I'm don't entirely understand how the problem you are describing is exactly because of human vision. Ours eyes and brain are seeing reality while the picture is just an interpretation of reality. To me your example comes from the challenge of the photographic process itself
To me your example just sounds like a poorly photographed picture. A picture that is properly photographed would not endure quite so many challenges. While the challenge of getting an image to paper is moving from an RGB color space to CMYK color space. Colors don't automatically translate between the two.
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Originally Posted by melgross
We always had problems in my lab, as every other lab has. The problem was in how to correct from what were correct colors that the camera took, to the incorrect colors our eye and brain corrects them to. That differed with each client.
How do you correct a face in the noonday sun that overexposed on the sunlit side, and yellow from the suns light, but yet cyan and underexposed on the shadow side without making the entire thing a mess? Commercial shooters usually understand this problem and cheat, but aren't always successful. Everyone else has no idea.
Then with film and paper, we had the problem that if we corrected properly for flesh tones, grey would come out cyan. Tough! Thankfully, that problem is now over, though early laser and inkjet printers would often output blue as purple. Lots of playing around with the LUTs.
That's true to a degree, but our dynamic range is so wide that the change is not that dramatic. If we look up into a sunny sky and can see shaded trees in the same view. The shadows of the tree don't become inky black shadows for us. They are just darker shades of gray.
If we look into a shadow area and can see a clear sky in the distance we can see detail in the shadow area and the sky does not become a mass of white. We can see detail in it all. A camera cannot.
My point is that HDR photography they always crush the shadows down to blackness or stretch the white areas to be very white. While it does look nice and it is dramatic its not true to the original scene. Its not true to what was actually recorded, its an aesthetic style.
The problem is that we can't really do that. We have no control over our eyes position if we want to see something. Our eye just moves to that spot. We have almost no resolution outside of our area of primary focus either.
A healthy eye can open to f2.8 and close to about f22. That's not very much. It's just that it happens so quickly, we don't notice. As we get older, both ends close in. But the camera lens is at one opening. Our brain also does some processing that gives us more ability than what the iris gives us, but it's done as we look around the scene, in real time. We think we're seeing everything in one way, but we're really seeing it in another.
We can't see two objects at once if they're more than a few degrees apart. our eye quickly flicks from one to the other, no matter how hard we try to prevent it. Our iris will momentarily close or open for that, so we MAY think we're seeing it all at once, but we're not.
As I said, if an HDR is done properly, it will reflect what we see in each part of the scene we've concentrated in, but all at once. If it's done badly, so that the shadows are opened up too much, and the highlights are too dark, then it looks wrong. Too many HDRs by amateurs look this way because it's hard for them to not open it up all the way.
As nice as HDR is I'm much more interested in Poly9 acquisition. Maps app is due for a refresh, since Android now has a much better mapping and directions application. Plus Off maps functionality needs to be built into maps as well. And of course better transit directions so I can pick which lines I want to take instead of just the quickest route. I don't care if they buy the developer or developers or even work with google once again, but maps really needs to improve.
I'm don't entirely understand how the problem you are describing is exactly because of human vision. Ours eyes and brain are seeing reality while the picture is just an interpretation of reality. To me your example comes from the challenge of the photographic process itself
To me your example just sounds like a poorly photographed picture. A picture that is properly photographed would not endure quite so many challenges. While the challenge of getting an image to paper is moving from an RGB color space to CMYK color space. Colors don't automatically translate between the two.
The question is what is reality? We do so much processing of a scene that reality becomes that processed vision. I won't argue that it isn't OUR reality, because it is. But the camera records what is actually happening. Any sunlit outdoor scene has far more contrast than we could see all at once. We see the way some photographers "paint" a scene with a light, moving around and holding the light in various places to light it up as they want it to be.
What I mean is that if something is say, 12 stops, we can't see that outdoors as black to white unless it's small. If its big, then we have to pan over it, with our eye adjusting all the while. The camera can't do that, so it just shows the true relative brightness range. Of course, we need a good camera for that. A medium format camera can usually handle the ratio.
Note that they don't call it HDR but exposure fusion. Basically you take the best exposed parts of each image and blend them into a single image which is different than creating a HDR image which never seems to look normal.
Yes scientists have done tests on how the human eye and brain perceive light. While its not 100% the same for everyone, their is an established norm for how we see.
