Is it OK to edit photos?

Question:It sounds funny... i know... but is it acceptable to edit photos? like change contrast and brightness and then sell the edited print?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: It sounds funny... i know... but is it acceptable to edit photos? like change contrast and brightness and then sell the edited print?

Do you think it's cheating to do any post-production work on a musical recording? Do you agree with the people who say that George Martin was the sixth Beatle or do you agree with the people who say that Billy Preston deserved that title?

I think that the MOST IMPORTANT PART of photography is getting it right in the camera in the first place, but I quickly add that using Photoshop to fine-tune an image is not cheating.

If Photoshop existed when Ansel Adams was doing his "landmark" darkroom manipulations, you can bet he'd be the first in line to buy a copy.

In the olden days, when film purists were all that there were (no digital = film purist), there were probably more books sold about darkroom technique than photographic technique.

Did anyone ever wonder where those tools in Photoshop with weird names like "Burn" and "Dodge" got their names from in the first place? These are basic darkroom techniques that I learned before I was ten years old. EVERYONE DID IT. Everyone still does. It's just that some do it with Photoshop and some still do it in the darkroom.

Photoshop to fine tune an otherwise acceptable image is not cheating. Even the best of our photographer friends remark frequently that they create the images and then pay someone to do the post-processing in Photoshop.

Putting your head on Carmen Electra's body and then posting that on MySpace is cheating.

See this question and read the answers: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

Only if you cannot get it right in the camera ... There are times that lighting conditions preclude a straight shot, so you have to do a little adjustments

In general, if you can perfectly expose the sensor, your post production will be less than 5% of your photography

Rather than adjusting contrast and brightness, use the levels tool and adjust the black threshold, white threshold and mid-tone to make the image as perfect as possible. Just be sure your monitor is calibrated ... an incorrectly calibrated monitor gaurantees a less than perfect image

I personally think it is perfectly acceptable and every bit as much of art as any other picture.

There are many people here who claim that if its done on the comp its not talent not real art or not real photography. No one questioned these editing techniques when the only to do it was with filters setting and dark room manipulation.

As long as you are doing it to your own pics or have permission of the pic owner, by all means, play all you want!!!!!

Unless of course you are taking pics for the news or police to report stuff, in which case it is NOT acceptable to edit anything

I agree with Dr.Sam. If you shoot raw, and you should, then you will have to do post processing. If you shoot jpeg, shame on you, then the camera is taking a raw image and then doing the post processing onboard according to your predefined preferences. Whether you like it or not, all images are post processed.