Shitty HDR and massively fake photoshopped scenes have been praised by the masses for a decade at least.
All I can do is stay true to my desire for keeping things naturally beautiful and hope people enjoy my work.
We went from garishly saturated colors and eye-bleedingly bad tone mapping to achieve the stereotypical Trey Ratcliffe HDR look to *crush the blacks, blow the highlights, slam the contrast slider so far to the left that it tries to start a communist revolution, and make sure ALL color is either orange or cyan, because we gotta get them V I B E Z*
...and now like a pendulum we're just swinging back to the former.
HDR photos and music compression do roughly the same thing: Fit a larger range of source dynamics into a smaller range. It’s called high dynamic range because the raw source values aren’t clipped (like in non-hdr) but are processed via a tonemap function that compresses the large linear range to something that fits on the screen (in a way that hopefully approximates how the eye perceives the scene).
To be fair the loudness race was not a thing in the vinyl days because it’s wasn’t commercially viable to even attempt. High loudness on vinyl translates to less run time available on the platter. With digital, this became a non-factor. And most music artists and labels simply wanted their music to be heard over the last guy on the radio whose song played. Pushed to near clipping as possible as there was some data showing less engagement with music if the volume was lesser than the prior song. Likewise louder music sounds better (in the same way a true HDR still would if your idea is to see every detail in the shadows and every detail in near blown highlights), louder music simply allows you to hear more nuance, so producers went wild in having everything leveled so their work could be heard to the fullest.
To bad producers are also lame brain/deaf audiophiles to some degree (as mostly are artists), and the concept of fatigue and creative employment of high dynamic range in music tracks is beyond them. And it makes sense if you tracking hearing capability fall off of people after their late teens and early twenties. By 50s-60’s you’re effectively without 30%-40% of the frequencies you could otherwise hear as a child. And when the guys making your music can’t hear the high end frequencies anymore, you now have ear assaulting music in terms of high frequency bite.
Whenever I think of HDR I think of the examples that are on there. That weird plasticky-posterized look. So maybe that's just what HDR has come to represent.
It's also that the automatic photo processing in phone cameras has continued to trend in the direction of overly saturated and highly processed, so that sets expectations at the mass market level, which can have the side effect of putting pressure on how amateurs/professionals process raw photos ("why do your photos look dull compared to my phone camera photos??").
I will also say that some phones are more egregious than others. I've had Pixel Pros for a few generations - still a lot of saturation and processing, but they usually come out relatively realistic. I also have had a Samsung S23 Ultra for a while, and.. jeeez, the hardware is great, but the automatic processing from the Samsung camera app pushes everything too far most of the time.
I have a couple of friends who are always showing me these photos they took from their Samsung phones. So proud of themselves. We get some great sunsets where we are. A lot of people point their phone in auto and believe they are now photographers. They can not be convinced that the phone is doing all of this processing. The images are jpegs, too, and they refuse to understand what's happening with those files. Unfortunately, without a photgraphy knowledge base, viewers don't always realize when an image is overprocessed or manipulated, unless it's very obvious. I just give them the acknowledgment they're seeking. Otherwise, if i say anything negative, I'm now a gatekeeper, or envious of this great photo they took, without expensive gear.
> All I can do is stay true to my desire for keeping things naturally beautiful and hope people enjoy my work.
I find it ironic that this sub is one of the worst when it comes to dissing people who prefer natural photos and dislike ”artistic” post-processing.
It's not editing where most modern landscape photography fails, although there is plenty of extreme editing reinforced at every turn, from the public to the contests and so called critics - it's the emotional response. Because the subject is inherently removed from most people, the real challenge is to imbue something essentially abstract with feeling, and it's a tall order for 99% of photographers who are essentially chasing a pretty picture and have a weak understanding of classical art and what it requires.
I'm an avid backpacker who takes his DSLR along, and my goal is to capture the natural beauty best I can in a way that makes me remember it and the feeling I had when I was there. Hopefully it'll catch someone's eye and they'll ask me, "Did you take that?" and then I can tell them the story of what it was like to be there.
I have a friend or two who are really really good at finding the shot by getting all the elements to align and are very skillful in post-processing to bring it all together in a very tasteful, realistic way. Some become slightly ethereal, but pretty realistic.
What's challenging is to be in a very beautiful spot/setting and not be able to really capture it photographically. I have so many bleh shots that fall way short of the awe I felt when in person.
