Is "fixing" photos cheating??

[sharky60]

editing is part of the digital world, people used to "edit" film photos all the time. Ansel Adams spent more time in the dark room experimenting than he did behind the camera...edit away my friend!!!!

 

[luckydays]

Its not cheating to enhance the image that you took. It would be cheating to edit in a smiling hammerhead 5 feet from you dive buddies head.

Editing the pics allows me to relive the moment that the photo was shot and enjoy it all over again. Without having gear to clean. I edit all my underwater pics as I have yet to take one that was worthy of looking at all on its own.

 

[dmoore19]

Photography is an art. A picture is your interpretation of the scene. Edit away.

 

[Christina0701]

You guys are awesome, amazing responses! I feel like I now have permission to edit and unleash my artistic abilities...so thank you all! I vow to never edit in any hammer heads that did not exist or enter any contests (far from it anyway) Hmmmm....maybe I can edit my back side to be smaller in that wetsuit though....lol joking

 

[klausi]

Digital post processing is part of the creative process of photography. In most photo contests, you can't do anything which is not applied to the whole image (such as selectively removing back-scatter), but for your own enjoyment, that is also ok, of course. When I do something like that and post the images online, I usually add a small note about it.

 

[supergaijin]

+1 Editing is not cheating unless you're lying about it.

Juiced up bodybuilders are not cheating until they try to enter 'clean' competitions.
Lance Armstrong was not chea.... wait forget that.

Editing is not cheating unless you're lying about it.

 

[Searcaigh]

When I take shoot locally I have to edit them to remove the backscatter on my wide angle shots to make them look pleasing to me, a painful process at times, but who wants to look at photos with lots of white dots all over them. I sometimes crop too when needs arise but always keep the proportions to the original shot unless it is done deliberately to fit into something like a frame.

So go ahead and post process, it's al part of the fun later when you are sitting at home and it is raining outside and you can't go diving.

 

[Jerry_]

If you find yourself digitally adding in fish that weren't really there, yes it's cheating. Everything else is pretty much fair game.

Photography is an art form. Do what pleases you.

Its not cheating to enhance the image that you took. It would be cheating to edit in a smiling hammerhead 5 feet from you dive buddies head.

Editing the pics allows me to relive the moment that the photo was shot and enjoy it all over again. Without having gear to clean. I edit all my underwater pics as I have yet to take one that was worthy of looking at all on its own.

Defintely agree with the above.

Photography is an art and post fixing is part of the process to produce that art.

Or would you suggest that you cheat, because you buy a more expensive camera (that has f.i. A better aperture)?

It is the photographers eye that selects what the camera is supposed to catch - and it is the photographer to have the good lens. Then there is also some elements of luck to have the right elements in place (i.e. Flora, fauna, wreck) -- all this is art, and art is about how good you are in turning something interesting, based on the material you have.

Enjoy taking photos and post processing them.

 

[drbill]

Having taught photography to folks who eventually became commercial photographers, I rarely "fixed" my photos. What I shot became the final print. However, in the commercial world it is often standard to retouch photos to mprove their quality. I have no problem with that.

 

[Paulmal]

When I took a photography class in college I spent most of the course In the dark room, you have to have the vision of what you want to start with but cropping, and getting the perfect exposure, were done in the dark room to get exactly what you want. When you move up to digital you spend most of your time In photoshop.