Picture enhancing, editing in writeups...

If someone wants to alter the pics to make them more appealing, feel free but note in your write up that you have done so. It would be nice if they showed regular pics with the altered perfect pics as a bonus. Maybe explain what they did to alter the pics so camera retards like Karl and I can figure it out. I dont do anything between 1 and 4 in the morning anyway.

 

:lol:

I'm hopeless. I recently worked on a basket case Trailblazer. I found evidence that it had likely been in a major accident and received poor quality bodywork. The camera wouldn't autofocus on any of the defects, so I thought, "I know, I'll be clever." I set it to manual focus. Then I took six different shots of the defect, all at different focuses. Exactly none of them came out.

I hear golf is fun...

 

Show Car Photography:

Does the camera ever lie?

• Take photographs when the sun is setting
• Use digital a photograph in an editing software picture editing program (i.e. Paint Shop Professional X1) you can also adjust contrast, and white balance from the camera
• Open the digital photos in a picture editing software program (i.e. Paint Shop Pro XI) and use the tools to "sharpen" the image.

Is this then cheating? Liken it to the ‘air-brushed’ photographs of fashion models or celebrities, it has very little to do with reality, you are creating an illusion that people ‘want’ to believe (just be careful what claims you make for a product though with ‘enhanced’ photographs (i.e.’ Truth in Advertising’)

 

Some interesting viewpoints from everyone :applause2:

I will be the 1st to admit I have applied 'tweaks', if you could call it that, to some photo's that I have posted. I do think however that a definition needs to be made between photo's that have been tweaked to correct basic mistakes (over exposure, white balance, etc), and those that have been meticulously doctored to make the finished results appear better than they truly are. As with anything in life there are people with varying skill and equipment levels, and as a result with enough time & experience the 'end product' can be manipulated to portray whatever the creator wants to :thumb:

I have used some recent photo's of mine as examples of how 'tweaks' and 'doctoring' can affect the final photo, and ultimately what the end user (you guys in this case) actually see.


Example 1

Photo as posted in my thread. This image is straight out of the camera except for the added border.


The original photo straight from the camera.


The original 'tweaked' in Photoshop (Auto Levels & Auto Contrast)


The original 'tweaked' in Microsoft Office Picture Manager (Auto everything)


The original image 'doctored' in Photoshop (removed the buckets) and applied the 'Lomo' style post processing (thread on here sometime ago detailing the process).



Example 2

The original photo straight from the camera.


The original 'tweaked' in Photoshop (Auto Levels & Auto Contrast)


The original 'tweaked' in Microsoft Office Picture Manager (Auto everything)


The original image 'doctored' in Photoshop and applied the 'Lomo' style post processing (thread on here sometime ago detailing the process).



Example 3

Photo as posted in my thread. This image is straight out of the camera except for the added border.


The original photo straight from the camera.


The original 'tweaked' in Photoshop (Auto Levels & Auto Contrast)


The original 'tweaked' in Microsoft Office Picture Manager (Auto everything)




As you can see in all 3 examples there are subtle changes brought about by 'tweaking' the pictures with either Photoshop or any other generic photo editing app. On the other hand by spending some time 'doctoring' the photos in Photoshop, (examples 1 and 2) you can completely change the way the photo portrays the final finished product :thumb:


At the end of the day I would have to agree with what has already been said. I also find the actual written posts to be of more value than the pictures, which despite adding nice eye-candy to the thread, do not offer the same learning experiences as a well detailed write-up :headbang:

 

Thanks for posting that Carn! As I import my pictures into Photoshop Elements, they all receive the Auto Levels and Auto Contrast. I believe it makes the picture better respresent your true work.

 

It's called .exif data. Would be funny if everyone asked to see your .exif on write-ups. Then you'd know right away if it's been doctored or not.

 

How would the EXIF data tell you if the photo has been altered or not? If I change the size of a picture, the EXIF data would be the same as if the image was "doctored".

 

exif data can be stripped. Everytime I use my downsize app, it strips all exif data from the picture.

Also, you can't really take post processing in threads into account THAT much. It depends on the camera too. Each camera will produce different pictures in the same condition. To add to the confusion, I know many of us have DSLRs. Even the different lenses will produce different pictures.

 

Of course different cameras and equipment will produce different looking pictures, I mean when I switched from my p & s to an SLR my pics became much more vibrant and crisp.

The whole point of this thread is to not "hate on" every single person who edits their pictures or enhances them, as I have seem some excellent explanations here for reasons why some MINOR adjustments are necessary and thanks to Carn's pics you can see how minor adjustments do not drastically change the way the car looks. Rather my point was to shed some light on those who enhance their final shots to make a car appear glossier or deeper than it actually is.... and this goes beyond basic minor adjustments.

Certain writeups I have seen show after shots of a car that looks unrealistically glossy or reflective, now one could argue that the "adjustments" made were necessary to show the real finish but IMHO I think some will use that excuse to edit pics for the purpose of making a car, or their detailing skill appear to be better than it really is... which can lead to influencing product purchases.