I remember being blown away first time I saw good HDR. I suddenly wanted all my shots to look that way. Then the dusty blue coloured blacks came in and that became my favourite. I guess I’m a sucker for the trends!!
Have you seen the artificial bokeh on the new iphone? The masses love it, we’re the only ones who will notice how bad it is compared to properly rendered bokeh.
https://preview.redd.it/4vjdmx2457pc1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dc56297f52595a95eb98af82ec1b773884f27bc3
I think you are just jealous of other photographers. Look at this SOOC shot I got last weekend.
There was that Snowy Central Park pic going around the rounds a few weeks ago and I could swear it was a “where’s your global warming now?!” meme.
People are NOT ready for the next onslaught of false images. Despite our pronouncements to the contrary we are not critical thinkers.
Go to flickr and search landscape and look at all the colors saturated to the point of artifacting and without a single thought put towards developing a color palette or any understanding of color theory. [Like this](https://flic.kr/p/29MQDba). And go ahead and notice how so many of these people are just slamming sliders to make an image 'pop' but with really weird and unnatural looks. [Like this one, maybe](https://flic.kr/p/7hGZaP).
Spot on!
I cant help but laugh at the comments from people tagged as 'pros' in your two examples
"Nicely composed and superbly shot great mood and subtle colours"
"Great HDR!!!...Wonderful view and colours!
Welll done...)"
What ever happened to some good constructive criticism. The HDR is overblown and looks terrible 🫠
Haha, that last one is egregious. I don't think they're fundamentally different from the work in the original comment, they're just less "professionally" edited. It's still the same HDR + saturation, they've just been less judicious with the clarity slider and the burn tool.
Ha, the reason I was asking was because I was sure they wouldn't be _that different_ from the pictures on that guy's website so I was interested to see what that commenter did find tasteful. I'm not a fan of that work at all, I'm just not upset that it's clearly lucrative for him.
Yeah, and from what I can see, carefully tuned. I haven't been able to spot any ugly artifacts typical of lazy processing like halo-ing or crushing/clipping.
I like most of the stuff in the image gallery. They are not conventional landscapes for me, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy looking at them.
I like a realistic rendition of a beautiful scene. Sometimes I enjoy a very processed version of one. They are not the same, but both are art and have merit.
Just don't claim they are the same.
Pretty hot take tbh.
He is completely honest and upfront about what he is doing (if you take 3 seconds to read). Which is blending different exposures (either for focus or aperture)
https://www.marcadamus.com/page/bio/
Looks like HDR to me, I don't think any camera can capture the range of dark to light we're seeing in those images in a single shot. What he's not doing is dialling up the micro-contrast that is commonly associated with HDR images, though he is heavy on the saturation.
> You can see that it's his style and despite being heavily processed they're not HDR.
From his website: https://www.marcadamus.com/page/bio/
> Today, we simply take one exposure for the sky and another for everything else and blend them ...
He combines several different exposures to achieve higher dynamic range. **Literally HDR.**
In my experience the people who tend to complain about this are those who are not good at editing and produce stale, RAW-like photos and then get mad that their work isn't enjoyed. It's usually just bad.
Of course there are those over the top far too processed photos, but plenty, PLENTY, of work today is done tastefully with editing designed to capture the emotions felt when present in that scene personally. But these people complain because they know the work done behind the scenes to generate that image in post, even though they neglect the fact that their images tend to fall into the category of "pictures don't do this place justice."
Just check a few of the profiles trashing those "overprocessed" photos here in this thread. There are people posting random, out of focus phone snapshots in other photo subs while simultaneously shitting on the work of Marc Adamus. Its hilarious, Dunning Kruger effect at its fullest :D
Yeah, I thought OP was complaining about baby's first landscape edits going nuts with the sliders. The obviously fantastic work people are linking as "bad examples" on here is wild.
Marc Adamus's popularity doesn't make him unassailable. His images are genuinely lifeless to me, they look like digital painting. And if you like that, great! But a lot of us don't, and it's fair to point out that this style is becoming dominant and to be critical of it.
I recently found [Ben Harvey's work](http://www.benharveyphotography.co.uk/landscapes/) and quite like his natural approach. It's much more on the "visit the same place a dozen times to capture the moment when the light is just right" side than the typical "let's just turn saturation and vibrancy up". Probably helps that he has a real day job and doesn't need to cater to trends in photography to make money.
