One question I’m often asked when presenting workshops or doing talks on photography is how much digital image manipulation should be allowed. How much is too much? It’s pretty safe to say that as long as photography has been around, photographers have been enhancing or manipulating their images. The great masters of black-and-white photography – people such as Ansel Adams – spent their lives in the darkroom, dodging and burning prints to create the masterpieces we know and love. With the advent of digital photography this tweaking has become ubiquitous. That said, does the fact that everyone is doing it necessarily make it right?
Over the years I’ve come to a relatively comfortable place regarding image manipulation. Ultimately, it’s up to the artist or photographer how much they want to adjust their pictures. Most importantly, you need to be in control of what you’re doing and while I’m advocating that photographers are free to do as they please, I’m not advocating this be done badly or, worse, by mistake. Too often I see portfolios (or am asked to judge competitions) where photographers have simply over-processed their shots. It can be so bad that potentially award-winning images are ruined by over-manipulation and over-processing.
So how much is enough? Personally, I try to portray reality or a version of reality that conveys the emotions and experiences I felt when I was taking the photograph. After all, great photography is really a narrative in another form. The slightest tweaks to colour balance, saturation and vibrancy are all that I allow myself. Occasionally I convert an image to black-and-white for impact or stitch multiple individual images into a panorama when the subject requires it.
You’ll have to find your own formula and philosophy on this. That may include drastic colour alterations or careful HDR (high-dynamic range, where many images are combined into one giving you a final product that has even tones and exceptional detail in both shadows and highlights) to produce realistic-looking images.
Remember that in all artistic endeavours there is great creative freedom, and ultimately it is the final art form, in our case a photograph, that counts.
Five things to avoid when processing digital images
- Everything you do should be in moderation – subtle is good.
- Don’t over-saturate your colour photographs.
- Ensure your computer’s monitor is colour calibrated correctly.
- Don’t over-sharpen.
- Never add a rhino that wasn’t there and claim it was.
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