The end result of photographs are not true to what the original scene was but you don't start from that point. You don't want to start out with yellow as orange or red as pink, there has to be a normal starting point so that you can predictably get the look you want in the end. The initial goal of any photographic system is to record the scene as accurately as possible.
Photography is an art, not a science. Every photograph requires numerous decisions by photographer about every aspect of that photograph, all of which are based on what the photographer is attempting to communicate with the photograph. This is an inherently subjective process. I'm not sure what your purpose is in introducing the concept of predictability to this discussion since it seems obvious to me that your objections to HDR isn't a lack of prodicability, but in a perception of lack of accuracy.
Even this argument seems faulty to me. If you look at an outdoor scene with your naked eye, you will have no trouble discerning the definition of the clouds in the sky or picking out the detail in the shadows. The fact that a camera can't do the same unaided does not make the unaided camera the more accurate observer but rather a limited one. Photographers have been working around these limitations by other means for more than a century. HDR is just the latest tool in their arsenal to achieve the results they desire.
Photography is an art, not a science. Every photograph requires numerous decisions by photographer about every aspect of that photograph, all of which are based on what the photographer is attempting to communicate with the photograph. This is an inherently subjective process. I'm not sure what your purpose is in introducing the concept of predictability to this discussion since it seems obvious to me that your objections to HDR isn't a lack of prodicability, but in a perception of lack of accuracy.
Even this argument seems faulty to me. If you look at an outdoor scene with your naked eye, you will have no trouble discerning the definition of the clouds in the sky or picking out the detail in the shadows. The fact that a camera can't do the same unaided does not make the unaided camera the more accurate observer but rather a limited one. Photographers have been working around these limitations by other means for more than a century. HDR is just the latest tool in their arsenal to achieve the results they desire.
But what is accuracy? I have spectrophotometers to enable me to make good paper profiles. We print out a sheet or two of several hundred colors, which the device reads. from that the computer makes a profile of the paper.
Sure, I could look at all of those colors and try to figure out what they are, and then enter those numbers by hand into the program. but would that result in a more accurate profile because I used my eyes rather than a machine? Of course not. It would be unusable.
It's also like the question of whether a tree falling in the forest makes a sound if someone is not there to hear it. It depends on how we define sound.
We all see differently. There is no way to decide which person is seeing accurately without having some standard to measure it against. The camera can take more accurate pictures than what we see, but that doesn't mean the pictures will be more pleasing, or have better detail, color, etc. It can mean, in a good camera that's properly adjusted, that it takes pictures that are more accurate, in an objective way, than what we see, or think we see. Subjectively, well, that's another thing altogether.
But what is accuracy? I have spectrophotometers to enable me to make good paper profiles. We print out a sheet or two of several hundred colors, which the device reads. from that the computer makes a profile of the paper.
Sure, I could look at all of those colors and try to figure out what they are, and then enter those numbers by hand into the program. but would that result in a more accurate profile because I used my eyes rather than a machine? Of course not. It would be unusable.
It's also like the question of whether a tree falling in the forest makes a sound if someone is not there to hear it. It depends on how we define sound.
We all see differently. There is no way to decide which person is seeing accurately without having some standard to measure it against. The camera can take more accurate pictures than what we see, but that doesn't mean the pictures will be more pleasing, or have better detail, color, etc. It can mean, in a good camera that's properly adjusted, that it takes pictures that are more accurate, in an objective way, than what we see, or think we see. Subjectively, well, that's another thing altogether.
To answer your presumably rhetorical question, accuracy is useless. It conveys nothing. I would say that the issue is not quite so philosophical as the tree falling in the forest. I believe what is happening here is that photography has become so easy, requiring so little conscious intervention, that it's possible to be convinced that nothing subconscious does intervene into the choices we make when we take a photograph.
This is perhaps less true now than it was in the past. Photogrpahers once had to make painstaking decisions about composition, timing, framing, light and every other variable because they didn't get second chances. The elements they could not control when the photo was taken were often worked out in the darkroom. In fact I think I learned more about photography in a darkroom than I ever did looking through a viewfinder. Not many people get that experience any more, so perhaps it's easy to get the idea that it's an objective exercise.
To answer your presumably rhetorical question, accuracy is useless. It conveys nothing. I would say that the issue is not quite so philosophical as the tree falling in the forest. I believe what is happening here is that photography has become so easy, requiring so little conscious intervention, that it's possible to be convinced that nothing subconscious does intervene into the choices we make when we take a photograph.
