Enhancing the image

This first image is the 'RAW' file although as it has been converted to JPEG there will be some changes.

The second image is the product of work both in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) and Photoshop.

With all RAW images I follow the same procedure each time (not always in the same order - senior moments happen!). I start with 'Camera Calibration' to see if any of the settings (e.g. portrait, landscape, neutral etc) offer a more pleasing result. I have the facility to create custom profiles, so for example I have one that I created for a sunny day at the seaside. The profiles offer correct colour and white balance assuming the lighting is the same as when the profile was created. (Unless the colour is absolutely critical e.g the bridesmaids dresses, then the profile offers good results in similar conditions)

I next use 'Lens Correction'. Using the metadata downloaded from the camera with the image the software adjusts the image to correct for known distortion of the lens used. My favourite lens is a 24-70mm so there is some distortion at the edges.

The next is the 'Detail' slider that determines how much the edge areas are affected by sharpening. Matter of personal choice but generally high settings work with architecture and other shots with lots of edges.

All of these have changed the original image in some way, usually subtly. Whether this can be seen as attempting to deceive the viewer is a moot point but in discussion with others it is generally accepted as a legitimate exercise.

The next set of sliders is 'HSL/Grayscale'.  Up until recently I had assumed, mistakenly, that this was solely for use for converting images to grayscale (must have been something in the title). Recently I have learned that it offers much more, particularly in the luminance of colours. The second image above has been changed by adjusting the luminance. The change is particularly noticeable in the colour of the blue sky to the right of the horizon. The colour of the beach has also been altered by darkening the reds and oranges in the image whilst the grass has been lightened by changing the greens and yellows (there is a surprising amount of yellow in grass).

The 'Tone Curve' was another facility to which I adopted a very simplistic approach. I chose either Medium or Strong contrast only occasionally tweaking the curve. Someone suggested to me that I start with the Parametric Curve that offers the opportunity to start from scratch and create your perfect curve using the sliders. I find it particularly useful to keep my eye on the histogram as well as the overall image.

Some of the changes can be significant in the way that the image is altered. I have found in discussion that photographers are more accepting of the practice than non-photographers. For the latter they feel that the changes border on cheating although they do not seem ready yet to throw me into prison.

The 'Basic' panel offers more changes as well as an 'Auto' feature (not bad and always worth trying but sometimes it gets it hopelessly wrong). I use this for final tweaking but I find it a bit of a blunt tool. I also use the tools offered such as the Targeted Adjustment Brush if necessary.

Having done all that I can in ACR I move the image to Photoshop. In the second image I applied a Curves layer to dramatise the clouds and then a gradient as a mask to restore the lightness of the lower part of the image. I also cropped the image to remove the footpath that is in the lower part of the first image.

The argument about cheating at this stage often generates strong views although the tolerance level appears to be an individual thing affected by the nature of the changes and the subject matter of the image. It also seems to be linked with the general moral approach of the person. Personally I am happy to tell people what I have done and sometimes why. The difficulty is when, and this seems to happen more and more, I am accused of manipulation of an image when I have only done the minimum possible or, if I have taken a JPEG image, nothing at all.

DPP Assignment 5 - Review of Progress

The assignment requires that we "draw together all that you have learned and apply it to a personal project."

The first Project for the Course related to Workflow and as I tend to follow the same workflow each time when tackling an assignment I am confident that I did so with this assignment.  However I have to say that I do not carry around a written 'to-do' list so it is an assumption based on a general belief. There have been some changes in the post processing of the images because of further learning about the depth that Photoshop offers. I was watching a training video and the tutor was showing the workflow he used in processing his images. Although I was aware of the existence of the facility that he used (in Camera Raw) I had never used it thinking that it was there for another purpose. How wrong can you be?! Interestingly I was showing colleagues the process used and their reaction was the same.

In my formal workflow (the written down one) I include re-iteration a great deal simply because I find that as I progress new ideas are suggested by the work that I have already done or that I need to re-visit some particular aspect to improve the final result. This going back and forth has been particularly true in working on Assignment 5.

Project 2 related to Digital Image Qualities and I have applied the lessons learned in that element of the Course regularly either in work for the Course or my own personal photography. I noticed on a recent shoot that I had absorbed the ideas to the point that they were 'naturally' incorporated into my work.

