Photo Editing

[FrankSlapperinni]

I've never read a rule against it, but I wanted to know if it a sort of unofficial standard around here. I was editing some of my fish photos yesterday (and when I say edit I mean adjust contrast, color balance, etc. Not add extra fins or different colors ) and I noticed what a huge difference it could make. Here is an example

First

Edited

As I think is blatantly obvious, the second picture is much better. I just wanted to know if it would be considered "cheating" to have an edited picture entered into and OTM competition, like it is considered cheating to enter a Aquabid picture into BOTM (even though there is no rule against it).

 

[Ben]

hmmmmm..

i have to think about this.....

the one of putting aquabid bettas for botm is a genral rule and n all round stupid thing to do.

but editing, hmmmmm
im not sure......gonna think and ill get back to you later

 

[cutechic]

In my mind, adjusting the brightness, contrasts, etc is fine.

I'm not sure where I stand on "perfecting" the photos... if we can use other people's pictures for the xOTM contests, so long as we own the fish, I don't see why we couldn't touch up the photos.

It'd be interesting to hear other people's thoughts on this.

 

[myenigmaself]

Well I think we need to look at the two aspects of editing.
1) Adjusting brightness/contrast/etc. Applying a filter across the entire media is basically the same as changing a lense or adjusting the parameters of the camera/lighting when you're taking the picture.
2) Adjusting (being adding, removing, or modifying) individual pixels is another matter. I believe this takes away from the validity of the picture, and gets us into the grey area of what was mentioned above: adding fins, changing colors, etc.

I think aspect 1 should be fine , since it doesn't change the nature of the picture; It will still be a representation of reality. Aspect 2, however, skews reality , and I believe it should be seen as cheating.

-MDK

 

[parker313]

Well I think we need to look at the two aspects of editing.
1) Adjusting brightness/contrast/etc. Applying a filter across the entire media is basically the same as changing a lense or adjusting the parameters of the camera/lighting when you're taking the picture.
2) Adjusting (being adding, removing, or modifying) individual pixels is another matter. I believe this takes away from the validity of the picture, and gets us into the grey area of what was mentioned above: adding fins, changing colors, etc.

I think aspect 1 should be fine , since it doesn't change the nature of the picture; It will still be a representation of reality. Aspect 2, however, skews reality , and I believe it should be seen as cheating.

-MDK

Ditto.

Plus, when we take pics and edit them, we usually edit them so that they more closely represent what they look like in reality. Sharpening the picture and adjusting the color saturation. If the vote is for the FISH of the month then just getting the pic to look as much like the real fish should be encouraged

Adding pixels and making a fish purposefully look better than it would in real life should definitely be a no-no.

 

[FanOFish]

As Parker mentioned, I think the goal is not to enhance the fish but rather enhance the photo to make it look as close to the way the fish actually looks in real life.

 

[LadyMinion]

I use Photoshop and I always use the contrast/brightness and shadows/highlights utilities to make the photo look sharp, clear and natural.

Aside from that, I don't modify anything except to crop the image and reduce it to a suitable size for posting.

Photo-editing software is a fantastic tool for getting those not-quite-perfect shots looking their best. If used (not abused) effectively, it really is an asset to the photographer.

 

[The-Wolf]

The only thing I have ever edited is the size of the picture
either re-sized(smaller) or cropped.

I wouldn't want to think about all the other stuff,
but IMO the second picture posted looks fake.

 

[tear-scar]

I wouldn't want to think about all the other stuff,
but IMO the second picture posted looks fake.

Well, the second picture would look much better if it was re-sized.

2) Adjusting (being adding, removing, or modifying) individual pixels is another matter. I believe this takes away from the validity of the picture, and gets us into the grey area of what was mentioned above: adding fins, changing colors, etc.

I think aspect 1 should be fine , since it doesn't change the nature of the picture; It will still be a representation of reality. Aspect 2, however, skews reality , and I believe it should be seen as cheating.

I'd have to disagree on this for some points. Adding extra fins, changing color, etc. is stupid. However, #2 can be used (especially with photo-shop + drawing tablet like I have) to remove flash, draw over bluriness; over-all just make the picture sharper. I'd say it's ok to edit pixels for this purpose.

 

[parker313]

I'd have to disagree on this for some points. Adding extra fins, changing color, etc. is stupid. However, #2 can be used (especially with photo-shop + drawing tablet like I have) to remove flash, draw over bluriness; over-all just make the picture sharper. I'd say it's ok to edit pixels for this purpose.

Sure - that's in keeping with the idea of what I was getting at. You're still talking about getting the fish picture to more accurately portray what the fish looks like in real life, not using PhotoShop to enhance the fish beyond what it really looks like...

 

[parker313]

Here's what I was able to do with the 2nd pic....

 

[rain-]

I usually do the same thing lots of other people have already said. Resize, crop, brightness/contrast, auto levels, unsharp mask... what ever needs to be corrected to make the picture look as realistic and accurate as possible. Sometimes I don't bother and I just throw them as they are and only change the size.

I too think that it's ok to make the picture look like the object looks with your own eyes. Of course there is a thin line with making it look real and making it look better than it is. But I want to believe people are honest and don't lie with their aquarium/fish pictures. Anyway, it isn't even fun to do it that way. It's much more rewarding and challenging to make the tank look as best as possible and take a good care of your fish, feed them well, grow babies and then take the astonishing pictures of beautiful tanks and fish.


Edit: OK, I had to give it a try myself. But it is really hard to retouch someone elses picture, you don't have any idea how it should look. I usually don't retouch my pictures as much I did with this, but it was a test subject

 

[FrankSlapperinni]

I forgot to include this when I posted the topic, but on the second picture, I edited specific target areas, and not just the entire image, ie: I selected his throat and a little bit of his underfin, and edited that to be more red, and selected the plants and made the color balance change for them to be more green etc, which is more of what I was questioning for being cheating (IE, someone could edit it so that their fish displayed much more brilliant colors than they realy do). Here is an edited picture that is much more accurate to the tank and fish than the second one I posted (this time I just used general contrast changes, in stead of targeting specific areas.)

I think that it works best to just edit the picture with general contrast and such than trying to fine tune any details, just because it is so hard to get it to be accurate when you do it that way, and that it makes it way to easy to exaggerate a fish's markings. Now that I think about it, I think it's a little on the cheating side (as long as it's entered into a competition that is), but then it also makes it easy when you want to just create obviously fake pictures for the fun of it .

 

[Aquascaper]

I agree that photos should only be edited to give a more realistic portrayal of the subject specimen, not to alter or enhance. If you want to lie about the state of your fish/tank then why spend ages messing about with an editing package when you could just surf the internet and find a 'professional' photo

BTW, have you guys seen my new 30g reef tank:

 

[bunjiweb]

I think adjusting the levels of a picture is fine as people say if you were a pro photographer you would be able to do this with the camera anyway.

I often use the "Auto Levels" feature in Photoshop when i'm rezising and saving my pictures from my digicam, as it brings out the colours alot better.

However I think the idea of editing the picture or adding to it is in no way needed!

Ben