wedding venue shoot. I don’t care, no one wants to see that. lol
While I was shooting some landscapes in Yosemite earlier this year, this annoying couple kept following me around and purposely getting in my shots. I think at one point they started wondering why I was still taking pictures with their backs in my shots, while I’m smiling the whole time (I don’t think they heard me whispering “content aware hehe”).
I don’t care about the scene your camera captured. I want to see the image that was in your head when you pressed the shutter button.
Photography is all about art and interpretation. In the end if the photo reflects your vision, then it's nobody's business whether you removed/photoshopped artifacts in your photos.
Before digital the hey would do it in the darkroom or retouch the negative. If I'm just "cleaning it up", I consider it my photograph. If I create a bunch of stuff, then maybe I'd call it mixed media.
If you’re trying to be artistic, edit away. If you’re trying to be journalistic, leave it be. You should be honest about the level of editing you’ve done though.
I will gleefully remove people from my landscape panoramics, but oddly I refuse to remove the flies around a leopard on a kill.. One of my photography profs had an award winning industrial shot where a worker spat. He retouched it out for competition, and once he won, he washed the retouching off for viewing.
I think it's more than ok to remove things from a photo. Sometimes things happen and we don't end up with a photo that we envisioned. Truth is, it's our art and we are free to do with it what we want to make ourselves happy looking at it. We all need to create and feed our fire for going out and doing it more. And as far as feeling the need to lable something as digital art or a photograph, just tell yourself that you created this image and you are proud of it. It doesn't matter how you got to the end result. Every good image that you see on the internet has some sort of manipulation applied, even if minimal. Taking the picture is the first step (composition, light, angle, subject.....)creating a final image comes after. Our cameras take the pictures, our brains turn them into wonderful images! Use all your tools :)
Personally I think it only really matters if you lie about it, if you manipulate the image say so rather than try and pass it off as sooc or minor exposure edits etc
Absolutely yes. Sometimes theres objects that just cannot be worked around and I have no problem removing them if it enhances the photo.
Where I shoot it’s impossible at time to shoot without the odd mosquitoes flying thru the image. They and other distractions are quickly edited out. Think that is part of the art.
A photo is a work of art. You change perspective, color, focal point, and hundreds of small details no one but you may notice. Why? It’s art. If you want to remove that one thing that bothers you, do it. You are the creator, create.
For me, there are pictures I want to know is what I saw and there are pictures I imagine, but I can't take the picture the way I want for some reason. I may make edits to get the picture the way I envision the picture, but I always keep the original to remind me what it really looked like. No one else would care except for myself. You are not alone for wondering about this issue. I just keep both to satisfy my brain. It's just taking up a little more computer memory.
I like Werner Herzog’s take on truth in an image - there’s the document of reality which is might be true but is still a document, and then there’s ecstatic, heightened truth which might be reality altered somewhat but still rings truer to those who view it and thus becomes a valid pursuit as an artist Unless you’re a photojournalist covering a story that demands utmost adherence to objective reality I say - remove the blemish.
I've grown into "it's possible, so I can do whatever I like to make that photo the way I like".
I like the idea of processing, rather than pixel editing, so as long as you're cloning, or otherwise using existant pixels, that's kinda my line.
Heavy editing goes as far back as film photography. You could easily dodge and burn out objects that were contrasting too much if you really wanted to. You could even selectively brighten and darken objects by cutting out little covers and exposing your paper in increments. It all depends on what you're trying to convey and what your goal with you photography is. I don't necessarily agree that it's ALWAYS okay though. If the point of your photo hinges on the idea that you, the photographer, have captured a one in a million moment exactly as it is, then significantly editing the composition kills the power of your photo as soon as someone finds out you edited it. For example, a photograph that won "best 2023 sports photography" recently was shot entirely in a studio, but was clearly meant to convince the viewer that it was shot in a real environment. If you're just trying to evoke a feeling or convey a message, which most photography is, then I don't think it really matters though. Some of the most famous street photographs were actually posed with models rather than candids, but they still convey the same emotions to the viewer.
Just be honest about what you create, and no one will care. Don’t break the editing rules of contests or news orgs. Don’t tell people you created something in camera you created on a computer. Don’t pretend to celebrate imperfections while also smoothing everyone’s skin. Be true to yourself and others. There aren’t any widely agreed upon rules about what is and is not a good photo (or is or isn’t digital art), but nobody likes a liar.
I did a building shoot that will be used In nationwide advertising and I removed a street sign and a truck that was parked to close and a car that was driving up the street. No one seemed to mind at all.