Project 3 related to processing the image and it is in this area that I have noticed a significant change as noted above. I invariably shoot in RAW and the ability to do the majority of the processing in ACR plus further learning has enabled me to ensure, for the most part, that I get the best possible result from the information that is available. I particularly enjoy monochrome photography and when choosing what to take I consider whether there is the potential for a monochrome image in what I am seeing. Having said that sometimes the one that I did not see gives the best monochrome result. Currently it is my intention to include a couple of monochrome images in my final submission.

Project 4 "Reality and Intervention" caused me the most trouble as a review of the relevant entries in this blog will show. How I will tackle this element in the final submission is unclear. Having processed many of the images I believe will be in  the final selection there has been enhancement in all of them, some more than others. The 'worst' one in my view is where I removed a small number of people from a shot of a beach to create an empty vista using 'Content Aware'. It is misleading and therefore possibly 'wrong' ethically but I have to ask myself is it more 'wrong' than making the sky more dramatic by using Curves. As I have argued there are no gradations of 'wrong' for me the argument is sterile.

I have finally decided that the subject and treatment will be on 'Man and the Coast'. At this point in time my aim is to contrast the unspoilt coast barely touched by man with the intrusion created by our desire to enjoy our day at the seaside: by the need to prevent the sea literally washing away our belief as to what the seaside should look like; and the exploitation of what the coast has to offer in other ways.

I now need to start making a selection from the images already taken, to select possible candidates for conversion to monochrome and to discover any gaps that have been created as my thinking has developed.

DPP Assignment 5 - Processing the Images

Not usually my favourite pastime but it seemed to go well today. Tried a new workflow using the methods available in the Camera RAW facility that comes with Photoshop. Have used this for a number of years without thinking about whether the tried and tested was really using the software to the full. Viewed a couple of training videos that featured areas that I had not previously considered and after putting them into practice was pleased and amazed by the results. Just goes to show that we should be wary of staying within our comfort zone.

Reviewing what I have done so far for Assignment 5 there are one or two gaps that I need to fill and some parts that need to be tweaked. I suppose it is one of the delights of the work that we do for the assignments that there is time to re-visit the work already carried out and see whether our original thinking still holds or whether the work suggests other paths that need to be followed. (I have just re-read the last sentence which made me realise that I am fortunate that my time is my own and that I can use it largely as I please to get the result I have in mind). It will be interesting to see if the final product is close to my original plan.

As I am now able to 'see' the end of this Course (assuming that I pass) I have turned my thoughts to the next  step on the road to the BA Hons degree. Have decided for my final 1st Level Course to take an elective Course looking at the effect Culture has on the way that we see things. It is something that I have been interested in for a long time and feel that it would be of benefit in my photography.

DPP Assignment 5

Spent much of yesterday taking more photographs for the above assignment. Have firmed up on the project with a working title of 'Man and the Coast'. The intent is to show, within the limitations of the 10 - 12 photographs, how Man has impacted on the Coast through his use of the opportunities that it presents and his attempts to mitigate the dangers that are present.

Given that none of us that live in the UK are never more than 80 miles from the Coast, have a long maritime history and for many of us childhood memories of a 'day at the seaside' it is of general interest to most. From a personal point of view I am of an age where summer holidays were spent somewhere on a beach in Britain and therefore have a whole range of memories, some good and some bad. Over the there have been some significant changes not least the impact of a growing population that has demanded greater use of the resources of the coastal strip whether it is the very obvious building of nuclear power stations or the gradual creep of the provision of facilities, including homes, that are possibly destroying the very thing that people seek by going to the seaside.

I had hoped to discuss this with my tutor but as he is away for the next month I have decided to work on the project with the intention of completing it over the next 5 or 6 weeks. If there is a chance to discuss it all well and good but given other commitments there is no time to change the thrust of the project.

BBC's "Your Paintings"

Came across this by accident. It is an undertaking to catalogue Britain's 200,000 oil paintings (currently 63000 online)  by photographing them and using keywords to allow visitors to the site to find matters of interest. You can help by 'tagging' i.e. in photographers' terms adding keywords.

Can be found at www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings.

It is a massive resource for those wanting to view the work of artists in the comfort of their own homes and in their own time. For the student photographer it is a a very real opportunity to examine artistic works over the centuries and see how the Masters tackled such things as composition, use of light etc..