This is perhaps less true now than it was in the past. Photogrpahers once had to make painstaking decisions about composition, timing, framing, light and every other variable because they didn't get second chances. The elements they could not control when the photo was taken were often worked out in the darkroom. In fact I think I learned more about photography in a darkroom than I ever did looking through a viewfinder. Not many people get that experience any more, so perhaps it's easy to get the idea that it's an objective exercise.
I disagree about accuracy. In my business, a commercial photo lab, accuracy is all important. for most of my clients, accuracy is also of the utmost importance.
If you're taking pictures to please yourself, then whatever you want is ok. but when you're taking pictures to sell a product, accuracy is very important. Both the photographer and the lab are painstaking about using standards to get to the point of accuracy.
The problem is that we can't really do that. We have no control over our eyes position if we want to see something. Our eye just moves to that spot. We have almost no resolution outside of our area of primary focus either.
I'm talking about objects that are within the eyes field of view. A lot of things can fit into the foreground, mid-ground, and background that all have totally different tonal values and the eye can see far more detail in all of those different tones that a camera is able.
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As I said, if an HDR is done properly, it will reflect what we see in each part of the scene we've concentrated in, but all at once. If it's done badly, so that the shadows are opened up too much, and the highlights are too dark, then it looks wrong. Too many HDRs by amateurs look this way because it's hard for them to not open it up all the way.
I completely agree and it was apart of my point that HDR can discern detail much more like the eye can. My over all point is that peoples criticism of HDR vs non HDR doesn't take into account the accuracy of the original scene vs stylized manipulation.
I've met Kodak chemists and German engineers who would disagree that photography is not a science as well as an art. You would be surprised at the amount mathematical formulas that go into focusing and exposing an image.
Accuracy is totally important. I think you take for granted that you can take a point and shoot shot of someones face and their skin isn't purple. The reason for that is because all of the factors that go into making that camera are tested to make sure they reproduce color as accurately as possible.
To give a large example. When you go to a summer block buster movie. More than likely that movie was shot with 10 - 20 cameras, in different countries using different teams of people. All of that effort has to go into creating one movie that has to feel cohesive.
When you are using 10 - 20 cameras you have to be absolutely sure they will all reproduce the exact same image. To test all of those cameras they have to start from the same neutral benchmark. They exhaustively test every part of the imaging system. Hundreds of millions of dollars are riding on the accuracy of these images.
When shooting film color chip charts such as this one test camera systems for color and contrast accuracy.
When shooting digital waveform monitors such as this are used to test camera systems for color and contrast accuracy.
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Every photograph requires numerous decisions by photographer about every aspect of that photograph, all of which are based on what the photographer is attempting to communicate with the photograph. This is an inherently subjective process. I'm not sure what your purpose is in introducing the concept of predictability to this discussion since it seems obvious to me that your objections to HDR isn't a lack of prodicability, but in a perception of lack of accuracy.
I disagree about accuracy. In my business, a commercial photo lab, accuracy is all important. for most of my clients, accuracy is also of the utmost importance.
If you're taking pictures to please yourself, then whatever you want is ok. but when you're taking pictures to sell a product, accuracy is very important. Both the photographer and the lab are painstaking about using standards to get to the point of accuracy.
It depends on what you're doing.
I think we are talking about two different things. Of course it's important for your clients to get what they expect from your photo lab. But I am referring to the decisions made by the photographer, which are subjective. They may well have nothing to do with accurate representations of reality, as if that was even possible with a photograph.
TenoBell is also missing the point. I'm not saying that no science is involved in photography. In fact before it was technology it was chemistry. That's not what I said. I am disagreeing with the idea that the photographer's business is in some way the accurate representation of visual reality. When you argue that an HDR enhanced photo is somehow less "true" to reality than a photo without it, you are ignoring some very fundamental issues which have always been an essential part of photography.
[QUOTE=TenoBell;1713439]I'm talking about objects that are within the eyes field of view. A lot of things can fit into the foreground, mid-ground, and background that all have totally different tonal values and the eye can see far more detail in all of those different tones that a camera is able.[quote]
I'm going to let this go. We can argue all night, and I really believe we're not talking entirely about the same thing.