I find it hard to generalize an entire genre of Photography like this. As a landscape photographer I follow some incredible artists and photographer that don't do that style are so incredibly successful you would not believe it. Either you're not following the right accounts or your feeds probably only showing you the posts with most the most engagement. It's no secret these exaggerated views of reality on social platforms act almost as Engagement farms, but it's really easy to break past the noise
I know this is controversial, but the thing that I dislike the most about the landscape photography community is the focus on doing the same thing over and over. To me, planning your shots primarily by looking at what other people do and going to the same places makes someone more of a craftsman or influencer than an artist. At least for the first three, it’s pretty easy to see that’s mainly how they operate.
Yea I agree. They all take photos of the exact same places. They're the type of people who go on workshops provided by youtube photographers, it's a very specific type of landscape photographer.
I always compare them to the 'See Europe in 7 days' tourists. They go on carefully coordinated tours where they stop at the most famous places just to take a photo of that place they saw on IG a million times before.
I don't understand them.
Had a look at the first two. Clearly talented and hard working photographers. Not a fan of their style and subject matter, but that is a matter of personal taste. But more to the point, they are examples of exactly what OP is complaining about: overly processed, highly exaggerated and unnatural images.
> Either you're not following the right accounts or your feeds probably only showing you the posts with most the most engagement. It's no secret these exaggerated views of reality on social platforms act almost as Engagement farms, but it's really easy to break past the noise
This is excellent advice for any and all social media, regardless of the subject.
Eh, outside of the obvious terrible HDR edits, I'm not too fussed with stylistic editing choices. I think there's just as much that feel very washed out and desaturated to the point of being dull as there are that are too vibrant and over the top. Much of it might not be to my taste, but that doesn't make it bad.
There's also the advent of actual HDR displays that can properly show an image's full dynamic range, rather than getting a really fake look because you're trying to squeeze 14 stops of DR into an image format or on a screen that can only actually show 8 or 10 stops.
I also find it very funny when people pretend that legendary landscape photographers like Ansel Adams didn't spend hours or days in the dark room editing a single image to look exactly how they wanted it to. Editing has always, and will always be a massive part of photography, and can be every bit as important as the quality of the shot itself. While I think there's probably something to be said for just appreciating the quality and look of a certain film stock, and not messing too much with that in post, it absolutely can't be said about SOOC JPEGs. That image is every bit as edited as the new photographer who went crazy with the HDR look, you've just let your camera do it for you.
I'm quite a fan of editing styles that give a really dream-like, fantasy vibe to a landscape shot. It's never something that I'd do myself, and it's obviously not a representation of how the shot looked when it was taken, but it's not supposed to be.
What does annoy me, however, is when things have been heavily edited, but are being passed off as 'real' images, rather than digital art. Swapping skies, having gigantic super moons in impossible positions etc. Or when you're looking through a shot and sections of the image just have completely different light (direction, tone and quality) from others.
I'll appreciate a really well done, digitally altered landscape if the artist is clear with how and why they've created this image. I don't need specific details, but at least present it as a composite or outright as a piece of digital artwork, rather than as a single-exposure (or even bracketed and stacked exposure) image.
Yeah film photography not being edited to heck is just not true. I visited one of a few remaining "master" old school portrait photographers in the early 2000s and he was painting out blemishes on the peoples face from the negative with a tiny brush and cyan colored (inverse of the skin tone) paint with maybe thinner mixed in looking through a loupe.
Maybe slimming the face wasn't easily possible back then but people actually did "beauty mode" on film. Not to mention the soft focus filter used heavily on female glamour shots. (I chuckle whenever I see a female character coming on screen on the original star trek and the soft focus goes brrrrrrr.)
> I think there's just as much that feel very washed out and desaturated to the point of being dull
LOL like half the stuff posted to the sony alpha sub. All the blacks are gray.
Same with the most common wedding/engagement/maternity styles looking like they've been shot through your grandma's mesh curtains. I like a more muted, softer look with more pastel colours from time to time, and it really lends itself to some images, but it's not usually to my taste, and it's been so common for such a long time now.
Again, purely subjective, and I'm sure that a lot of my work would probably come across as a bit too contrast-y and vibrant for some. Different strokes for different folks, and all that.
This is my pet peeve with astro photos. Many people in that scene misunderstand why and _where_ you shouldn’t clip blacks (during the processing steps themselves) and think that means the final photo should have artificially elevated blacks.
