60
votes
Why is software-based manipulation of images frowned upon while hardware-based manipulation is acceptable?
Why are hardware-based manipulations, like black and white photography (traditionally using black-and-white film), long exposure, etc., which also result in an "unnatural" image, acceptable while ...
- 143k
57
votes
Accepted
What makes this interior photo look unrealistic?
Certainly the biggest factor is the dynamic range processing. The room is so bright, and shares the same color temperature as the outdoors daylight lighting. Yet the shadows in the balcony and near ...
- 33.2k
43
votes
Accepted
How were pictures turned from film to a big picture in a picture frame before digital scanning?
Going from negative film to a printed image is a two-step process.
First, the negative is developed — the latent image on the film brought out and then fixed in place. Now you have a piece of ...
- 143k
43
votes
How to check if a photo is edited (even basic edits like exposure and white balance)?
Being slightly harsh, competition rules like that show that the organisers don't really understand how modern cameras work. A very high level and simplified view of how a camera makes a image (JPEG):
...
- 22.1k
42
votes
Should I horizontally flip a client's portrait?
If the lighting was asymmetrical and consistent between shots, then the lighting will be flipped as well and this might easily make the shot look simply awful or so awful its funny.
This may not be ...
- 531
35
votes
Accepted
How do I rotate a lot of digital photos by 180 degrees in one operation?
I would recommend any of the applications from this list at JPEGclub.org, which develops and maintains software for the Independent JPEG Group. They have a free piece of code called ...
- 143k
35
votes
Is it moral to remove/hide certain parts of a photo, as a photographer?
Artistic photography follows the beauty is in the eye of the beholder ethos. There is nothing inherently immoral about it.
Photography that is meant to make a political statement or journal actual ...
- 20.5k
32
votes
Accepted
Why does this picture look so painterly?
I think the reasons why you see John Starkey's photography as a painting have more to do with perceptual aspects than technical ones.
Light
The main element is light. The spotlights on a head or a ...
- 1,781
31
votes
Should I horizontally flip a client's portrait?
There are no hard and fast rules in art. You are free to follow your heart. If flipping some of the images assists in the symmetry of the final presentation, then go for it!
Few if any will recognize ...
- 39.4k
28
votes
Accepted
How to capture a swinging pendulum?
Let's look at the last picture.
If you want a black background, you need to be careful not to spill light. It's relatively easy to control in a large studio, it's almost impossible in a small room. ...
- 2,273
28
votes
An image with lower resolution is of higher file size while that of a higher resolution is of lower file size. How does that happen?
The reasons to have difference in size can be (and most of them are related to image compression):
Amount of details in the image. Save flat colour image and another
with several colours and you will ...
- 12.4k
26
votes
How does Renato D'Agostin achieve these super minimalist and high-contrast photos?
Upon viewing his portfolio at the link you provided, my first thought was push processing. In push processing, one typically underexposes the shot (that is, meters and set exposure as if the the film ...
- 33.2k
25
votes
What makes this interior photo look unrealistic?
The thing that sets off the alarm is the perfectly bright and uniform lighting in the room, especially on its ceiling. The room should be quite dark, since the sun is on the other side of the building ...
- 21.7k
25
votes
How do I merge two photos with a transition from the color photo to the black-and-white photo?
Usual technique (here with Gimp, but same technique is doable with PS):
Put your two pictures in layers (they should of course overlap as exactly as possible, which is easy if like here one is a ...
- 21.7k
24
votes
How to make sky more green grey and skin more golden?
You can achieve this using flash, gels, and white balance.
Set your WB so that the background (the clouds) has the desired colour tone, this will probably involve a lower WB setting than the one ...
- 7,181
23
votes
Accepted
What type of editing is necessary to achieve this type of watch photo?
To me, it is just that you dial is over-exposed, easy to fix with the Curves tool of your editor:
In other cases, just using the contrast tool could be easier, but here this would blow out the ...
- 21.7k
22
votes
What makes this interior photo look unrealistic?
The focus seems too even to me. I would expect a photo taken to have something blurrier, either in the foreground or background.
- 321
22
votes
Accepted
Is there any proof that high saturation and contrast makes a picture more appealing in social media?
I think your manager is right, and that this phenomenon is much more widespread than just photos for social media, or even photography in general.
Take a look in supermarkets, and take in the flashy ...
- 2,712
22
votes
An image with lower resolution is of higher file size while that of a higher resolution is of lower file size. How does that happen?
For these two photos:
as shown by ImageMagick's identify, the bird is JPEG quality 100 and the llamas are JPEG quality 92). This alone would be enough to explain ...
- 21.7k
21
votes
Accepted
Does over- or underexposed give the most life-like post-edit results?
Overexposed areas have a sharp cut-off when the maximum pixel value is reached. You have a completely white area if this happens in all colour channels. There is nothing you can do in post to recover ...
- 7,181
21
votes
Why is software-based manipulation of images frowned upon while hardware-based manipulation is acceptable?
Is it frowned upon? Photography has always made use of whatever technology was available, whether in the camera, the darkroom or, now, the computer.
It's a long time since other forms of art were ...
- 1,696
20
votes
How do I merge two photos with a transition from the color photo to the black-and-white photo?
Just to provide a third option - & you can do this with just one colour photo, no need for a separate black & white image.
Add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer & dial out all the ...
- 23.4k
18
votes
Accepted
Should I horizontally flip a client's portrait?
What I did in the end
Thank you all for your suggestions and advice. You all really helped me decide what to do.
Just to clarify, I wasn't aware that they wanted this before the shoot and they were ...
- 521
18
votes
How were pictures turned from film to a big picture in a picture frame before digital scanning?
I thought an illustration would be helpful. It's the same principle as an overhead projector, another mostly obsolete piece of technology:
Where instead of textbook text on a transparency, the ...
- 781
18
votes
Accepted
Why does the image get bluish and not yellowish when I shift the color temperature to a lower K?
Because the color temperature that you give in photo editing is the assumed color temperature of the light source used for the original picture. With a low temperature light source the colors are ...
- 21.7k
17
votes
How to check if a photo is edited (even basic edits like exposure and white balance)?
Submissions for these types of contests, and even some news agencies, require photos to be submitted as straight-from-camera JPEG files, not as exports of RAW images. This is usually enough to satisfy ...
- 33.2k
16
votes
Does over- or underexposed give the most life-like post-edit results?
Neither. Underexposure means that you did not deliver enough light and you are losing information in shadows. Overexposure means that you delivered too much light and losing information in highlights. ...
- 5,223
16
votes
Is it moral to remove/hide certain parts of a photo, as a photographer?
The context changes what is acceptable and what isn't. Nature photographers are expected to photograph nature, not caged animals or taxidermy specimens. Documentary photographers are expected to ...
- 27k
15
votes
Photoshop's color replacement tool changes to grey (instead of white) — how can I change a grey background to pure white?
Graphic Design Stack Exchange: How to cut how hair accurately
Advanced hair extraction tutorial
First off, plugins and simpler methods are available. This is if you want to get higher quality results.
...
- 2,457
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible