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Al my pictures are manipulated! Fantastic opportunities have emerged after the digital revolution. The darkroom is back with all it has to offer. Among nature photographers the discussion about manipulation of pictures has rolled for years. What is allowed to do in Photoshop, and what is not? I choose not to proclaim a strict borderline. It is a common opinion not to make major changes in a picture by digital help. Thus some do not allow moving or replacing elements. Then what about taking two exposures of the same motive, using tripod for exact alignment, and merge them together with the computer? This increases the dynamic range and is definitely replacing.... I always shot raw files, and correct each picture in Phase One and Photoshop. I remove dust and alter colour and contrast settings by curves. I pick up shadows, emulate polarisation filter, increases the saturation and merge double exposures instead of using graduated grey filters on location. I also stitch pictures together to panoramas - a vast manipulation itself! Anyone who thinks one can buy yourself good photos by skills in Photoshop, is wrong! Composition and framing the shot have to be considered and decided before you expose. It will not help if you come home with lousy files. Bad quality input equals bad quality output, even with skills in the digital darkroom. You have to be on top of both the visual and the technical aspect. To avoid conflict with everyones individual perception on what to do and what not to do, I declare all my pictures to be manipulated. Then everyone can decide for themselves and set their own borderlines in context with their own ethics. And everyone that wish to believe me when I say I don’t mislead anyone, can do so. My pictures don’t lie. I do not ad more birds or turn mooses around. I conduct good old fashion darkroom work with today’s digital tecniques. Best regards
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This picture is taken on the way down the mountain side to Geiranger, Norway. Above you can see the original photo directly from its raw file. Here all data is present, even the “unnecessary” data you don’t want. By developing this in the digital darkroom you can get a picture that corresponds with what you saw and what you want to communicate. This example is fairly simple. Here the contrast is increased and the over all colour is tuned. In addition the foreground colour is added some warmth and the background colour with some cold tones. This enhances the feeling of depth.
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This picture shows sunrise a September morning by the mountain Snota in Trollheimen, Norway. Above you can see the output picture from the raw file. Under you can see the result after some magic done in Photoshop. This is more advanced than the first example. The same basics are done with contrast and colour. In addition I have picked up a lot of shadow in the bushes. Further more, the mountain and its reflection in the water is given back the warm glow from the rising sun, and the grass island in front is lightened up to balance the composition. Here is the final picture:
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