Is retouching CHEATING ???
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- Опубликовано: 21 янв 2025
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Is retouching in photography cheating? Or is it just another tool for creative expression? 📸 In this video, I break down the debate and explore the fine line between enhancing an image and altering reality. Whether you're a purist or a Photoshop pro, let’s dive into the ethics, techniques, and impact of retouching in photography!
What You’ll Learn:
✅ The fine line between editing, retouching, and manipulation.
✅ When retouching enhances vs. distorts reality.
✅ How professionals approach editing in photography.
✅ Is there a "right" or "wrong" way to edit your photos?
💬 What do you think? Is retouching cheating? Drop a comment below! Don't forget to like, share, and subscribe for more photography insights!
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It is simple, it is art, as long as we do not intentionally hide the fact it was retouched, it is not cheating. Full support from me Serge 😀
Painting is a process to change a blank canvas to an image. Photography is a process to change a piece of paper into an image. A great painter and a great photographer have the same goal, to create the best image. Creating the best image should only be limited by the creators imagination and skill without restrictions.
It's time for all the folks that live way up high on top of the "reality is the only true way to show a photo" and the "editing is cheating" soapboxes to come down off of their high horse. If a photographer/artist decides they want to replace a sky because the sky at the time they shot their photo was crappy, so what? It's their image and that's how they saw it. If they remove a bunch of tourists or other distracting elements to simplify their image, so what? That's how they envisioned their shot. I think folks spend waaaaaaayyy too much time worrying about what others think of their photos. If the final result makes the photographer/artist happy, then they achieved their goal. Exactly as you said Serge, I'm not a photojournalist documenting a war or a famine, I'm a photogrpaher/digital artist and I don't have to defend my choices in editing or using filters to anybody, who are those folks to tell me I'm wrong?
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Hi Serge, Anyone can draw, anyone can paint, anyone can cook and anyone can take a photo. It's what the end result looks like, no matter how you got there. Your work is amazing and inspirational. When it comes to art, some people like hyper realistic pictures, some people like cubism etc. If we didn't have individualism, then everything would look the same.
100% agreement, it's an art that not everyone can master!
I do not know enough to replace a sky. I think it depends on the purpose of the photo. If my intent is to document a moment in time, then I want to just edit to improve the piece of reality that I want to show. If my intent is to make art, to tell a story, or to evoke an emotion then editing is the same as a different stoke of a paint brush. It is all good. That is like saying that Monet and other impressionists were cheating.
Editing is a no-brainer, but sometimes you do it a little too much, and strange colors
I believe that photographers are artists and dont simply ‘take’ images but ‘create’ images. I support any tools or methods they choose to use. They should however always be truthful and never steal others work without proper credit, or claim an image to be unedited or ‘real’ if not true.
I love your work, Serge! Thanks for the education.
Very good points Serge. I think that photography is an artistic expression and it is up to the artist to create a pleasing image. However they want. With newspaper and documentary material it should show reality.
Retouching has been around for decades. The most significant difference today is that it's done digitally now. Either way, it's the vision of the photographer they want people to see. It's called art. Great video. Serge.
Great stuff here, great comments, too. I'm more of a musician than I am a photographer, and I've been involved with plenty of sessions where we'd say, "We'll fix it in the mix." Since the earliest days of photography (the first half of the 19th century), photographers have had the ability to create an image of something that never actually happened. And obviously, a heck of a lot of "traditional" artists have done the same thing for much longer than photography has been around. My own take is that if you're getting the results you want, then what's the problem? Whether it's as simple as using PS's Clone Stamp tool to remove a speck of dust that might have been on the lens, or some major PS/Lightroom editing, well, that's why the tools exist, right? I guess the only issue I would have is if a retouched image were to be falsely represented as an original. And even in that case, for the vast majority of us, it wouldn't be a big deal. So we punched it up a bit to make the sun star that much more vivid. It's not like we're trying to scam the Pulitzer committee!
When I was starting my way in photography, I had to hunt day by day only for catching an amazing sunset and to show a piece of perfect nature to people. Nowadays photos means nothing because you can change sky, water, background, remove people from the picture. That means that somebody shows not a miracle moment of life but some creation that even never existed in life. 🤷🏻♀️
Love your work Serge and think you would have made a great War Photographer also 👍
A background or sky swapped out is ok if the point of the photo is only the model. But if no other context is given I'd call it cheating.
Post processing is 50% of my image creation. Getting a good composition is the other. I am not concerned with total reality.