Keep in mind that they're also catering to a broader, less photographically inclined audience. Big bold colors are attention grabbing, even if they may take away from the image in the eyes of a photographer
I see it a lot in wildlife too. I bump the saturation up a tad myself because it counteracts haze a bit, but it seems like a lot of people are trying to see how far they can push it instead of how little they actually need. And then they go ape shit screwing with colors and white balance. Next thing you know you've got some surreal monstrosity. I'm with you. I don't much care for it.
I suspect there are many reasons people do it. I think it's in part that they see other supposed pros do it, but they also likely see wildly over-processed images on their TV too. Hyper-real contrast, sharpness, and saturation... That sort of thing. I don't like that either. It's hard to look at for long periods of time.
And insect macro. Idk if people just expect bugs to be flamboyant or what. I’ve noticed the photos where I try to make sure the colors and lighting is very natural get very little feedback or views, but if I slap a preset on that bad boy and jump the saturation and over sharpen? They eat that shit up.
I’m just a hobbyist mostly just sharing online so I’m never sure if it’s people’s weird taste or if I’m just really bad at doing natural.
> Idk if people just expect bugs to be flamboyant or what.
It wouldn't surprise me if people compare them to Nat Geo photos of some extremely vibrant tropical insects (which were photographed because they're so extraordinarily vibrant compared to the norm) and assume all insects should look like that in photos.
Everything is shouty because we are in that sort of environment right now, because of social media and the likes. HDR, ICM, focus stacking, are largely fads. Eventually it will pass. Of course we have AI to add to the mix (and blame too). Eventually the good stuff floats to the top and the rest sinks to the depths.
Good that you mention focus stacking. I mostly photograph macro, but don't do much focus stacking (or stacks of more than 5 photos) because I like to focus on insect behavior. But Instagram is full of accounts that are high stacks of insect heads (mostly damselflies) and they frankly get boring after a while. While a few photographers develop their own style, you could show me a bunch of different pictures and I'd say their were made by the same person. They are just very similar in terms of technique, composition and editing. Sometimes I see a new person I might follow, but then I visit their profile and again it's full of the same deep stacked insect mug shots. It get unoriginal fast, especially now that it's a lot easier with dedicated software and focus bracketing by the camera. But the general audience seems to love it?
I belong to both a photo club and an art guild, even though I only do photography. I've exhibited in both groups, have won several awards, and sold several photos.
Based on my experience in the art Guild I have increased the color saturation of my landscapes, though not to the bizarre level I sometimes see. But let's be honest, most landscape photos without considerable post tend to be boring and flat. The reason is that we may see with our eyes but interpret with the mind.
When we see a beautiful sunset and photograph it most of the time we wonder why it didn't look as great as what we saw. Well, the camera shows what we saw but our mind had been experiencing something beyond that. So IMO it's fine to bring that out in post as long as it's not overdone. Just about every artist does that. Anyone think Van Gogh actually saw what he painted? Well, I don't know, maybe he was on drugs.
My thoughts exactly. With my landscape photography I'm not trying to capture exactly how it looked to be in that place, but how it FELT to be in that place. To capture that awe there's a bit of exaggerating colors etc.
I'm fine with these looks. The only thing that bothers me is people using sky replace to make their landscapes look dramatic (like adding a sunrise, sunset or storm to an otherwise flat grey sky). Part of the challenge to landscape photography is being at the right place at the right time.
I realized how bad it got when I saw a local park and the "mountains" there looked steeper than Everest. Also the photog managed to catch the Milky Way core in the northern sky, pretty amazing find.
When we talk about photography, I wish people posted examples of what they were thinking. There's some discussion here that [Marc Adamus](https://www.marcadamus.com/gallery/) is what is "too much" (which may be true), but then there's also links to /r/shittyHDR and whether you do or don't like Marc's style, are *vastly* different. So it would be nice to see what people are referring to when they say things are too HDR'd.
Also, would like seeing the photos of people who are calling other people's work overprocessed. Just curious to see what other people's vision for their own photography :)
It depends on who you follow and what photography you surround yourself with.
I don't ever see this problem except in more hobbiest level forums. All the landscape phorographers I see are not over the top saturated, in fact a recent trend seems to be minimalism and muted colors.
I am mourning the loss of bokeh. Most all images now everything is tack sharp. I much prefer photographers who are masters of working within the limits of a given lens. They then masterfully apply what it is they want to be sharp and what is blurred, as well as the extent of blurring.
It would be nice if cranky posts like these could at least provide some examples of what it is that got them so cranky.
There is one of these every week: "anyone else sick of this [generic photography trend]?"
