Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Upon Review

A recent exchange on FB led me back to a folder that I haven’t looked at in depth in quite some time. 

A file caught my eye in a way that it hadn’t before.  Two years is a long time in the digital world, and I’ve learned a bit since the image was made.  As much as I should have? No, but progress is progress.

So, I opened the RAW file again and began to experiment.

As I fiddled with tabs and sliders in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR), I started to ask myself questions. 

What does it mean to be “Photoshopped”?  The adjustments made here only had a passing exposure to Photoshop itself, and even then just to make the image web-ready.  There are no added images or layers here, though there are likely some subtractions.  What’s shown is nothing more than existed in the original file, as captured by the camera.

And yet the mood is completely different from what was there that morning. 

If I entered this in a contest that required “no Photoshop”, would I be disqualified?  Probably.  And this is in spite of the fact that I’ve added no post-processing after the development process in ACR.  What I’ve done is the equivalent of changing film, developers, filters and paper in the world of photography that I learned in… but it’s probably not “legal” now.

North Head Dawn

ISO 100, 1/80 @ f/8, kit zoom at 35mm.  ACR adjustments only, no crop.