I think we are talking about two different things. Of course it's important for your clients to get what they expect from your photo lab. But I am referring to the decisions made by the photographer, which are subjective. They may well have nothing to do with accurate representations of reality, as if that was even possible with a photograph.
TenoBell is also missing the point. I'm not saying that no science is involved in photography. In fact before it was technology it was chemistry. That's not what I said. I am disagreeing with the idea that the photographer's business is in some way the accurate representation of visual reality. When you argue that an HDR enhanced photo is somehow less "true" to reality than a photo without it, you are ignoring some very fundamental issues which have always been an essential part of photography.
Most commercial photography is aimed at getting the most accurate reproduction of what was photographed. We use color charts in the image so that they can be measured densitometrically in order for us to be able to duplicate the colors, brightness and contrast of the original scene. The lighting is controlled carefully for the same reason. All our equipment is also controlled tightly.
You're confusing art photography with commercial work. Don't do that, they are very different.
These highfalutin comments are nice and all but nobody buys an iphone for their professional photography needs. So the hardware and software are geared to the average consumer and I think serve the purpose quite well. In that respect, the hdr is nothing less than a super-awesome FREE upgrade. 8 times out of 10, I much prefer the results it provides to what I had before. The other 2 times, I still have the original picture to revert back to. Plus, if you absolutely hate the hdr option, you can turn it off. What's not to like? That people can complain about this only shows how spoiled we've become.
Most commercial photography is aimed at getting the most accurate reproduction of what was photographed. We use color charts in the image so that they can be measured densitometrically in order for us to be able to duplicate the colors, brightness and contrast of the original scene. The lighting is controlled carefully for the same reason. All our equipment is also controlled tightly.
You're confusing art photography with commercial work. Don't do that, they are very different.
I'm not confusing anything. I entirely understand your point about color fidelity, but In all photography, commercial or otherwise, a vast number of choices are made by the photographer which have a profound impact on the "truth" of the final image. This is even the case in commercial photography, if not even more so, since the objective of the photograph is to sell something. I'd be surprised if you thought that this purpose doesn't have any impact on the choices photographers make in taking these photographs. To make my point again in the simplest terms, photograph are not about accurate representations of reality, but about the message the photographer is trying to convey about the subject of the photograph. This may or may not demand color fidelity, but it certainly doesn't require objectivity or accuracy in the broader meaning of the term.
I think we are talking about two different things. Of course it's important for your clients to get what they expect from your photo lab. But I am referring to the decisions made by the photographer, which are subjective. They may well have nothing to do with accurate representations of reality, as if that was even possible with a photograph.
Taking this back to my original point. People were criticizing HDR vs non HDR my point was that most HDR pictures people are seeing are not representative of the source. They are stylized images.
I think were we are having a disconnect. Is that you feel photography is a free for all. For some people it probably is. But for the professionally skilled photographer they have a mastery of the technique. It all starts with the basic fundamentals. The basic fundamentals of photography is being able to take a properly exposed properly focused picture that accurately represents the original material.
From what I'm reading it sounds as if you think we are saying that simply because an image is not accurate to the original source then its a "lie". Which is not my point, I doubt its Mel's point either.
Of course photography is an art and there is interpretation in the message that the photographer is conveying. There still has to be a basis for what is reality. What is a properly exposed and focused picture before it becomes stylized and interpreted.
There have to be clear designations for where things are. There has to be a clear designation of what is RED, what is BLUE, and what is GREEN. From that point you can go crazy. But there has to be a starting point.
This becomes critically important once you start moving the picture to different mediums. Because the color space is totally different and the values change. When you print a picture or post a picture on the web, the color values totally change. So it becomes even more important that you know where you started.
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Originally Posted by Dr Millmoss
I'm not confusing anything. I entirely understand your point about color fidelity, but In all photography, commercial or otherwise, a vast number of choices are made by the photographer which have a profound impact on the "truth" of the final image. This is even the case in commercial photography, if not even more so, since the objective of the photograph is to sell something. I'd be surprised if you thought that this purpose doesn't have any impact on the choices photographers make in taking these photographs. To make my point again in the simplest terms, photograph are not about accurate representations of reality, but about the message the photographer is trying to convey about the subject of the photograph. This may or may not demand color fidelity, but it certainly doesn't require objectivity or accuracy in the broader meaning of the term.