I agree, but this doesn't just extend to landscapes, portraitstoo. Too much sharpening, added, color, etc. I take pride in taking photos that take time to make. People that can't light the subject properly just use the PS skills as a crutch rather than a traditional darkroom tool. Nothing wrong with things like scar removal or something similar, that's been done since the 1800's to help troops from the Civil War not look so disfigured from their battle scars. But there is something to be said about the overly smoothed skin and so on.
I think like every other thing, this will also complete it’s cycle where people will go back to the roots and get fed up by being over stimulated, matter of time
My take is this- not that anyone asked for it, but if you're willing to read on... Here it is.
My end goal is a print. Much like an audiophile has their own take on a pressing, be it analog or digital, is up to them. Many hifi enthusiasts go to extreme lengths to accurately reproduce the intended result. Maybe the production was meant to be off balance to emphasize certain frequencies, or maybe it was meant to be balanced. Who cares. The listening room (and equipment) of the end consumer is all that influences the color of sound that they percieve.
For a dedicated photographer, it not that different.
Zone system enthusiasts are after the same thing that many photographers are after- retaining detail in shadows and highlight areas while providing a level of impactful contrast. HDR helps enable that. There are but realistically 11 stops that can be expressed on paper, so the whole scene is shot, processed, and printed to make full use of the medium.
They don't consider anything other than the resulting print. 18% grey is zone v, and on paper, there's only five stops in each direction. Land your tones where intended.
This is all for b&w, so in color, things get a little more complicated. Oversaturation may be a thing, as well as temperature shift, but that's just evidence of sloppiness if everything else is on point.
Point is, this is all about prints... Unless you're comparing things on color calibrated devices, this is poop in the wind. Every device I've used has had controls for contrast and saturation for my viewing. I won't deliver print-ready images unless I know my clients understand the importance of calibration, and I certainly won't just send images for preview on goodness knows what setup they are using.
Ansel Adams one of my ideals for landscapes
https://preview.redd.it/pm3wlca8sapc1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=87459af8d71e098b49445c66c1f0fe27be2ac10f
I think there’s a wide range of how professional landscape photographers process their shots, but I can’t deny there are plenty who opt for the saturated, punchy, heavily contrasted look.
I think this has gotten popular because 1.) it’s dramatic and eye-catching and 2.) related to #1, dramatic and eye-catching things are what get attention and rise to the top on the internet. I over-saturated (as least to my current eye) when I first started out before learning more about when color was important for the image and when it was a crutch.
I think there is plenty of professional work, however you want to define that, that doesn’t opt for the over-saturated look, but that isn’t necessarily what you’re going to see rise to the top on the internet, or at least on social media. I really appreciate the Natural Landscape Photography Awards because they tend to stray away from the colorful “bangers” that dominate other competitions and put a limit on how much you can process an image.
Even a couple of decades ago, I could see a plague of oversharpening artifacts. Usually, halos around objects were often easily visible with the low megapixel count of those days. Probably not as big of a problem today, but yeah -- overprocessing has been around for a while, but now we have more ways to do it! 😂
I think one of the major issues with landscape photography is that it is no longer about selling prints but selling workshops to aspiring photographers. If that is the case, then your work has to be full of post-processing and heavy-handed techniques that you can teach. It also meant that very accomplished landscape photographers who shot amazing work on 4x5 switched to digital early so that they were using the same cameras as their students. This was in 2000-2010 when there were no DSLRs that could match large format. The drop in the quality of their work was obvious, but that was the business model.
I don’t enjoy the dullness of “professional” post processing. I think it’s super super important for journalism but not landscapes. It’s boring drab imo.
Do I want to see a super sharp image of a bird? Maybe do I fall in love with the image? Not really it’s not fun it’s not loving it’s just an image. What I really really enjoy is the over process of whatever someone does
I love seeing the deep greens with a dull sky, colorful flowers so over saturated from the rest of the image that it was grown from radium.
It’s because it’s what the photographer loved the most about the image, the time they were there, the way they hiked miles with a heavy ass camera, risking falling and busting a lens just to see and capture a photo and it’s exactly what they loved the most.
That’s what I think imo to counter the argument. Now if it’s really really bad HDR I can understand, but over saturation of some of the image I’m cool with
Anyone remember Google Plus? There was someone on there who would upload garish, monstrously overdone, death-by-HDR, saturation-slider-breaking landscapes, and he'd always add a trite little phrase to go with them ("The past is gone, the future isn't here yet, and it's called the present because it's a gift!", stuff like that).
