Are most Photoshopped pictures just "gold plated dung"?

Question: Are most Photoshopped pictures just "gold plated dung"!?
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

Photography is not exempt from Sturgeon's Law, so yes, 90% of it, photoshopped or not, is dung!. However, very little of it rises to the level of gold plated - spray painted is more like it!. Www@QuestionHome@Com

No, I don't think so!. Photoshop is like anything else, it can be used well, or used horribly!. It is sometimes called the "digital darkroom" and I think that is a good description!. I personally enjoy working with various overlays, even with shots that I took with film!.

Where I DO have a problem with Photoshop is not so much with the program itself, but with the attitide and idea of so many people that photoshop is photography!. They think every photo ever taken was "photoshopped"!. They have no clue that a good photo is taken in the camera and photoshop is NOT photography!.

Some of the photoshop "edits" on this site, however, are not even worthy of being called dung, much less gold plated!.

steveWww@QuestionHome@Com

It depends!.

If it starts out as P&S dung, then you may be totally correct!.

If the photo manipulation has been done by a Photoshop artist, then they can be quite mind blowing!.

I think what you may be referring to is attempting to use Photoshop to "fix" poor photo technique or just plain bad images, rather than taking the time to learn how to use and control a fully adjustable camera to produce nearly perfect images that need no further "processing"Www@QuestionHome@Com

I don't think so, I look at digital as being not too different from using film!. Using Photoshop is like developing your own photos and taking care to get them just the way you want them!. On the other hand having the philosophy of point, shoot and print is similar to taking your film to a place like Wal-Mart which just runs the entire roll through the machine not taking into account what each individual photo should look like!.

The old saying still applies "garbage in, garbage out" but the truth is that people who have so little interest in quality that they take no care when actually taking the picture will not spend much time trying to get it right in Photoshop!. Since it actually takes more time to try fixing a crappy picture than it takes to produce a good one I doubt lazy people with no interest in quality will want to spend hours at a computer trying to fix their mistakes!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Yes!. Www@QuestionHome@Com