Digital photography changed all that. I know an instant
after I take the picture what it looks like and I can take a few with slightly
different angles and then determine once they are downloaded at home on the
computer what pleases my eye the best. Sometimes, though, none does it for me, and that’s when I
open my ancient version of PhotoShop to see if by cropping the picture I can create
an image that speaks to me.
The landscape-oriented photos of these wildflowers are the
originals I took. While they are not bad, they didn’t really have that "wow, I like that!" factor for me. So
in PhotoShop I changed the layout to portrait and cropped the image that way,
keeping the dimensions of the original photo. And now, suddenly, I had an
emotional reaction to each photo… they now told me their story.
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| Tall buttercup |
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| Twisted stalk |
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| Twisted stalk |
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| Veiny meadow rue, female |
Many years ago I took a PhotoShop class. I’ve forgotten most
of what the instructor said, but one thing has stuck with me. He showed the
class a picture of an old building in Greece he had taken, and next he showed
us the PhotoShopped version. He had removed the drain pipe in the corner, made
the bush a little greener and fuller, and spruced up the dull-looking stucco. All
of us agreed the second image was much more pleasing to the eye, but it was not
a true representation of that building. It was what he wanted to see, and therein
lies the dilemma. If you are an artist and use PhotoShop as your canvas, then go ahead, knock yourself out. But if you just want to make your image look nicer by removing or
adding things to it, then, in my opinion, it is not ethical.
I have a very old free version of PhotoShop Elements on my
computer. I don’t need the newest version with all the bells and whistles as I
only do four things with the program: I crop, I lighten dark areas, I darken
light areas, and I add my watermark to the images I post here. That’s it. I do
not change what my eye saw through the viewfinder, just how it’s seen, to make
a more pleasing image. And for me, that’s all I want.