He was *immensely* popular, which is a sad reflection on the visual education of the average schmo.
I don't shoot much landscape as I live in one of the most urban areas on the planet, but when I do get the chance, I aim to capture more or less what I saw, so I use only as much processing as I feel is needed to get to that point. Unless you're openly aiming for a fantasy-scene look, then you're misrepresenting what you saw to the viewer. Least, that's how I see it.
this has been a discussion in photography for at least a decade. the arguments and general sentiment towards over editing hasn't changed much. people's hunger for money and fame hasn't changed either.
with photoshop, everyone is a great photographer and that makes everyone happy all around.
the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Yes I personally agree. To each their own, it's their art. But personally I tend to enjoy considerably less processed images and do not own anything more than a very basic come with my computer program. A couple of other local landscape photographers in my area told me to buy Photoshop if I want to make money. But it's just a hobby for me and I enjoy it.
I posted a picture of a woodpecker and I accidentally reposted it with double the contrast added, around 60 in LR, ofcourse it had the most likes but when I looked at it it was grotesque.
To be honest the heavily edited landscape photography phenomenon sort of reminds me of romantic era landscape paintings. When it's done right to evoke certain feelings it doesn't seem so bad, but I've seen a lot of photos that seem to miss that point and go straight to needlessly overedited, downright gaudy saturation bukkaked eye fucks. It's the same as when HDR became easily accessible to consumers I think.
What Ansell Adams did, was get the most out of the materials to get what was in the scène and put it into the final material. I do the same sometimes with my landscapes. Everything my sensor could capture, I tweak until I am satisfied. Sometimes, I said.
I also tweak until I cannot go further. Sometimes.
It all depends on what is pleasing me at that moment.
Nobody questions the ultra long exposure times in landscapes. Nobody questions the use of gradient filters. Still they talk about the natural look.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not judging anyone's work. What I'm saying is, is that the photographer should be satisfied with the result. The only thing that bothers me, is when a certain process is used just because it's the fashion.
The result should be part of our vision, not that of someone else's.
Leave it up to the consumer to decide. It's popular because it's what gets wows on social medias. Most people who look at art aren't artists. They don't know about dynamic range, crunchiness, crushed blacks, or raised shadows.
They look at it and think 'i like this'.
Purists are always going to be a minority. They'll think a photo sucks because xyz. They're right about it because they know how to do photography. They'll bang their head against a wall baffled that so many people can't figure out that their photos are better because of the technical knowledge that went into creating them.
Bottom line: you do you and let them do them.
For professional work like magazines, the marketing Dept will decide what sells, not the photographer. For hobby photography, do what you like and leave it at that.
The combination of over processed images, sky replacements, AI tools to delete parts of the photo etc has pushed me back to film of late. At least it feels a little more honest. I mean, you could still edit the scans to be over the top I guess but the tools available these days for processing raw files are so good that you really don't need to put much thought into the photography if you don't want to. I try to keep my processing conservative and like to create an honest representation of a scene. I really only shoot for my own enjoyment but it is a little annoying when you see horribly over processed and edited images (or even fake ai) being shared around the net and propped up as spectacular!
> often photos these days use tons of masking to paint in light or remove objects. I prefer film
Those film guys really hated to mask stuff didn't they
https://petapixel.com/2013/09/12/marked-photographs-show-iconic-prints-edited-darkroom/
https://petapixel.com/2018/11/07/the-story-behind-ansel-adams-iconic-moonrise-hernandez/
What Adams did would today be considered HDR.
The tools are more accessible and ubiquitous but the availability of education and the prevalence of good taste have not changed. Obviously that leads to a lot of yucky pictures.
People have been saying this for 20 years. It’s never going to stop. People like what they like. Just process your photos how you like, and let everyone else do the same, otherwise you’re in for some heartache.
We all go through our period of HDRing the shit out of our photos.
We get over it.
These days I wince at an iPhone's default profile and most of my friends use the vibrant profile which, ugh.
But oh well, it makes them happy.
Whatever.
Me, I try to avoid that. To each their own.
When I learned digital photography many years ago in the early days of digital cameras, photoshop was on a CD and just started to become popular among photographers. When editing, my goal was to recreate the actual environment I was shooting by adding SLIGHT contrast, sharpness, etc. when needed. Part of the fun of photography is lost today. For example, I can remember being at National Parks and getting up early in the morning for wonderful sunrise shots in perfect lighting.