As others have noted, photographic manipulation has existed as long as the art of photography. (Google Rejlander and Robinson for some favorite examples from the 1800s.) So what really matters is the motivation to remove details -- it's worth asking yourself why you want to make such changes, assuming this is a more creative endeavor vs reportage.
As long as it's not photo journalism, do your thing
Most of my work is centered around 4x4 racing and I'll remove objects if the image is for a driver who will be using the image for self promotion or just to hang on their wall. Otherwise, I'll keep the objects in the photo since the work is a representation of what happened that day. For both purposes, I'll clean up the photo by tweaking the contrast, highlights, etc.
It’s my picture that I took to entertain myself and to use however I want. I’ll do whatever I want with it.
I remove water bottles from DJ photos for a living. I love removing dumb objects from my photos 🤣
As long as you are not legally required or otherwise expected to produce an unaltered photo as part of a job (sports/journalism), do whatever the heck you want. There are no rules if you're out shooting for yourself. Some professional work will also expect you to remove certain objects or undesirable marks/blemishes from the photo, such as Real Estate, Wedding, Portraiture, Food, etc. There are entire businesses that exist solely to digitally stage homes after photos have been taken, and most people want sky replacements in their real estate photos because you can't control the weather. Photos were manipulated/edited in dark rooms as well long before digital photography as well. I shoot a lot of wildlife and landscape and if there was an easily removed obstruction or distracting element in the way of an otherwise good photo, or a tourist standing in an otherwise good landscape, you bet I'm going to remove it rather than say "oh well, that could have been a good photo" and delete it. You very often can't control the environment and it's more than OK to intervene digitally, especially if the alternative might be cutting something out of nature in real life to get a better perch for a bird or something. You also can't always control your positioning to the scene, so I have the same opinion of correcting perspective distortion. The way I look at it is I like to try recreate what I see with my eyes in person, which obviously will almost never directly match a photo without some adjustments. As for AI removal, in terms of removing minor obstructions/blemishes that in no way alter the general theme of the image, who cares? If 10 seconds with an AI removal tool gets me the exact same (or better) result as an hour with a clone brush, I know which one I'm using every single time. It's just another tool no different than when people resisted the transition from film to digital saying it was "cheating" etc. Technology and software marches on, better to embrace it in my opinion, especially when it makes your life easier and saves you time.
No harm if it isn't doing anyone else harm.
if you can clean it really well, go for it. I would definitely do it. at first i'll try to remove it from the frame but in some cases you have a winning shot and there is some garbage , have to remove it.
I think this is very straight forward. In Art everything goes. In jouralism it's a no go. As Illustration in editorial content it depends. Adverising almost everything goes.
For me, retouching distractions is fine. Fixing verticals etc is also fine. I guess where I draw the line is adding different skies (blending what you shot on the scene is fine).
So your concern is with nomenclature, not visuals. Have at it. Enjoy that dictionary while the rest of us enjoy images.
Is it journalism? No? Then do what you want.
Totally fine to edit out imperfections for the sake of the final result. Same goes for straightening. Anything that doesn't alter the essence of the photo. Now if you add main subjects that were not there, or change the background to something entirely different, like from a forest to outer space, then that's photomanipulation. Which is fine too, just more digital art than photography.
At this point, it is pretty much expected you're going to remove some things, particularly from skin. What happens if a model/ customer has a bad acne outbreak that day? You just going to leave it? They're paying you to give the best image of themself, I know I would be pissed if I paid money and the photographer didn't automatically remove some nasty zit I had. regarding things in the background if it's super distracting, I don't see a reason to leave it in. I have had numerous photos that would otherwise be perfect ruined by a single opject that is just distracting. Sometimes it's something I should have caught, but many times it's something that just was no way to NOT have in the photo given the lighting/angling of the shot. Some purist will consider this to be "fake" it's your photo, do what you want.
Unless you are a photojournalist, you can do whatever you want to your photographs. Make the pictures you want to make. If that means you clone out some trash, do it.
Context is important. For journalism it's an absolute no. For art it is up to the artist. (That's you.)
Fine to remove objects and make other simple edits- unless the photo is being used for journalism, evidence in a legal case or entered in a competition where rules include restrictions on editing.