I'm not confusing anything. I entirely understand your point about color fidelity, but In all photography, commercial or otherwise, a vast number of choices are made by the photographer which have a profound impact on the "truth" of the final image. This is even the case in commercial photography, if not even more so, since the objective of the photograph is to sell something. I'd be surprised if you thought that this purpose doesn't have any impact on the choices photographers make in taking these photographs. To make my point again in the simplest terms, photograph are not about accurate representations of reality, but about the message the photographer is trying to convey about the subject of the photograph. This may or may not demand color fidelity, but it certainly doesn't require objectivity or accuracy in the broader meaning of the term.
Well, I'll just say that I disagree with you from my over 40 years of experience in the business, and let it go at that.
Comments
To me your example just sounds like a poorly photographed picture. A picture that is properly photographed would not endure quite so many challenges. While the challenge of getting an image to paper is moving from an RGB color space to CMYK color space. Colors don't automatically translate between the two.
We always had problems in my lab, as every other lab has. The problem was in how to correct from what were correct colors that the camera took, to the incorrect colors our eye and brain corrects them to. That differed with each client.
How do you correct a face in the noonday sun that overexposed on the sunlit side, and yellow from the suns light, but yet cyan and underexposed on the shadow side without making the entire thing a mess? Commercial shooters usually understand this problem and cheat, but aren't always successful. Everyone else has no idea.
Then with film and paper, we had the problem that if we corrected properly for flesh tones, grey would come out cyan. Tough! Thankfully, that problem is now over, though early laser and inkjet printers would often output blue as purple. Lots of playing around with the LUTs.
That's true to a degree, but our dynamic range is so wide that the change is not that dramatic. If we look up into a sunny sky and can see shaded trees in the same view. The shadows of the tree don't become inky black shadows for us. They are just darker shades of gray.
If we look into a shadow area and can see a clear sky in the distance we can see detail in the shadow area and the sky does not become a mass of white. We can see detail in it all. A camera cannot.
My point is that HDR photography they always crush the shadows down to blackness or stretch the white areas to be very white. While it does look nice and it is dramatic its not true to the original scene. Its not true to what was actually recorded, its an aesthetic style.
The problem is that we can't really do that. We have no control over our eyes position if we want to see something. Our eye just moves to that spot. We have almost no resolution outside of our area of primary focus either.
A healthy eye can open to f2.8 and close to about f22. That's not very much. It's just that it happens so quickly, we don't notice. As we get older, both ends close in. But the camera lens is at one opening. Our brain also does some processing that gives us more ability than what the iris gives us, but it's done as we look around the scene, in real time. We think we're seeing everything in one way, but we're really seeing it in another.
We can't see two objects at once if they're more than a few degrees apart. our eye quickly flicks from one to the other, no matter how hard we try to prevent it. Our iris will momentarily close or open for that, so we MAY think we're seeing it all at once, but we're not.
As I said, if an HDR is done properly, it will reflect what we see in each part of the scene we've concentrated in, but all at once. If it's done badly, so that the shadows are opened up too much, and the highlights are too dark, then it looks wrong. Too many HDRs by amateurs look this way because it's hard for them to not open it up all the way.
I'm don't entirely understand how the problem you are describing is exactly because of human vision. Ours eyes and brain are seeing reality while the picture is just an interpretation of reality. To me your example comes from the challenge of the photographic process itself
To me your example just sounds like a poorly photographed picture. A picture that is properly photographed would not endure quite so many challenges. While the challenge of getting an image to paper is moving from an RGB color space to CMYK color space. Colors don't automatically translate between the two.
The question is what is reality? We do so much processing of a scene that reality becomes that processed vision. I won't argue that it isn't OUR reality, because it is. But the camera records what is actually happening. Any sunlit outdoor scene has far more contrast than we could see all at once. We see the way some photographers "paint" a scene with a light, moving around and holding the light in various places to light it up as they want it to be.
What I mean is that if something is say, 12 stops, we can't see that outdoors as black to white unless it's small. If its big, then we have to pan over it, with our eye adjusting all the while. The camera can't do that, so it just shows the true relative brightness range. Of course, we need a good camera for that. A medium format camera can usually handle the ratio.
http://www.kekus.com/legacy_products.html
Note that they don't call it HDR but exposure fusion. Basically you take the best exposed parts of each image and blend them into a single image which is different than creating a HDR image which never seems to look normal.
Yes scientists have done tests on how the human eye and brain perceive light. While its not 100% the same for everyone, their is an established norm for how we see.
