Competition Rule 'issue'

danza said:
The main thing is I beat Mohain, and I'm still at the top of the leaderboard.
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Youre right, in the heat of the moment and the stress of the hour we all lost sight of what is truly important.

:p

Alright Ill get back to thinking about a theme, nevermind my big gay emo-ness!

Thanks to those who took the time to talk to me on MSN too, that was kind :)


OK, non-emo discussion may now commence on the original topic ;) For a reminder of what it is, in short: Is there too much manipulation going on, and should it be allowed?
 
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*Puts hand up*

I know, I know....!!

Next theme - 'The Manipulated image' :D

TBH, I'm far too easy going on things like this to make an appropriate decision on what I think is right, but just for he sake of the situation, maybe we can try to 'turn it down' a bit for the future.

I'm also quite happy today anyway, because I just won a 70-200 f/4L for £215 via yankeBay :D
 
TheAlex said:
Perhaps the key-word in the theme, 'unconventional', assisted in a bit of extra photo-manipulation.
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That's what I was thinking too.

I agree that there is a line to be drawn somewhere between manipulation and photography and although I can definitely appreciate the skill involved to produce a good manipulated image, I would agree that they shouldn't really be winning in a photography competition. It's a tricky line to draw, however.
 
I'd say its easy. No adding content to the original image. Gradients are fine because they're only manipulating the light.
 
I feel the same way about extreme image manipulation, it also gives some people an unfair advantage, for example, i may be a very good photographer (which i'm not), but i'm not very good in the use of photoshop, i can manage basic processing (levels, contrasct, saturation etc) and that's as far as my limits go, the ones who are good at photoshop may take what might have been a bland picture and spruced it up with heaps of manipulation in photoshop, therefore i lose out in a photography competition because some of you are far more competent in the use of photoshop than i am, and i'm sure others feel the same way. Therefore i believe that photoshop use should be kept to a minimum to give the rest of us a chance.
 
A.N.Other said:
Well in that case, tone mapping your HDRs is out. :eek:
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For some reason, some people seem to think that's okay, even though you're doing something you can't normally do with a one shot image. They seem to start using the "it's only using light" to justify it :confused:
 
ElDude said:
For some reason, some people seem to think that's okay, even though you're doing something you can't normally do with a one shot image. They seem to start using the "it's only using light" to justify it :confused:
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HDR is just light adjustments though. It's clarifying the shadows and highlights. It can also be done with just the one image but the quality isn't quite as high.

It can also be done so that you would never know it had been done, or really over the top creating a crazy effect.

Maybe the latter use blurs into image manipulation but the former use is perfectly fine by me, as it's not much different to using levels etc.

For ease though, I would happily see it prohibited from the competition along with manipulation.
 
That's what I'm getting at ... it really isn't a particularly easy decision to make as to what should be allowed. 'Pure' HDR, taking this example again, I would see no problem with but the sort of editing done by programs such as photomatix isn't actually HDR, rather image manipulation. That's how I have always seen it, anyway.
 
Which I think may be why the guideline is merely the vague 'overuse of photoshop or other'

However, I think this months competition has produced a lot of blatant overuse and yet not been marked down because of it.

If the case is that such stuff will not be marked down, then the guideline needs removing, or alternatively it needs to be adhered to more.
 
I'm personally happy for it to remain the judges call what is and what isn't "too much".
If we don't trust their judgement, why did we nominate them in?
We can't replace the judges every time we don't agree with their decision.

A.N.Other said:
That's what I'm getting at ... it really isn't a particularly easy decision to make as to what should be allowed. 'Pure' HDR, taking this example again, I would see no problem with but the sort of editing done by programs such as photomatix isn't actually HDR, rather image manipulation. That's how I have always seen it, anyway.
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But then how do you do your HDR?
Without Photomatix, perhaps you would open images in PS, blend the different light areas using layers and masks and suddenly before you know it you've done more manipulation than I did in my entry.
 
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You can do HDRs in photoshop anyway - though CS2 wasn't that brilliant, which is why everyone used photomatix. CS3 is meant to be vastly improved in this respect.
 
While I haven't entered the competition myself (not good enough to compete with you lot :p) I did read this rule and wasn't very clear on it. Does it mean that adding a load of filter effects, cloning etc is overuse? or is overuse using photoshop to make lots of touches to the imperfect photo?

Just adding my thoughts but it is a photography comp and not a manipulation comp. Going by my college photography course I would expect photoshop to be used for colours, sharpness, borders etc.

But I could be saying all this because that's all I can do in PS :D
 
Helium_Junkie said:
But whether you do it via a tool or by manual labour, it's a lot of manipulation.
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Yeah, I agree. In your image, although the overall effect was of a seriously manipulated image, it's only two photos with a layer mask - as you say, probably not as much as many other techniques we would take for granted.
 
I think a good way to think of it is whether something could be realistically achieved just with the camera if you were good enough.

Using photoshop to enhance colours, shadows, adjust levels etc. is just giving a helping hand to correct what we were unable to achieve with the just camera at that moment. A bit like developing film. Leaving it solutions different lengths of time etc. would produce different results.

However, adding eyes to your neck and replacing your nose etc. is not something you could ever hope to do at the photograph stage of the process even if you were David Bailey and at this stage I feel it becomes image manipulation rather than photography, something that has no place inside a photography competition.

This is where HDR would again cause an argument. It's the same photo. Same scene. Same light. Same everything, bar the exposure setting on the camera which you change and then merge later.
 
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divine` said:
I think a good way to think of it is whether something could be realistically achieved just with the camera if you were good enough.
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I don't mean your point inparticular, but surely this sort of thing is saying you can take a substandard photograph, but then win a competition on the basis that you've been able to make the photo look good in software.

I don't really think Helium Junkie's image is any more manipulation than stitching a few landscape shots together.
 
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