Picture enhancing, editing in writeups...

This could just be me but I feel like recently there has been a lot of write-ups on various forums where the final pictures look "enhanced"...

I dont know how to use photoshop, but has anyone else noticed this? I pose a question but personally I "know" that certain photos have been enhanced just by looking at the color and reflections of the paint. I noticed this mostly just in final shots to make a car appear wetter or glossier.

Anyone feel its a little dishonest? Making a car appear to look better than it actually did when it was finished, making others assume the products used in the detail will yield similar results?

No accusations or naming, just conversation here...

 

No doubt about it. It's cheating the end result.

 

Haven't noticed it myself - but dishonest? Absolutely, IMHO... at the very least it's deceiving - otherwise they'd amp up the colors and contrast on all pics, not just the afters... right?

 

Yeah definitely seen a lot of it lately. When asked, a majority will admit it though, which i feel is ok. Some even say the pics have been processed. Kinda part of photography though i think...personally they go from my camera to the hard drive with no editing at all..i couldnt even if i tried.

 

Its not hard to tell when a pics been altered to make the end result more impressive. Some are better at making the changes more subtle but its still easy to tell because they never help out the before shots. Either way I agree its dishonest and dont see the reason for it.

 

There are alot of doctored pictures, I would also put garage shots in the same catagory.

 

Exactly how I feel, you summed it up perfectly.

I brought this up because it took me a while to understand why certain peoples work looks far superior to others... even those (and myself) using a similar to identical process. I then figured out people were enhancing their final shots, and its becoming more abundant in the past few months.

I guess someone posting 100% untouched pictures should get a bit more credit than those who do edit pictures... just like I give credit to those people who pull out a corrected car in direct sunlight to prove a perfect finish

 

I don't mind garage shots as long as there are before's & after's in the garage,using the same lighting. I also think peoples work speaks for itself in the end.

 

I understand were you are coming from Seth but the garage hides alot and you can make alot of crappy cars look good in a garage without much help. In the end certain people's work does speak for itself and you know thaat they are not "cheating".

 

I agree but it comes with a caveat as well. I don't own photoshop nor would I be worth a damn at using it if I had it. One of the reasons I like my DSLR is that it takes such good pics that I don't feel like I would need any editing. But that's where I have my caveat too. I don't agree with folks doctoring pics either but what about a guy that does phenomenal work but owns a crappy point and shoot and really poor photography skills. Then you have a guy that does ok work but owns a $1500 DSLR with $3000 worth of lenses and photography skills to kill for. Well the guy with the photography skills and high end equipment is going to have better looking results on the internet but maybe not so in person.

See what I mean? Again I don't agree with doctoring by any means but the above scenario borders the line of photo enhancing in a way too. Heck I hate taking before pics and the sun is not in the right position so they are shaded and then the afters which come hours later are in full sun which make the difference between before and afters seem more dramatic. I feel guilty when that happens and I didn't have any control over that.

 

I have noticed that since browsing forums for the last year. Some pictures show close ups of the swirls but the afters are taken from a distance. Im just plain old crappy at picture taking so I just take as many as I can and pick the non blurry ones lol.

 

Ya,my reasoning is the same imperfections that showed up in the before's would show up in the after's if they were not removed.
I have also personally seen full sun shots that look perfect on camera but not so in person. And I totally agree with JLs, I'm lucky to be able to transfer my pics to the computer to show them on sites much less doctor them. Thank God for photobucket.:giggle:
But if I had Scott's mad camera skills, I would have an advantage just on postioning the angle of the shots alone if nothing else.:angel:

 

I am with you on photos not showing all the imperfections. A slight angle change and you are golden. I agree with JL also, and you, I am lucky to have JL as my camera consultant so my point and pics make it to the my threads. If I was better at it I would post alot more cars but I don't want to wear out my "favors" with JL to soon-lol.

 

I have noticed this also. Especially photos that look overly sharpened and overly saturated.