The end result of photographs are not true to what the original scene was but you don't start from that point. You don't want to start out with yellow as orange or red as pink, there has to be a normal starting point so that you can predictably get the look you want in the end. The initial goal of any photographic system is to record the scene as accurately as possible.
Photography is an art, not a science. Every photograph requires numerous decisions by photographer about every aspect of that photograph, all of which are based on what the photographer is attempting to communicate with the photograph. This is an inherently subjective process. I'm not sure what your purpose is in introducing the concept of predictability to this discussion since it seems obvious to me that your objections to HDR isn't a lack of prodicability, but in a perception of lack of accuracy.
Even this argument seems faulty to me. If you look at an outdoor scene with your naked eye, you will have no trouble discerning the definition of the clouds in the sky or picking out the detail in the shadows. The fact that a camera can't do the same unaided does not make the unaided camera the more accurate observer but rather a limited one. Photographers have been working around these limitations by other means for more than a century. HDR is just the latest tool in their arsenal to achieve the results they desire.
Photography is an art, not a science. Every photograph requires numerous decisions by photographer about every aspect of that photograph, all of which are based on what the photographer is attempting to communicate with the photograph. This is an inherently subjective process. I'm not sure what your purpose is in introducing the concept of predictability to this discussion since it seems obvious to me that your objections to HDR isn't a lack of prodicability, but in a perception of lack of accuracy.
Even this argument seems faulty to me. If you look at an outdoor scene with your naked eye, you will have no trouble discerning the definition of the clouds in the sky or picking out the detail in the shadows. The fact that a camera can't do the same unaided does not make the unaided camera the more accurate observer but rather a limited one. Photographers have been working around these limitations by other means for more than a century. HDR is just the latest tool in their arsenal to achieve the results they desire.
But what is accuracy? I have spectrophotometers to enable me to make good paper profiles. We print out a sheet or two of several hundred colors, which the device reads. from that the computer makes a profile of the paper.
Sure, I could look at all of those colors and try to figure out what they are, and then enter those numbers by hand into the program. but would that result in a more accurate profile because I used my eyes rather than a machine? Of course not. It would be unusable.
It's also like the question of whether a tree falling in the forest makes a sound if someone is not there to hear it. It depends on how we define sound.
We all see differently. There is no way to decide which person is seeing accurately without having some standard to measure it against. The camera can take more accurate pictures than what we see, but that doesn't mean the pictures will be more pleasing, or have better detail, color, etc. It can mean, in a good camera that's properly adjusted, that it takes pictures that are more accurate, in an objective way, than what we see, or think we see. Subjectively, well, that's another thing altogether.
But what is accuracy? I have spectrophotometers to enable me to make good paper profiles. We print out a sheet or two of several hundred colors, which the device reads. from that the computer makes a profile of the paper.
Sure, I could look at all of those colors and try to figure out what they are, and then enter those numbers by hand into the program. but would that result in a more accurate profile because I used my eyes rather than a machine? Of course not. It would be unusable.
It's also like the question of whether a tree falling in the forest makes a sound if someone is not there to hear it. It depends on how we define sound.
We all see differently. There is no way to decide which person is seeing accurately without having some standard to measure it against. The camera can take more accurate pictures than what we see, but that doesn't mean the pictures will be more pleasing, or have better detail, color, etc. It can mean, in a good camera that's properly adjusted, that it takes pictures that are more accurate, in an objective way, than what we see, or think we see. Subjectively, well, that's another thing altogether.
To answer your presumably rhetorical question, accuracy is useless. It conveys nothing. I would say that the issue is not quite so philosophical as the tree falling in the forest. I believe what is happening here is that photography has become so easy, requiring so little conscious intervention, that it's possible to be convinced that nothing subconscious does intervene into the choices we make when we take a photograph.
This is perhaps less true now than it was in the past. Photogrpahers once had to make painstaking decisions about composition, timing, framing, light and every other variable because they didn't get second chances. The elements they could not control when the photo was taken were often worked out in the darkroom. In fact I think I learned more about photography in a darkroom than I ever did looking through a viewfinder. Not many people get that experience any more, so perhaps it's easy to get the idea that it's an objective exercise.