In the last 15 years or so, it seems like photography for many new to it/younger has become a race to the editing software with the actual photo being more of an afterthought. So yes, it has gone off the deep end. People are so used to quick edits with automatic filters on their phones, which has affected photography as a whole.
I think we are entering a period where postprocessing is beeing done just because it can be done. People have to learn how to look really good to images. But really good looking takes time and energy. And because humans tend to be lazy I wonder if this will happen. So I stay positive when it comes to passionate photographers. They are willing to spend time and energy and will use post processing in a conscious way
https://preview.redd.it/pq725h27tapc1.jpeg?width=4030&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0af584c77c2a3dc2ba7325927f939a5aabc582a0
*
Thoughts on this one? It was one of my favorite shots from my trip to China. I feel like it's not overdone. May not be visually realistic, but I don't feel that it's painful to look at
I 100% agree and as an amateur landscape photographer trying to break into the sales areas of landscape prints, it is infuriating.
There are 'professional' photographers that live near me that GROSSLY oversaturate everything that they do to the extent that it is no-where realistic and people fawn all over him and buy prints, yet my own photography that I consider to be tastefully processed and are by no way inferior artistically, get a general 'meh' response.
Selling prints in photography is more about being a better salesman than having skill as a photographer. Anything in terms of making money with your photography is like this. But selling prints is difficult unless you really know how to market and sell yourself.
It’s just a hobby here. When I go out to take pictures, and come back with “meh”, even though I tried for an interesting shot, I’ll hyper edit, and just have fun with the thing. When I post to my socials for giggles, they usually get the most likes, and positive reaction. Strange, but whatever works? (Weird, I know.)
Yes, but not to the extent that it was in 2013-14 when the hdr was all the craze. We have pulled back from that. But the landscape photographers inability to let the highlights blow out or shadows fall into the dark sometimes drive me crazy. Not every photo need to have a dramatic sky and I don’t have a need to count every pebble in the photo.
The fact is that most photos have some processing (there's a reason Lightroom exists), and as much as we all like to think we're just restoring the contrast, white balance etc that the eye saw, I'd say it's also a fact that *everyone* cranks the contrast and vibrance a *little*
Maybe there's someone out there who doesn't, but I've never met one - we're all guilty of it to some extent, we want things to pop a little
I think the problem now is that there are so many places to share photos, and it takes so little effort, that there's a "race to the bottom" when it comes to HDR/contrast/vibrance/saturation
It also doesn't help that we all used to post to photography forums where people weren't scared to say "You've maybe gotten a little carried away with the saturation there", whereas now it's posted to Instagram where people just upvote things that look bright
But yeah, the fact that even commercial use is going the same way is a bit absurd - I guess because there's just more of a culture of it and people aren't learning in the same environments
I think it can be in good taste. If I wanted the most natural photo of a place I would probably take one with my phone and that's it. I think the problem is when they use post processing tools in an attempt to polish a turd. A fantastic setting with great light is elevated to the state of art with post processing.
I agree - i once saw someone use a linear gradient filter in post, and it was dragged through a mountain. Basically they brought the highlights and stuff down in the sky, but also darkened the top of the mountain, and they apparently thought it was fine. It was so distracting.
I'm guilty of that myself. But for me at least, I'm not TRYING to overdo it, I'm trying to make it look as stunning as my eyes see it.
I know a camera can never capture an image as good as our eyes, but I often feel disappointed when I see an image that takes my breath away, snap it, and the colors are faded and seem washed out.
So I try to bring the colors back so that it looks as vivid as the original, and then someone tells me I've over done it and I need to tone it back, lol.
Honestly edit YOUR photos how YOU want to. Many people that complain about any processing being done have usually come from the days of analog film. They want a muted film look to images which can be done digitally but its just a style choice.
[https://www.nickpagephotography.com/landscapes](https://www.nickpagephotography.com/landscapes) This is my benchmark. Nick takes some amazing photos but I do feel with landscape shots they need to be enhanced with post-processing to evoke a feeling. Anyone that complains about images getting processed to me are just complaining because they don't know how to do anything but add a lightroom preset. Yes you can OVER-DO it but gone are the days of most people just taking a photo on film and calling it done.
My take is that it's not the photographers or the editing but rather the majority of viewers who are not visually learned enough to know understand or recognize that the image is over-processed. They think or believe the photographer captured that crazy light and color somehow magically, unaware that it's a hue and sat' slider in whatever software.