Can anyone post some examples?

I have to say that a LOT of it can come from the camera. Like others have said, a simple P&S camera will not show off the car as nicely as when you have a DSLR camera with pricey lenses.

Add that to someone taking pics in 8MP, then resizing them to 1024 and you've got some CRISP pictures.

However, post a full sun shot and no Photoshop is going to cover up your shoddy work!

 

I never alter my pictures. EVER.

That's just cheating. I always try to take a sun shots. However, a camera does do a lot for pictures, I use a crappy point a shoot that I have no idea how to operate besides press the "Snap a picture button". I do notice that I have a problem with it focusing on door handles and other things instead of the reflection, which dulls the finish a lot. Gotta learn more about cameras.

 

I would say those who have the skill to take a beautiful photo (with or without a top end camera) are not to be placed in a similar category to those who purposely enhance their images to aggrandize a writeup with the intention to make the cars they detail look better (glossier, wetter,deeper)

If you have the skill to take a fantastic picture ( and not edit it later on ) than by all means you should get full credit for the detail work performed and for the skilled photos taken.. as long as the photos arent later edited.

 

If it wasn't for the fact that we're all picture whores, there'd be no reason for the pics at all. But, as the saying goes, a picture is worth a 1000 words. I get ripped on a bit for my lousy camera skills. Not to mention if you get done a car at night, or on a cloudy or rainy day, you're screwed. The only option is the garage shots. I suck at garage shots! Only very recently, have I discovered altering my aperture and using the built in light meter so my shots are not washed out or under-exposed (which they so often were!). It's rewarding to show your work and disappointing to have to apologize for garbage shots which do nothing to highlight all the work you just did. I suffer from the opposite and am working hard to understand how to get the most out of my camera to get the results to show that are in front of my face. My old Nikon FG was a great camera and I was pretty good with it. I'd love to get a new Nikon but that's not in the cards for some time I'm afraid. The old faces that have been around here for a while who we all know do fantastic work are the jobs that I always look at first anyway. To me the writeups are what's REALLY important b/c the people who take the time to explain their process, thoughts on products, new processes, etc is where I learn a lot. That's why I always try to emphasize it if I have tried something new whether it worked or not to add to the learning base that is DB.

 

Yet again Rich nails it! Couldn't have said it better.

 

Whether you alter your pictures or not doesnt really matter. In the end pictures hardly show anything. There are ways to take pictures so the imperfections dont show up just by focusing the camera differently, not to mention taking the after pictures at different angles or in the shade. There are also things which simply wont show up in pictures no matter what. You can tell who knows what they're doing and who doesn't just by the process they use and the advice they give. You dont even need to look at the pictures.

Oh and you dont need photoshop to edit pictures. You can change the settings in the camera itself to increase the sharpness, contrast, etc. And sharpening actually makes the imperfections easier to see.

 

What the other guys said. I'll add something else - a lot of the time, if I'm working on someone else's vehicle, I'm on a schedule. I don't have the time to take 200 photos, I'm busy detailing. Not that my photos would come out looking decent anyway...

Just to give you guys an idea of how bad I am with the photography thing, let me say that I probably can't tell if a photo of a car has been doctored. If write-ups here on DB have shown doctored photos, I either missed those particular writeups, or I got snowed.

I've got a copy of Photoshop. Let me tell you, somebody like me who doesn't know how to work his camera properly should STAY AWAY from Photoshop! I've abandoned all hope of figuring out how to work it - I always make things worse. Now, I just use the Canon software that came with my XTi. It's got a nice, simple way of resizing the huge photos down to 1024 pixels wide by the batch.

Anyway, I guess if people are forthcoming about having doctored up their photos, I suppose that's fine by me. Still though, even if that person says "I changed the blah blah setting to plus three," you don't really know if that's the only change they made. As to garage shots...I love to see sun shots, but I completely understand finishing a detail after the sun has set, or having to pull the vehicle into the garage because rain is coming.