Ethical Considerations arising from Image Manipulation

One of the first questions we need to ask is whether the digital manipulation of images is an ethical issue as opposed to a matter of social policy. Usually this question is answered by asking two further questions: (a) is the issue controversial - is there a significant number of people who are either for or against the digital manipulation of images; (b) is it a distinctly moral issue.

The first is difficult to answer. It is legitimate to ask what constitutes a ‘significant’ number. Issues such as abortion, capital punishment and the sterilization of vulnerable women attract very large numbers of those for or against. Whilst it is true that manipulation is a hot topic amongst photographers, although not all, the numbers are relatively small. There are very few indications that it is a matter of controversy amongst the general population. 

The second question is easier to answer. There is a generally accepted principle that we should not deceive others. Avoiding, for the moment,  at what level manipulation becomes deception, it is clear that manipulation involves altering the ‘truth’ of an image. On this latter basis digital manipulation is an ethical issue. It is an interesting debate whether the certainty of the answer to the second question outweighs the uncertainty of the answer to the first question. Whilst I personally feel that the issue is not an ethical one but more a matter of social policy there is an argument that, within the photographic world, there is a significant proportion of that population that find the issue controversial. On this basis the issue is ethical.

In the preceding paragraph I make reference to the ‘truth’ of an image. The word was placed in inverted commas because the concept of truth in an image is, I believe, fundamental to the whole discussion about manipulation. The question of how we know that something is true has exercised philosophers for thousands of years and continues to do so today. Needless to say there is no universally accepted answer - if there was then the debate would have come to a conclusion. From a photographic point of view the proposition “The world exists objectively of the ways we think about it or describe it “ is of key importance. If you reject the proposition then there is only a subjective reality and there is no way to decide if an image is true or false. On this latter basis there is no ethical argument that has any meaning.

Continuing on the basis that the proposition holds then we, as photographers, can reasonably believe that there exists, either now or in the future, a camera that can accurately capture the objective world. I would argue that it does not exist at the present time. No matter how sophisticated the camera and how advanced the technology and software used the image captured is a best effort. We know that the camera cannot capture the range of tones and colours that the human eye can manage (I will duck the issue as to whether the human eye can ‘see’ the objective world) and what we see in an image is a cut down and manipulated version of the information that was available to the camera at the time of shooting. It follows that the camera has not recorded the truth(something is true if and only if it corresponds to a fact in the objective world). We cannot therefore claim that an image is true. Although we talk about little lies, big lies and even white lies something is either true or not - there are no gradations of truth.

Post capture enhancements whether in camera or later using a computer moves the image further and further from correspondence to the fact in the objective world. However the size of the lie does not change.

Like many others I have sat through talks where the audience is taken step by step through the manipulation of the base image and asked if what has just happened is in some sense ‘wrong’. We move from minor changes to white balance or saturation to significant changes that include large changes in the image information or where other material not part of the original image is added to create something that cannot exist in the real world. Audience reaction varies considerably as does individual reaction. Culturally there is an acceptance of small lies and even approbation for the use of white lies so we are comfortable in accepting change at some level and admitting to the fact in front of others. However unless we subscribe to moral relativism that argues moral judgements have their origins in social or individual standards and that there is no single objective by which we can assess the truth of a moral proposition such as It is wrong to deceive others we cannot avoid the conclusion that all photographic images deceive and that is morally wrong.

In the world in which we act most of us determine how we should act (in a moral sense) by weighing the consequences of such actions. There is a branch of ethics that addresses this issue called consequentialist theories. Here the argument is that an action is morally right if the consequences of that action are more favourable than unfavourable.

Of course this raises the issue of favourable to whom. This has led to three rival theories - Ethical egoism; Ethical Altruism; and Utilitarianism.

Ethical egoism argues that an action is morally right if the consequences of that action are more favourable than unfavourable only to the person performing that action.

Ethical altruism argues that an action is morally right if the consequences of that action are more favourable than unfavourable to everyone except the person performing the action.

Utilitarianism argues that an action is morally right if the consequences of that action are more favourable than unfavourable to everyone.  

Just to add to the mix there at least two versions of utilitarianism - act-utilitarianism and rule-utilitarianism. The former would justify acts of torture as morally permissible if the social benefits of these actions were great than social harm. The latter applies the favourable/unfavourable argument to moral rules and asks the question are the benefits of not lying greater than the benefits of lying. (Try using this approach to the question from your spouse - Does my bum look big in this?!)

