Altering your photos

That would be great - think we are in the wrong thread though!!  Trouble is I've got to find a postcard around here to send back to everyone - it's hardly a top tourist spot!!!

Getting back to altering photos, I'm almost embarrassed to show this picture. As I don't consider myself a particularly good photographer, I have to use all the tools at my disposal - call it artistic, which incedently, I'm not, but I have to use what I can to improve an other-wise mundane photo. I think it is cheating, if you're going to enter photo competition, but hey, take a look at some of the photos on the National Geographic site - they cheat like crazy.

Hope I haven't offended.

Picture by Pete Rowley

Sometimes soup can taste pretty bland without some salt. Photoshop (et al) is that in images. Not all images require additional work but after all, going back to the days of the darkroom, we used to burn in, hold back, use multi-grade filters, tone and employ loads of other methods that perhaps the purists might have thought to be cheating. Some thought that any cropping was cheating. If a standard record shot is the aim, then fine, but I would prefer to clone out litter or dodge & burn if I wish, very much like I did in the darkroom. So, the manipulation of fingers under an enlarger lens might be a memory for me but going into selections, layers and masks is now a pretty good replacement. Fun and creativity can be had after the shutter has captured that 1/250th second at F8. If these tools were not available we might just as well print images direct from the camera which would be a bit boring for me anyway.  My views & I realize many will take a different one and I more than respect those who can turn out superb images sans any corrective action.  

Pete, I like your image. Full of movement and it has a certain feel to it. Rock on!

As a confirmed fiddler Pete, I can assure you that I try flogging the odd "dead horse" but once the delete button is pressed and confirmed in the recyle bin it's all over. Mind you, as I shoot in Raw there's always the original and I really must delete those "old nags" too.

Fiddle on!

OK, confession time.  I have submitted 2 altered photos to POE - they were great shots, but I was in one and my DH was in the other and I didn't want to put our beautiful faces in the picture file, so I edited us out of them.  See what you think....

Picture by Ruth Gregory

Picture by Ruth Gregory

Now that I look at them, I think it's painfully obvious, lol. 

BTW, Rod, thank you for your comments on a couple of my pics.

(PS - please note the name of the Museum in the second shot.  lol)