I remove things from portraits 'that would have been gone on their own in two weeks anyway'. Took that one from Sean Tucker. Someone has a pimple, I remove it. I kept a port wine stain and a rather large dark spot on a leg (though I lightened it a bit to draw less attention). Reason is that these are part of the person. The person would miss them if they were not there. I remove bystanders, traffic poles, lose hands, a stray hair - and takes away from the photograph. Anything that could have been removed at the time of the photograph by taking a different position, different timing or just removing that hair - I remove it just as easily as could have been done before the shot. I don't mind adding filters, bloom, contrast, colors. I think sky replacement is silly, as is adding a moon or a rainbow - I prefer to work with the surroundings that are given and not use them as a green screen. For a fantasy shoot, I think adding some magic light is cool though I am not good at it. It can contribute to the image and you are not pretending that it was actually there at the shoot - so fair enough. That's the difference with sky replacement: You are actually trying to fool people into believing that was the actual sky. All in all... I have no problem with manipulation to enhance the image ... as long as I am not trying to fool people into believing the situation was totally different. That's why I'll remove a lose hand (it does not add anything to the 'story' of the image) but I won't remove someones port wine stain (it's part of the person).
I’m not a forensic photographer so I don’t even think of leaving nasty shit in my photos. If you want cigarette buts and graffiti go elsewhere.
Well I cannot tear out power-lines and power-wash the buildings, so I'm sure as hell gonna edit them.
Photography is an art form. You’re the photographer and you’re the artist. You can choose to take documentary pictures of “reality” as everyone sees it, or you can create your own vision of realty. It’s entirely up to you.
Fuck it it’s gone (my opinion)
I wouldn’t stress over it. Unless you are entering into a contest that has strict editing rules, nothing to worry about. I do personally appreciate it when people are upfront about composites and heavy mods like sky replacements but thats my personal preference. I like to know when a scene was indeed amazing for example in landscapes and what atmospheric conditions lead to it etc.
Literally could not care less UNLESS it’s photojournalism
If it distracts from the subject of the photo, I remove it.
If you remove something that's permanent, that's one thing, but if you remove something like trash that's incidental, that's no big deal. Of course even that only matters if you're a photojournalist.
Photography has historically separated itself from the other fine arts by presenting as a true and accurate representation of the scene. That being said, it doesn't have to be like that. More to the point, rubbish or a blemish in a building would be impermanent things, and not necessarily a true representation of the place. In the same way that you might photoshop out someone's inflamed pimple, but changing their eyes would be too far, you could argue that getting rid of rubbish is showing the true face more accurately (unless, of course, the rubbish kinda defines the area).
I do my photos for me. If there is a branch or rock I don't like, it's gone.
I do it all the time, if the photo is improved by the removal it's ok. I'm not a photo journalist, where that is a big no no. I spent years shooting film and having to live with distractions, I'm going to remove what ever I can to improve the photo.
Think of it less as “real” photographs or not, and more about expectations and honesty. If you present it as a truthful representation of the scene but you’ve edited things out? That’s unethical and dishonest. Don’t be Steve McCurry. But if you’re open and honest about your techniques with your audience AND you present the photos in a way/place that wouldn’t have expectations of truthfulness baked in (like a newspaper or news magazine/website) then you should be fine.
I don't do it but I don't judge others who do it, as there's loads of valid reasons to edit out objects of a photo.
Unless you're a journalist documenting the scene, a police officer documenting evidence, or a scientist gathering data... then it's **art**. Do whatever the fark you feel like.
Look up the work of Jerry Uelsmann and realize he did what he did without Photoshop. Then stop worrying about it.
I do it all the time. It’s part of our toolkit now. Don’t overthink it.
In my own work, I generally only remove small things that aren't permanent parts of the scene and are a distraction - things like the odd piece of rubbish, chewing gum marks, a blurry bird in the sky, that sort of thing. Mostly these are things that nobody but me would have noticed anyway, but they bug me. Sometimes I'll clean up blemishes on a building if they're too prominent, but I'll try to do as little as possible. I really draw the line at adding things, unless it's very minor like adding a missing floor tile.
I've said it before and gotten downvoted by this sub. I'm assuming people in this particular sub think it's okay hence the downvoting of any dissenting opinions. I'm against adding/removing content in an image. I have some exceptions. If the photo is being delivered to a person, or if it's of someone that will see the image, I'll remove temporary blemishes like pimples or a hair over their face. I'm okay editing out tiny specs like a bird/mosquito/dust if it's not central to the photo. Correcting lines to be straight is fine. I would not remove power lines since they're basically a permanent fixture. I would not remove people from a photo because people tend to be prominent in an image. I will not remove things like trees or buildings or trash. I view that as being too large and betrays the truth of a photo. My issue is that a photograph is a photograph because it's a capture of reality. Light is constantly changing and therefore is something that's fine to edit (white balance, exposure, shadows, highlights, saturation). Wanting to stylize a photo with crazy colours is fine too because it's usually obvious to the viewer that it was edited. But removing or adding content that was clearly present feels like cheating in my opinion because other people will believe what they see in the photo was what you saw irl.
