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I've been looking around the readers' gallery and wondering just how many bad pictures have been rescued by Photoshop.
It seems perfectly normal practise here to clone out some clutter in the background, blur the foreground or stitch one picture to another, but is it improving your photography?
Should you not be learning to be much more aware of background and viewpoint before you press the shutter?
I need to know how to who use ps properly before I can make a bad one better there are all bad (compared to most anyway 
...lol..
seriously I have used photoshop on all of my images, some to alter levels etc and most times is for cropping and adding borders.
Angie x
I love photoshop but I sometimes think it can be a bit over done - and it is so refreshing to see an un-photoshopped image! However - it can be a wonderful aid to photography!
Shar
You're quite right, you should be learning the basics of photography first. Cloning people/scenery/skies in and out of pictures to my mind just says you're a whizz on a computer, not a whizz photographer. I will admit to a small amount of retouching, but the sort of thing that would have been done in the past with a touch up brush.
Jeff
Surely not Boyd?! Are you saying you don't like the lovely flood filter? Or what about lovely highly saturated images or the use of selective colouring? You can also add really big borders - the bigger the border, the bigger the effect.
Making panoramas with stitching a number of pics can't be easy. It must involve a lot of photographic skill, in setting the shot up, and visualising the finished result. I have done them with actual photographs, the results aren't anywhere near as good as using PS. Cleaning up backgrounds etc, open ups more opportunities to show lovely views, without the pylons, aerials, posts, wires etc of the modern world. A Graphics Artist/retoucher, would have done a similar job, then re-photographed in the old days, before PS.
Not many would ignore, using updated methods to make improvements in hobbies and lifestyles.
The old methods, like (Film cameras are becoming) form niche markets, and niche hobbies.. Kept going by "purists" for want of a better word, which is no bad thing.
I think its rare that a picture is shown that has been changed from a bad picture to a good one through photoshop.
Stitching photos to make panoramas is perfectly acceptable wouldn't you agree? Until they make a dedicated panoramic digital camera there's not much choice but to combine shots.
Cloning out pylons and the like can't convert a bad picture into a good one. It'll merely enhance an already good shot!
To answer your question....... in my opinion, I think given the right attitude Photoshop can help you to learn from mistakes... ie think about avoiding clutter in compositions. Expose properly in camera instead of trying to rescue badly exposed shots in post..... do that, and you can use photoshop to control white balance, cropping, contrast........ black and white conversions..... all those other things that give control all of us, ideally, would like - and deserve!
The best photographers on this site, film or digital, all display excellent understanding of the basics and skills required at exposure stage. Its rare you see any "saving" going on through photoshop usage.
Why do people get so hung-up on this?
I agree that learning the fundamentals of the technical side of photography is to be recommended, and also to expand that knowledge to include more advanced technique where appropriate. However, there is absolutely nothing wrong with using Photoshop or some other software tool to help produce the end result you had in mind.
Surely a measure of a good photographer is the ability to visualise the image they want to create, and then use the tools at their disposal to produce a result which delivers that image. A camera is a tool. So is a computer with Photoshop (or whatever).
Doug
Quote: The best photographers on this site, film or digital, all display excellent understanding of the basics and skills required at exposure stage. Its rare you see any "saving" going on through photoshop usage.
How would you know? I'm sure even the best here use PS a lot, it's just that those with more experience can use it in such a way that you'd never notice.
To a great extent, PS is only emulating the sort of thing photographers used to do in a darkroom anyway - it just makes those sorts of manipulations a lot easier and more accessible. After all, even Ansel Adams spent a lot of time in his darkroom manipulating his images during printing. Why is PS any different?
I don't think it matters, photo manipulation has been going on for longer than most people think, its just since digital has made its way; photography is made such a difference in the way people view photography and now everyone and Tom, **** and Harry has a camera! Its another topic to discuss and lets be honest, this will not be the last thread on the subject!
I think its made a divide in photography and in a lot of ways its more fun! The downfall is the learning curve is such a strain (not enough hours in the day!)
I also think there is photography and then Digital photography with the latter including some use of PS, nothing wrong with it, its just what people enjoy as part of their hobby/proffession!
No right answer or wrong answer, its just something we will continue to judge for years to come and as we except we all have different views on the subject, that is what makes it a whole lot more fun and what makes us individuals!
My 2p worth!
Craig
Im an avid photoshop user. I love it to bits and I feel I can be more creative using it. Sometimes you dont want something straight out the camera. Photoshop can and does take photography to another level.
Some might say it then becomes digital art over a photograph, but not every image is a natural landscape or wildlife image. Fashion portraits and commercial products tend to go through photoshop to get the desired affect which is unattainable directly from the source.
Remember, alot of people dont want to see things how they really are....be creative and be unique!
Many of the top photographers were early adopters of digital manipulation and mesh it in with their photographic workflow rather than use it to cover up or rescue poor images or mistakes..
They invested in the Imaginator or Barco Creator systems.
The computer meant that some difficult special effect images could be produced in a day rather than a week or more.
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