To answer your presumably rhetorical question, accuracy is useless. It conveys nothing. I would say that the issue is not quite so philosophical as the tree falling in the forest. I believe what is happening here is that photography has become so easy, requiring so little conscious intervention, that it's possible to be convinced that nothing subconscious does intervene into the choices we make when we take a photograph.
This is perhaps less true now than it was in the past. Photogrpahers once had to make painstaking decisions about composition, timing, framing, light and every other variable because they didn't get second chances. The elements they could not control when the photo was taken were often worked out in the darkroom. In fact I think I learned more about photography in a darkroom than I ever did looking through a viewfinder. Not many people get that experience any more, so perhaps it's easy to get the idea that it's an objective exercise.
I disagree about accuracy. In my business, a commercial photo lab, accuracy is all important. for most of my clients, accuracy is also of the utmost importance.
If you're taking pictures to please yourself, then whatever you want is ok. but when you're taking pictures to sell a product, accuracy is very important. Both the photographer and the lab are painstaking about using standards to get to the point of accuracy.
It depends on what you're doing.
The problem is that we can't really do that. We have no control over our eyes position if we want to see something. Our eye just moves to that spot. We have almost no resolution outside of our area of primary focus either.
I'm talking about objects that are within the eyes field of view. A lot of things can fit into the foreground, mid-ground, and background that all have totally different tonal values and the eye can see far more detail in all of those different tones that a camera is able.
As I said, if an HDR is done properly, it will reflect what we see in each part of the scene we've concentrated in, but all at once. If it's done badly, so that the shadows are opened up too much, and the highlights are too dark, then it looks wrong. Too many HDRs by amateurs look this way because it's hard for them to not open it up all the way.
I completely agree and it was apart of my point that HDR can discern detail much more like the eye can. My over all point is that peoples criticism of HDR vs non HDR doesn't take into account the accuracy of the original scene vs stylized manipulation.
Photography is an art, not a science.
I've met Kodak chemists and German engineers who would disagree that photography is not a science as well as an art. You would be surprised at the amount mathematical formulas that go into focusing and exposing an image.
Accuracy is totally important. I think you take for granted that you can take a point and shoot shot of someones face and their skin isn't purple. The reason for that is because all of the factors that go into making that camera are tested to make sure they reproduce color as accurately as possible.
To give a large example. When you go to a summer block buster movie. More than likely that movie was shot with 10 - 20 cameras, in different countries using different teams of people. All of that effort has to go into creating one movie that has to feel cohesive.
When you are using 10 - 20 cameras you have to be absolutely sure they will all reproduce the exact same image. To test all of those cameras they have to start from the same neutral benchmark. They exhaustively test every part of the imaging system. Hundreds of millions of dollars are riding on the accuracy of these images.
When shooting film color chip charts such as this one test camera systems for color and contrast accuracy.
When shooting digital waveform monitors such as this are used to test camera systems for color and contrast accuracy.
Every photograph requires numerous decisions by photographer about every aspect of that photograph, all of which are based on what the photographer is attempting to communicate with the photograph. This is an inherently subjective process. I'm not sure what your purpose is in introducing the concept of predictability to this discussion since it seems obvious to me that your objections to HDR isn't a lack of prodicability, but in a perception of lack of accuracy.
I disagree about accuracy. In my business, a commercial photo lab, accuracy is all important. for most of my clients, accuracy is also of the utmost importance.
If you're taking pictures to please yourself, then whatever you want is ok. but when you're taking pictures to sell a product, accuracy is very important. Both the photographer and the lab are painstaking about using standards to get to the point of accuracy.
It depends on what you're doing.
I think we are talking about two different things. Of course it's important for your clients to get what they expect from your photo lab. But I am referring to the decisions made by the photographer, which are subjective. They may well have nothing to do with accurate representations of reality, as if that was even possible with a photograph.
TenoBell is also missing the point. I'm not saying that no science is involved in photography. In fact before it was technology it was chemistry. That's not what I said. I am disagreeing with the idea that the photographer's business is in some way the accurate representation of visual reality. When you argue that an HDR enhanced photo is somehow less "true" to reality than a photo without it, you are ignoring some very fundamental issues which have always been an essential part of photography.
True statement about Apple's HDR can be made by people who have never shot pro-photography.
Yeah, whatever. If you called googling it and comment away "true", like in the old HDR threads...
I'm going to let this go. We can argue all night, and I really believe we're not talking entirely about the same thing.
