mokelumnekid wrote:"Color enhancement filters? Photoshopping to bring out colors?"
There is so much over-sugared crap out there- that any real Sierra traveler knows is not the real bark-'n' weave of Nature....Ugh, double ugh. Lower the net far enough and it stops being special....and becomes Sierra **** IMHO.
Couldn't agree more, Kid. The interesting thing about the mis-conceptions of "photoshopped" is that it is inherently bad; it's just another tool, when used properly it allows for more "accurate" renditions of subject matter then film ever did. What many people don't understand, is that when they click the shutter on their digital camera, they are capturing electrons. Those electrons are then being "photoshopped" in their camera by software created by some engineer in Japan that has never seen the Sierra, and spit out as a finished jpeg.
Like film, those jpeg files can vary in color and contrast from camera to camera (remember Velvia next to Kodachrome?); film wasn't/isn't true either. This is one of the reason pros like to shoot "raw" images. Beside having more information, they have not been "manipulated" by software. But raw files are not representative of the original scene; they are flat in contrast and dull in color. But then, they must be "Photoshopped"
So this is where it get's interesting. Trying to create an image that accurately represents the scene
as you remember it. It has been shown, time and time again, that the human memory is, shall we say, dynamic. Given the task to re-create the same scene weeks later, two people are very likely to create dissimilar representations. Oh, and speaking of inaccurate representations; the greatest American landscape photographer of the 20th century, that guy did nothing but mis-represent reality; unless of course ones reality is black and white!
With that said, those of us that have spent years, decades, lifetimes, living and working outside, have a pretty good idea of what does and can, happen out there. I think many of us do our best to keep that perspective. Is the final image a 100% accurate representation of what actually occurred? In photography, as in other visual arts, it never has been and probably never will be. I don't care how good you are, it will always be a representation (was the water really that shade of blue? or was it 10% more cyan? Sunset more red or less magenta).
In the end, it is if that representation is true to you as an artist. Or if your a pro, true or not, are your client going to like it! That last statement may be a sell out, but it's also a reality. I held on to Kodachrome until my clients insisted on the saturated colors of Velvia. Then I held onto film
way to long, and for the same reason, forced into digital.
It is important to remember that photography is
art, and that art goes through stages, radical stages with the introduction of new mediums i.e. digital photography. I recon the period of over done photography will fade at some point, and it will be looked upon like the psychedelic art of the sixties.
Just my 2 bucks worth
JD