It is safe to conclude that to enter a discussion about the ethics of manipulating an image is to enter a discussion that has no conclusion. Much will depend upon the initial ethical considerations of the participants and differences are incapable of resolution. If a discussion is incapable of conclusion then it is a waste of time - from a moral point of view we should spend our time in a more universally beneficial activity such as photography.

DPP Assignment 4 revisited

During my period of enforced rest I decided to re-visit Assignment 4 where my tutor had asked for a more 'involved' response. I tried a number of alternative scenarios using images that I had taken and whilst one or two worked reasonably well I felt that there was a better alternative somewhere out there. I had at the same time been giving consideration to my submission for Assignment 5 and one fine day had visited the East Coast to take a number of photographs that would, hopefully, fit in with my intended project. Some of these were of Sizewell Nuclear Power Station. Shortly after I was reading an article on the continuing problems in Japan following the tsunami. Something clicked and I had my idea for the book cover:

The image was created from two basic images:

and

The first image of Sizewell B was altered by use of the Curves dialogue. I found by accident some years ago that if you created an 'M' or 'W' curve you could create a whole range of false colours. I had a lot of fun trying various settings to find the one that I felt offered the most dramatic response (one thing I have never been able to do is to go back and repeat the change). The second image is of my wife (I dread to think who she was thinking of in order to show such abject terror!). I selected the image and placed it on  a separate layer. The burning effect was created using a technique that I had seen in a magazine (Photoshop User published by the National Association of Photoshop Professionals www.photoshopuser.com). I then dragged this image into the Sizewell B image.

The 'explosion' at the top of the Containment Dome was added by hand. The lightning strike was created using the Pen Tool and a combination of layer styles and the paint brush. The text layers were straightforward - created on separate layers and moved to where I thought they were best placed.

The ethical approach to the creation of this book cover raises some serious doubts. Clearly it is designed to condition the mind of the reader to one point of view. The dramatic nature of the design suggests a nuclear catastrophe whilst the design of the supplementary text "Are we being told the TRUTH?? strongly hints that the author believes that we are not. However the conclusion requires a great deal of input from the reader and his/her view of the nuclear industry. Also is the book fictional or non-fictional? If it is the former then ethical questions hardly arise other than in the way that the reader is seduced into picking up the book and opening it. If the latter then much depends upon the contents and how balanced the presentation. 

In the following blog I present my argument about the value and usefulness of discussing the ethical considerations surrounding the manipulation of images.

"The Genius of Photography"

One thing about having limited mobility it gives you the opportunity for lots of reading and studying other images. Read through "The Genius of Photography" {Gerry Badger Quadrille Publishing 2007} three times and, as always, found something 'new' each time.

The Sunday Times reviewer wrote: An excellent primer and leads us through the complexities of understanding what makes a great image... Badger's book lays out the debates in a clear, authoritative way". Could not have put it better myself! I would recommend this book to anyone who is serious about photography and who wants some insight into what has gone before. Flick to any page and you are presented with an image that makes you think not only about the technical but also the social background.

Back in the Land of the Living

Over 6 weeks since I last posted a blog largely due to ill health. Currently nursing a badly swollen leg that restricts the amount of walking I can do and therefore any photography. Mind you it has allowed me to do a lot of reading and I used a Fathers Day gift to acquire a couple of books relating to photography.

The first - "London Street Photography 1860 - 2010" (Dewi Lewis Publishing 2011) is a selection of photographs from the Museum of London Collection. Apart from a brief foreword and introduction and short biographies at the end of the book everything else is the photographs themselves that are accompanied by the photographers name and a the title. To my delight there are no explanations or interpretations of the images so one is left to make up one's own mind. As one would expect, given the time span of 150 years, there is a wide range of technical differences but the commonality of theme and that all contain people provides a coherence that allows for a sense of continuity. It is a book that allows you to browse again and again and each time discover something new.

The second - "The Genius of Photography" (Gerry Badger  Quadrille Publishing Paperback Edition) is linked to the BBC Television series of the same name. It is essentially a text book tracing the history of photography from the early days of Fox-Talbot and Daguerre to the present day. It is a book worthy of close reading and I would not wish to make comment at this stage as I am still reading it.