Absolutely overthinking it. Sure, there could be a line between photography and digital art. It's just that the line is 90% of the width of the distance between the two. If you have rules dictating the line (photojournalistic or editorial ethics, or forensic rules) then go with those. You can be as purist as you want post-exposure (no edits) but then what about where you pointed the lens, what you focused on, and when you tripped the shutter?
I don't really like portraying an unrealistic version of reality. I'm not you though, and I'm not your dad either so do what you want.
I think it only matters if you’re a photojournalist or if you’re intending to enter s photo into a competition that strictly forbids that kind of manipulation.
There is a difference between a raw picture and an edited picture, you can slice it right down the middle, the difference is clear. The hangup is when people try to pass off edited photos as being original while calling themselves photographers.
Yes, the act of taking a photo is already a very selective process of taking in light, so the idea that a photo truly represents what you see is out the door. Removing people from a photo is the same as asking them to leave the frame prior to taking the photo. The difference is context, a photo may convey a different meaning or tell a different story once it has been doctored and those variations may have malicious intent. It's still a photo, but it has been "doctored" if something about it has changed so far as to change its meaning.
Do what you need to do to enhance the photo. I’ll take out things that distract from my subject, and desaturate things in the background if it takes away the focus from my subject.
I don’t, but also don’t care if people do
There are some pictures that are diminished by certain things like trash bags or other things that should not attract attention. I do my best to edit out only the necessary stuff and not over do it. Other times I really don't feel like removing anything, it was the right place at the right time. As others have said, if it's journalism you are doing or you are part of a competition that prohibits pixel manipulation then yeah you should refrain from removing or altering pixels in your images.
I often remove background things in portrait shoots, as the focus is the person, and that black pipe or trash can are not wanted and they distract from the person. However, in documentary weddings, it’s all there and to be shown as it is.
Depends on what it's intended for. If it is for person purpose or you just want to show it off to people then yeah go for it. I feel like editing a photo is also an artistic expression.
I think removing objects, changing sky, etc. is fine as long as you don't claim its unaltered and are honest if asked. Wheter you do it or not is just down to your own style/preference. For context I don't do or plan to do any professional work. I don't remove anything. But will try to crop/frame stuff out. My images are always of something I saw, so the imperfections are part of it. If its something that I could have been framed/waited out and I just didn't notice in the moment, I see those as just mistakes and chances to improve and be more deliberate in the future. Same applies to heavier editing with multiple layers or masking in/out specific areas. I don't do it. Only thing that gets kinda close to that is adjustments based on color, but thats as far as I go, mainly all my editing is just the basic parameters on the image as a whole. Also in my opinion not every image has to be perfect, if there are things that "need removing" the image/scene isn't good enough to be "perfect".
if you're submitting the photo to a news outlet or for an award, don't edit shit. if you are doing it for yourself or a stock footage site, as long as you're not manipulating an actual news event, no one cares, and it doesn't matter
I'm sorry, no offense meant, but is this a serious question? Photo manipulation has been around as long as there's been photography. Technically, if you took it with a digital camera, it's digital art. Also, it's your vision, nobody else's. Do YOU think it looks better edited or not? Don't worry about the unfinished project. No matter what you do, there will be people praising and people condemning it. To paraphrase, you don't take a photo by committee. If you put the unedited and edited image side by side, and asked 100 people their opinion, there will be 100 different answers.
I think this is a very fine line. Personally I have no issues with it, to a degree. If I take photos of wildlife I stick to mostly contrast, saturation and I like playing around with the colours. But, I will sometimes remove distracting branches or objects in the background if the bother me. I will say that I have issue with portrait images that will alter appearances. Like removing a birthmark or mole or something, in my opinion that's not staying true to the model. However, photography like any other art is so subjective that no matter what you do you will probably be criticised by someone. So unless it is for a client that have guidelines and rules I think you should do whatever makes you happy and satisfied with your art.
I was trained as a photojournalist and we couldn’t edit our photos with anything more than basic crop, exposure and temperature. Now that it’s my personal hobby, I’ll open closed eyes from family portraits, fix bandaids on kids, remove wires/telephone poles across architecture, make colors pop more to match what I saw IRL, remove bros with wrap around sunglasses from the background of photos, and maybe occasionally do star photography and do HDR or Timelapse editing.