Serge, I fully agree with art vs war photography. We try to create art using a tool. Any image straight out of camera has been altered by the software designer of the camera, unless RAW where we do the altering to our own taste. We want viewers to say “that’s a beautiful image” not “that looks real”. War photographers/photojournalists need to keep it real - there is already too much ai fakery and bullshit in the media who are supposed to be telling us the truth. If it’s art use all tools at your disposal to get as beautiful image as possible .
All depends on your end goal. If your client likes what you do and you like it that's all that matters. If you are entering some competition that doesn't allow it, then to do what is required. It's all art and art is subjective.
I agree with you. Your level of what is cheating may depend on whether you take pictures, consider yourself a photographer or an artist who uses a camera to express your art. I'm an artist!
There's a blurred line between art and reportage. Anybody who's submitted work to Getty Images for example, will become acutely aware of the difference.
Retouching is not so much cheating, but it's a process where the original image is transformed or adjusted to maybe more creative version with some improvements. Sure, it's no more original image, but people want the improved images. To be fair, it would be good to always have some kind of mention about the photo editing which makes image have something more than it can have straight out of camera. Anything done in studio with the lights (or shadows) is not cheating either, it's just the work photographers do, they control the lighting in various methods. Studio by default means the space where you have ways to control light. Changing the contents of the image more heavily, it's not cheating either, but it's image editing. I guess this topic raises it's head every now and then, but it's really not very good ideology to try retain fully at the image what comes straight out of camera, while there is all kinds of ways available to adjust the lighting, either using flash or doing it by retouching, it's just fair to mention about it to the viewers.
1st viewer from bangladesh..
From bokeh to long exposures to synthography, it is all art. If you are taking a photograph for documentary purposes (news or whatnot) you should not cheat.
Whether you use the word cheating or fake, it doesnt matter, and overall you need a fairly low skill level to make photos. Sure some photographers are better than others, but I wouldnt call it art. The true artists are the ones who start with a blank canvas or a block of stone and actually create something truly amazing. We see examples of art all around us, both historical and modern, but photographers are not artists. Anyone can push the button on a camera, but only a true artist can create a beautiful painting.
Bonsoir, retoucher une photo . Transformer, composer manipuler et plus n’est pas de la tricherie mais participe au domaine de la création.
Des le début de la photographie les photographes se sont servis de tous les moyens pour imposer leurs façon de voir (propagande ).Certains puristes ne veulent rien changer et c’est leur choix ils produisent des photos qui ressemble à la réalité mais qui n’est pas la réalité c’est déjà une interprétation . Bref un artiste est un créateur laissons lui le droit de ses interprétations. Merci Serge
i think it is a totally irrelevant discussion, I don’t care what other people think or do - I retouch each and every photo I take, I enjoy the process and the result, and friends, magazines, customers and club judges seem to like my finished images too. If others turn their nose up, that’s fine, they are entitled to, but frankly I don’t care.
If you think photography is about capturing reality images, you don’t understand what photography is.
There's no such thing as cheating in photography; it's subjective art.
I think photography was never meant to be a somekind of science trying to keep everything in the image true.
it's not cheating. Photography is art. If you Don't want the real world, then just point and shoot and that's it.
Just because it isn't what your eye sees doesn't mean it isn't reality. You're still recording real light. Composites aren't real.
If you use any AI models that were built from a datasets of images were the creators did not authorize their work to be used, and were not compensated for their work, then that ABSOLUTELY IS CHEATING (and also copyright infringement). Shame on Serge if he is using AI images from AI models created in that manner.
You kept going on about reality, but a camera cannot capture what a human eye sees. the human eye has between 18 to 20 stops worth of dynamic range, a contrast ratio of about a billion to one. Your camera, on the other hand, has a contrast range of about 12 to 14 stops. Even if they were the same, it is not reality. Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte put it best with his painting Ceci n'est pas une pipe (this is not a pipe). It was one in a series called the Treachery of Images.
This argument is probably as old as photography.... or photoshop anyway. If it's cheating, then you are a master criminal
Add something to the photograph is cheating, thats a photo edit not retouch, like the sky
Photography... snap a picture at the right moment, thats kind of the art of it, you cant change the sky and fake that right moment, the information thats already there in the photograph you can do what ever you want with, if you fake something you can fake the whole photograph because its already ruined as a photograph at that stage
Photography is a art. There has never been a photo taken that has been perfect of what the eye sees
@@harderja You mean retouch now or change the sky? There are many perfect photos edited only by changing the information in the photo without adding in a sky from an different moment
Retouching no, cleaning unnecessary items yes, that why generative functionalities is going too far for me and is no more photography