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Author Topic: The Art of Editing: When is Editing your photo too much?  (Read 57634 times)

jjj

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Re: The Art of Editing: When is Editing your photo too much?
« Reply #80 on: March 27, 2013, 12:07:48 am »

A word may have several different meanings.

Even the Pocket Oxford Dictionary provides half a dozen meanings for "edit" which, for a reasonable person, should end this dull squabble.
Sadly, reference works do not count as facts when they do not agree with the naysayers.

Debate is however bit of a diversion whilst waiting for work to tediously render, which is waaaaaay duller.
« Last Edit: March 27, 2013, 12:22:03 am by jjj »
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Tony Jay

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Re: The Art of Editing: When is Editing your photo too much?
« Reply #81 on: March 27, 2013, 05:07:17 am »

...Debate is however bit of a diversion whilst waiting for work to tediously render, which is waaaaaay duller.

A faster computer should fix that.    Just kidding!!  ;D

Tony Jay
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Rob C

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Re: The Art of Editing: When is Editing your photo too much?
« Reply #82 on: March 27, 2013, 05:13:41 am »

No surprise there.

 And yet again, there's a contradictory statement.
Of course words meanings change, some words end up meaning the complete opposite of what they started out as. Let used to mean prevent for example.
And meanings are certainly not universal if some of us use words in ways you refuse to acknowledge, despite the dictionary definitions agreeing with us. Edit amongst its other meanings, means to change or modify, which describes exactly what photo-editors do funnily enough and is why they are called that.
Only on the part of old fogeys still living in a past which never really existed.
Just one of several meanings of the word, certainly not exclusive.
And to repeat myself - They are called editing suites are they allow you to edit photos. Easy concept for most of us to grasp.  ;D
Actually you are wrong as many, if not most current photographers use the term to mean altering images and remember the dictionaries are in accord with us, not you. Now as language works by consensus, we are using the word correctly.
The fact editing also means selecting images is something no-one has disputed as both meanings are correct. Denying the existence of the meaning most commonly used by photographers today however, is a bit bonkers.
And protesting changes in language is a proper grumpy old man/woman territory.  :P



jjj, you must be the most charming young man on LuLa. Glad to have met you here.

Rob C

Gulag

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Re: The Art of Editing: When is Editing your photo too much?
« Reply #83 on: March 27, 2013, 09:31:12 am »

Uh, you can edit your images in both senses of the word in PM.
The only people abusing definitions are the ones like yourself denying both vernacular + dictionary meaning.

Really? You can do both editing and retouching in Photo Mechanic? That's something your copy allows you to do?

Learning any trade is to learn its jargon first. At least for me, I haven't encountered any professional "retouching" firm calling itself an "editing" firm yet, and all the retouchers that I know haven't started to call themselves editors yet.  At least from my own experience,  all curators who I have interacted with well understand the precise difference between editing and retouching.
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RSL

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Re: The Art of Editing: When is Editing your photo too much?
« Reply #84 on: March 27, 2013, 09:43:24 am »

You're spinning your wheels mshi. The guy you're trying to reason with has shown he can't be swayed by reason. Of course there's a difference between editing (culling) and retouching, and neither Photo Mechanic nor Photoshop nor Lightroom is designed for editing, unless you argue that Bridge and Lightroom give you thumbnails that'll help you make editing decisions. But these distinctions are too much for anyone whose mind is made up.
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jjj

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Re: The Art of Editing: When is Editing your photo too much?
« Reply #85 on: March 28, 2013, 01:15:12 pm »

A faster computer should fix that.    Just kidding!!  ;D
Even more tedious than talking to people who speak English from Ye Good Olde Days is waiting to see if Apple are ever going to update the MacPro.

Few things are dafter than objecting to how a language changes, as languages don't give a monkey's what a word used to mean.
Those of us that live in the 21st century and whose brains are not yet ossified, will continue to edit our images in our photo editors, after we have culled them first of course. ;D
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jjj

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Re: The Art of Editing: When is Editing your photo too much?
« Reply #86 on: March 28, 2013, 02:55:35 pm »

Really? You can do both editing and retouching in Photo Mechanic? That's something your copy allows you to do?
PM is not just limited to culling images as you stated, but can also edit them, in albeit in a extremely limited manner. Though less than I recall it having when I gave up on it a decade ago, I have to say. Probably the reason why I did move on, as for my needs PM is slower to use, because it adds an extra and pointless stage to my workflow.
Amusing the wiki page on PM says - "While Photo Mechanic has basic support for simple image edits, such as crops, it is meant to be used in concert with a dedicated photo editing program, such as Adobe Photoshop" - Notice how 'edit' is used.
And tellingly on PDN, PM is not even considered to be a photo editor - "And unlike Lightroom and Aperture which keep adding editing functions, Photo Mechanic isn't really a photo editor at all. Sure, there are some very basic tools such as being able to rotate and crop images but these are almost afterthoughts." It's a Digital Asset Manager [DAM] application in their view.

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Learning any trade is to learn its jargon first. At least for me, I haven't encountered any professional "retouching" firm calling itself an "editing" firm yet, and all the retouchers that I know haven't started to call themselves editors yet.  At least from my own experience,  all curators who I have interacted with well understand the precise difference between editing and retouching.
English is a wonderful language and we have a silly amount of words at our disposal, many with multiple meanings. One of the benefits of that is that there can be a whole range of subtleties of meaning with different words and amongst groups of people use the same words, such as in this case of editing where curators and photographers will correctly use the same word, albeit in slightly different ways. It's all about context. For example if I talk to a curator or a photographer about editing, I'm actually talking about different things depending to whom I am speaking.
As for retouching, it is usually used to mean altering images in ways beyond simple grading and it's a far more specialist skill, which is why you get places that specialise in retouching. Now if I was retouching an image I may not use the word editing as retouching involves more than a simple edit.  Just like if I was running for a bus, I wouldn't say I was jogging for the bus, despite jogging being a type of running. However, I would do my retouching in a photo editor like Photoshop.
Grading is yet another word for altering an image. One which is borrowed from the film industry where in film post processing, grading and timing are often used interchangeably. The reason being is that the time you developed film for, altered its look or grade. And as I work in film as well as stills I sometimes refer to tweaking my images as grading them, which is more about giving a specific overall look to a photo than say removing dust spots or darkening the sky, which would be editing. But if I was cloning out things, adding a third eye or making skin look like weird melted plastic, then I would say I was retouching.
Now at this point the folks who behave like religious zealots when it comes to languages changing will start stamping their feet and insist that grading is what you do to college essays and should not be used for altering the look of film or images.  :P

Anyway I have some new photos that need some tweaking/post processing/grading/retouching/editing/altering/fine tuning/manipulating/photoshopping/developing.
« Last Edit: March 28, 2013, 02:59:01 pm by jjj »
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theguywitha645d

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Re: The Art of Editing: When is Editing your photo too much?
« Reply #87 on: March 31, 2013, 12:58:42 pm »

Personally, I do not process my images that much. Usually, I am compensating for the photographic process to achieve a result that is natural, but reveals the structures I saw. I am interested in the world as it is.
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