Photoshop techniques

Digital enhancement – there is a distinct difference with this and manipulation –

Enhancement usually allows adjustment of contrast, tone, luminosity, colour, dodging and burning in, limited repairing of any aberrations etc. in a similar manner that we might have done using traditional darkroom techniques. However,  when we work digitally through a program like photoshop - the control is very much greater, we can work at a much finer level. With photoshop we can work right down to individual pixels. We can alter the colour in each of the Red Green and Blue channels  - and we can do this in layers which means we can switch the effect on or off at the click of a button.  
When we look at  Photo- journalism, the press association have very strict set of guidelines about how an image can be altered from the original file  - what can be done and what cannot be done. The same with forensic photography which could be used in evidence – enhancement is allowed but only to a certain degree. The official policy is that press image can be enhanced but not manipulated where pieces have been cut from one image into another. Where the grey line enters is in retouching – traditionally photographers would retouch any dust mark or blemish which was seen as OK. Fashion and many portrait photographers would not only retouch to hide dust, hairs and scratches on the medium – the film – but retouch the photograph to actually make the model look more beautiful.  With photoshop and the clone tool it becomes easy to retouch any mark on the subject  - so easy whole areas can be erased and replaced to  -“ enhance : the image. The question is how much?

Manipulation on the other hand takes in cutting and pasting from other images, altering perspective, removing distracting details and the wild use of effect filters in photoshop.  We see these techniques used more in illustrative work, advertising, fashion and creative expression. In terms of the current trends in fashion photography nearly all models have their legs lengthened.

So in a sense we have two approaches and philosophical positions:

• One of finding subjects in the real world to photograph, enhancing the image in a limited manner while maintaining the original subject as shot by the camera. Here the essence and detail of the original subject matter is paramount.
• The other of constructing an imagined image in a creative way using any means at your disposal, including photoshop and any number of source images. Here the final image is paramount.