Edited? …or “Manipulated?”
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May 6, 2009 | by Kevin Loughlin
I spent the day at a Photoshop Seminar held in Philadelphia, PA. The seminar was billed as “Photoshop CS4 for Photographers.” I have to say that I was not impressed. No doubt I learned a few new tricks , however, the overall presentation was poorly executed.
The instructor bounced around in the workbook and many were confused. Worse, the instructor creates very stylized “artsy” images which are fun and creative, but not at all good for instruction. One image in particular was so busy and cluttered that it was nearly impossible to see the technique he was trying to show. As the seminar is billed for photographers, he should be using real-world images that are rather generic. Images to which the majority of photographers can relate… landscapes, people, etc. He seemed to be using the seminar to showcase his art. In fact he took every opportunity to tell us about his gallery shows and books.
The first technique he showed us bothered me as well… this technique was advertised as “How to slow down waterfalls without using slow shutter speeds.” Hmmm… the effect was interesting but did not actually slow down the waterfall, it used several images of the same scene, blended together to create more volume in the falls… it did not create the “veil” that slow shutter speeds create. It had nothing to do with “slowing down” the waterfall at all. So this raised two questions:
1) How can they advertise something that is so incorrect… don’t the “teachers” realize their misleading terminology?
2) As a nature photographer, does adding more volume make it a “manipulated” image or just another editing technique?
I would love to hear your opinions! Study the two images of the same waterfall. The top image was a combination of three images using the technique I learned today. The other image is one of the single images used in creating the top image.
Leave your comments!
photos © Kevin Loughlin
3 Comments
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Interesting post. If you hadn’t said that the first image was layered I don’t think I’d have noticed. Having said that – which is better? I actually prefer seeing the rocks beneath the water but that’s just a personal opinion. Is the instructor wrong though: definitely (and that’s fact not opinion). We all make honest mistakes (of course) but if you’re charging people to give an ‘expert’ opinion you really ought to know what you’re talking about…
I hate it when an instructor spends a lot of time peddling his wares! I attended a 4 hour seminar for real estate agents, put on by the National Association of Realtors, that was supposed to teach us how to do the “new cutting edge” stuff like podcasting and video, and learn good digital photography techniques. The “digital photography” session was merely a slide show to show how awesome this “wide angle adapter” is that they were giving away as a door prize.
When it came time to talk about pod casting, the instructor literally said “Go to google and type ‘Create Podcast’ and you’ll get all you need to know about that.” (What astonished me here was that people were not annoyed; they wrote this down.) The majority if the “seminar” was telling us why we needed to spend thousands of dollars on their products.
“Seminars” that aren’t what they’re advertised to be leave a very bad taste in my mouth. What a waste of time.
EVERYTHING is a commercial for something! (I recently got snookered myself….how disappointing!)
I wish there were disclosures admitting when photos are edited/manipulated/photoshopped…. You can do so much on the computer, I don’t trust what I see as “the truth” any more…. I used to believe that a photograph was reality, or at least “real.” Not any more. I want honesty, honestly!