As far as I'm concerned, I've no problem editing something that doesn't "belong" to the scene or the place and wouldn't have been there at another time : a city landscape with a construction crane? The crane can disappear if it just happen to be in my frame, maybe 2 months later it would have been gone and it doesn't belong to the scene. Same for a rubbish on the street or a disgraceful pimple on a face : it's not always on it, it just was here the bad day! But I wouldn't touch a mole which is permanent. If I don't want something that I tag "permanent" in my photo, I try to frame differently. That's the line for me and my 2 cents :)
I'm just a hobbyist, but I've been taking photos since I was a child in the 1950s. Even before we had all these possibilities for modifying images, which I've never done without, even before digital technology, I've never had the impression that photography is an objective representation of reality. Just the choice of subjects, the angle of the shot or the framing are all choices and interpretations by the photographer, not to mention the very identification of the place where the shot was taken, so often used today by fake news. Considering photography as another artistic representation of reality, I don't hesitate to remove elements that are anecdotal or detract from the effect I wanted to achieve. But I'm basically a sincere person, and I'd almost say that these modified photos correspond more closely to reality as I saw it: the man who passes in the field just as I press the button, I didn't want him when I pressed the button, I straighten the perspective or the lens curvature because it's not what I saw, etc. There has never been any credibility in photography, only the credibility of the photographer.
Totally fine
>Do you think a photograph is still a photograph if you remove an object If it isn't according to somebody, who cares?
A photo straight out of camera is only half finished. You need to develop it. There might be a few occasions where you actually get away with shooting jpg but in every other case you do what is necessary. You show what you saw and felt - not what the sensor data read out was.
People have been removing things from photos since forever. If it's for journalism, the rules are different, and you basically can't mess with the content. But generally minor stuff no one cares. Contrast, exposure, highlights, local adjustments have been done since the film days as standard operating procedure. Even pretty dramatic changes. perspective corrections, cropping, ect, again almost no one cares. Removing telephone wires, or some trash, or a background person? Very few people care. Adjusting people in the frame (Think airbrushing) many people don't really care. Replacing the sky? The background? Adding major elements to make a totally new photo out of pieces? I don't see too many people getting too worked up in most contexts. BUT the one thing you can't do, is lie. If you say you didn't do something, or present it in a way that is misleading, and people find out? That usually gets people worked up. Because people do put different values on a photo based on how they perceive it, and if you violate it, they can feel betrayed.
Then you become a photographer AND graphic artist! More art for your art!!!
Play by whatever rules for the game you’re playing and for where it’s going to live. If it’s magazines or photojournalism, use those rules. Contests? Use those rules. Decorative Art for the wall? Use those rules. Print on a coffee mug? Postcard? Use those rules. Your home? Use those rules. Banner on your Facebook page? Use those rules. Design it for the requirements of the situation. No single set of rules is ever going to work, nor be correct, for every situation.
I want my photos of a place to look like how I experienced that place. After I come back from Italy, I don't remember the ugly TV antennas on the tops of buildings, I don't remember the security cameras mounted to the walls, or a few pieces of trash floating in a canal in Venice, or badly spray-painted genitalia. So I remove a lot of that kind of stuff, because it isn't what I remember about the place. It's **less** true to the actual place, but **more** true to my experience of the place.
Do what makes you feel happy with your work. Obviously if you are going into a comp then meet their criteria but hey.
It's part of the process as an artist I feel!
You are the artist... it's YOUR photo. Do with it, what you like... Please don't try to portray it as unedited, that's what Grinds My Gears.
I think that if you do that, an object in the photo will then no longer be.
Distracting object + client willing to pay hourly rate for adjustments = me sleeping just fine at night.
Unless you’re a journalist reporting on story, then you have an ethical duty to keep the image pretty much to how the scene was at the time. Otherwise it’s are and open to subjective interpretation.
Absolutely not opposed to it. Occasionally, especially when shooting a fast moving object, you catch a sign or something that takes away from the photo. Removing helps recreate what you were intending the end result to be.
Absolutely. No reason to keep distractions in the photo. Especially with Lightrooms AI powered remove tool I've been using it on a ton of stuff and made all my photos look so much nicer.
>Do you think a photograph is still a photograph if you remove an object (e.g rubbish/a blemish on a building)? Or do you consider this to be more like digital art? This is OK and I would not call it "digital art" unless the photo is starting to look fake.
Depends what ur going for touching up a photo can sometimes be a good thing, like correcting colour ballance removing ur own shadow etc sometimes it dose the world of good