I think we are talking about two different things. Of course it's important for your clients to get what they expect from your photo lab. But I am referring to the decisions made by the photographer, which are subjective. They may well have nothing to do with accurate representations of reality, as if that was even possible with a photograph.
TenoBell is also missing the point. I'm not saying that no science is involved in photography. In fact before it was technology it was chemistry. That's not what I said. I am disagreeing with the idea that the photographer's business is in some way the accurate representation of visual reality. When you argue that an HDR enhanced photo is somehow less "true" to reality than a photo without it, you are ignoring some very fundamental issues which have always been an essential part of photography.
Most commercial photography is aimed at getting the most accurate reproduction of what was photographed. We use color charts in the image so that they can be measured densitometrically in order for us to be able to duplicate the colors, brightness and contrast of the original scene. The lighting is controlled carefully for the same reason. All our equipment is also controlled tightly.
You're confusing art photography with commercial work. Don't do that, they are very different.
Most commercial photography is aimed at getting the most accurate reproduction of what was photographed. We use color charts in the image so that they can be measured densitometrically in order for us to be able to duplicate the colors, brightness and contrast of the original scene. The lighting is controlled carefully for the same reason. All our equipment is also controlled tightly.
You're confusing art photography with commercial work. Don't do that, they are very different.
I'm not confusing anything. I entirely understand your point about color fidelity, but In all photography, commercial or otherwise, a vast number of choices are made by the photographer which have a profound impact on the "truth" of the final image. This is even the case in commercial photography, if not even more so, since the objective of the photograph is to sell something. I'd be surprised if you thought that this purpose doesn't have any impact on the choices photographers make in taking these photographs. To make my point again in the simplest terms, photograph are not about accurate representations of reality, but about the message the photographer is trying to convey about the subject of the photograph. This may or may not demand color fidelity, but it certainly doesn't require objectivity or accuracy in the broader meaning of the term.
I think we are talking about two different things. Of course it's important for your clients to get what they expect from your photo lab. But I am referring to the decisions made by the photographer, which are subjective. They may well have nothing to do with accurate representations of reality, as if that was even possible with a photograph.
Taking this back to my original point. People were criticizing HDR vs non HDR my point was that most HDR pictures people are seeing are not representative of the source. They are stylized images.
I think were we are having a disconnect. Is that you feel photography is a free for all. For some people it probably is. But for the professionally skilled photographer they have a mastery of the technique. It all starts with the basic fundamentals. The basic fundamentals of photography is being able to take a properly exposed properly focused picture that accurately represents the original material.
That is a very important distinction to be made.
Of course photography is an art and there is interpretation in the message that the photographer is conveying. There still has to be a basis for what is reality. What is a properly exposed and focused picture before it becomes stylized and interpreted.
There have to be clear designations for where things are. There has to be a clear designation of what is RED, what is BLUE, and what is GREEN. From that point you can go crazy. But there has to be a starting point.
This becomes critically important once you start moving the picture to different mediums. Because the color space is totally different and the values change. When you print a picture or post a picture on the web, the color values totally change. So it becomes even more important that you know where you started.
I'm not confusing anything. I entirely understand your point about color fidelity, but In all photography, commercial or otherwise, a vast number of choices are made by the photographer which have a profound impact on the "truth" of the final image. This is even the case in commercial photography, if not even more so, since the objective of the photograph is to sell something. I'd be surprised if you thought that this purpose doesn't have any impact on the choices photographers make in taking these photographs. To make my point again in the simplest terms, photograph are not about accurate representations of reality, but about the message the photographer is trying to convey about the subject of the photograph. This may or may not demand color fidelity, but it certainly doesn't require objectivity or accuracy in the broader meaning of the term.
I'm not confusing anything. I entirely understand your point about color fidelity, but In all photography, commercial or otherwise, a vast number of choices are made by the photographer which have a profound impact on the "truth" of the final image. This is even the case in commercial photography, if not even more so, since the objective of the photograph is to sell something. I'd be surprised if you thought that this purpose doesn't have any impact on the choices photographers make in taking these photographs. To make my point again in the simplest terms, photograph are not about accurate representations of reality, but about the message the photographer is trying to convey about the subject of the photograph. This may or may not demand color fidelity, but it certainly doesn't require objectivity or accuracy in the broader meaning of the term.
Well, I'll just say that I disagree with you from my over 40 years of experience in the business, and let it go at that.