 

My fault. I was under the impression that if it's been ps'd etc., that exif data doesn't show up, which is why on photog forums they ask one to provide it.

 

Wow! You guy's are talking WAY over my head, all I know is I have never doctored any of my pics, I wouldn't know how if I wanted too.LOL.

 

Yall ain't gotta worry about me doctoring photos...About a month ago my wife wanted me to snap a picture for her and the girls, :shead: I was holding the digital camera up to my face, saying "Where is the hole I'm suppose to be looking thru" :yikes: needless to say everyone got a good laugh but me. Actually it just discouraged me from wanting anything else to do with the camera. On top of that, I would never be able to figure out how to post them here.Maybe sometime I'll try again, there really are some Awesome cars that I work on.:headbang:

I like looking at the pictures of peoples work, I do kinda feel though that sometimes they are done to boost the persons ego, and if that what it takes, then thats something they will have to live with.:hmph:

I did see a good Obama doctored pictured on another non-detailing site recently that was Awesome:giggle:

 

Are you gonna share?

 

I understand what you are saying in regards to pictures being unnatural.

Here's my example from one of your threads. As you can tell, this just brings out more "detail" if you will. I wouldn't do this to every single one of my finished pictures because I'm probably going to take a lot now that I have a DSLR too. I think the picture should be pretty good on its own with my setup. Flashes are WIN!

original


altered


What I did..
Levels
Curves
Unsharp mask- 100%, 1.5 pixels, 1 threshold
Dodged the hood and door reflections one stroke on 5% opacity

The purpose of doing this for me was to bring more focus to the car itself. It's what is supposed to "pop" at you. I mainly did these because the background was really overexposed.. and well, it annoyed me haha. Keep in mind that this is just my take on it.

Also, anyone with a polarizer on their lens won't see much reflection at all. Those are designed to eliminate reflections. I would think that's against the purpose of these write ups though.

I think they ask for it because not everyone has the apps to view Exif data. Also, sometimes it's stripped for whatever reason such as mine. I usually have to announce all my exif data too.

 

Well this is a good thread but here is my take on this.

yes, there are a few members here that post with modified pictures, most state that they have modified/altered the pictures but those that don't state they have done so, in my opinion, loose credibility/respect. In most cases it's easy to spot pictures that have been altered/modified, I say this just from experience. So far I've taken a total of 4 photograph courses, one of them was a Photoshop and I learned a great deal from all the courses. I wanted to improve my photography skills and so far I'm enjoying photography, there are lots of tricks to capture gorgeous pictures with out the use of Photoshop but Photoshop is a great tool.

The point is that here at Detailing Bliss things are left to each member to behave respectfully, honest and as sincere as possible. So if a member alters/modifies his/her pictures on his write up my expectation is that he will state pictures were altered/modified. If the member does not do so then in my opinion yes they do loose credibility/respect from forum/community...ect..ect...but by no means does it make the person posting superior then any one else or inferior for that matter.

Please remember doing write ups and posting the details takes a significant amount of time, I know this because it takes a bit of time for me to go through all the pictures put the border then do the write up documenting all I did to the vehicle. Now the big question, why do such write ups? Well for me it's to help others who are looking to learn how to detail properly, I do it out of pure passion and nothing else. Well those are my intentions, others may post their details for marketing/promoting but for me it's pure pleasure, that's why I detail.

Any who, I'm getting long winded here...but the point I'd like to make is that altered/modified pictures are fun to look at, they make for great viewing and not to mention it shows how powerful Photoshop truly is because it truly is a powerful tool so on that note, I welcome modified/altered pictures but it's up to all of us to be honest/sincere with our actions.

 

This was what I was hoping to get out of this thread. For those that want to and have the skill to enhance pics in PS or by other means, thats fine... but at least state so in your writeup.

 

When mentioning "post processing," the OP should have differentiated between two very distinct types:

1. Doctoring photos
2. Enhancing image quality

#1 pertains to someone editing out mistakes or flaws in an image. This person wants to present their work as something that it isn't. This should obviously be viewed as abhorrent and discouraged by our community.

#2 pertains to what I consider the completely legitimate practice of enhancing the existing qualities of a picture. Photoshop can bring out elements of a picture that are completely invisible when initially taken from a digital camera. Shadows, highlights, contrast, brightness, saturation, and several other notable variables make a picture spring to life.

One of the worst parts of detailing is being unable to properly capture paint flaws under halogen lamps or direct sunlight. Someone with even a minimum amount of skill in Photoshop can expose flaws that were previously hidden by dull stock images. If you're completely inept at PS, try and learn the basics and you'll realize there's nothing improper about exposing the true qualities of your detailing.

 

Great post....I would agree almost completely but it needs to be added that the true result of the work can be manipulated to a large degree by fiddling with brightness, contrast, etc.

I would prefer to condone simple 'automatic' tweaks such as those found in most image editing programs, over manual manipulation which is practically limitless :thumb:

My 2c :headbang:

 

Pictures are pictures... nothing beats seeing the results yourself in real life.

 

I've posted HDR pictures but always at the end of the thread and also stated that they were HDR.