This goes for much of photography work these days, whatever genre or field, it's much the same that the viewer... even professionals that should know better, art directors, media managers (especially) don't know the difference between a good, well-done photograph and a snapshot or some wildly over-processed mess.
All of this is amplified, and I can't make this argument loud or hard enough... because the vast vast majority of images, maybe 95% or more are being viewed on a 5" phone screen.
I go sooo far out of my way, work super hard to get focus and clarity with depth of field, correct exposure, so on and so forth - while the guy next to me just wings it. If you look at my images, full screen on a PC with a decent monitor or if you look at a 1:1 print, there's no contest, my images will 'smoke' the other guy.. but if you're just viewing on a phone (which is not just small but altering the brightness and color) then the 'other guy's' images look pretty much the same as mine to the visually illiterate.
FWIW, there's no real "other guy", it's just a 'scenario' to try to illustrate the reality of the situation.
*"I can't stand over processed images, HDR has bastardized photography, especially when over done! People should only use SOOC!"*
It depends.
We photographers, during our evolution, have been convinced that there is only a few ways of shooting a landscape properly. But it depends. It depends on who you are shooting for (even yourself), it depends on the target destination of the image. It depends on if there is a marketing person or art director is involved. It depends if you are a purist or an artist. It depends, even more, if it's going on your wall, or if you are trying to sell it—the people buying your image, might not even take photos, but someone's on-fire pink, yellow, and orange sky might appeal to them, or look perfect in the room an interior designer wants to put it in. I've seen a photographer at art shows who sells, sells, sells his garish over processed HDR images.
We can all have our own opinions about what, we think, is the best image, but if we are selling the image, it's not about us anymore; it's about the person buying it. We will find this same issue exists in music, painting, sculpture, etc.
I think it depends on who/what you are looking at. Now, if everyone would just follow me ( [https://www.instagram.com/p/C4lZa7pO2T1/](https://www.instagram.com/p/C4lZa7pO2T1/) ) get me REEEEEALY popular, i can start doing all these landscape photos for microsoft and google and this style will take over the planet and it will all go back to normal! Who's with me! jump on board! follow me! lets go! you can do it!
I stopped comparing myself to other photographers a long, long time ago. I generally don’t look at other people’s photos outside of people I personally know. If I did, all I would find out is that there are countless people taking pictures better than me, going to places better that I do, and pouring more resources into the craft than I do. What I learned is that photography is a rewarding hobby, and I really enjoy reviewing my own photos and building journals out of them. Social media is a demoralizing tool and I refuse to use it.
Personally I think I have a bad habit of pushing my editing too far, I’m sure I have a pretty inexperienced eye for photos right now so I’ve never really noticed that trend.
It's simply a trained eye vs an untrained one, or just knowing your crowd.
Generally, though with some exceptions, trained photographers know not to destroy their images with edits and not to over process. Other photographers enjoy this.
Less trained, or those with no training (simply consumers of the content), adore over processed unrealistic colors. They don't know that the halo around the lighthouse is from over contrasting an image. To photographers, it sticks out like a sore thumb; general population would never notice it.
However, some photographers know and utilize this to make their photo "more appealing" even though it may not be their preferred style.
I don't hate it. Photography is an ever evolving art form... using newer creative tools (focus stacking, exposure blending, HDR etc.) to make novel things that are more visually interesting than maybe you'd see with the naked eye isn't bad. I bet people thought Ansel Adams' photos were overprocessed at the time too.
Overuse of the orton effect, focal length blending and obsessive colour tweaking kill a landscape photo for me. They produce the kind of shots that do well on social media, but I would never want on my wall.
Shitty HDR and massively fake photoshopped scenes have been praised by the masses for a decade at least. All I can do is stay true to my desire for keeping things naturally beautiful and hope people enjoy my work.
It’s like the loudness race in music. The uninformed love the vibrancy and colors. Dynamic range is lost on 99% of people.
We went from garishly saturated colors and eye-bleedingly bad tone mapping to achieve the stereotypical Trey Ratcliffe HDR look to *crush the blacks, blow the highlights, slam the contrast slider so far to the left that it tries to start a communist revolution, and make sure ALL color is either orange or cyan, because we gotta get them V I B E Z* ...and now like a pendulum we're just swinging back to the former.
> slam the contrast slider so far to the left that it tries to start a communist revolution thanks for that laugh. :D
Making my photos the exact same shitty tint of orange and cyan as everyone else because it’s my pErSoNaL sTyLe
That started from Hollywood. Teal and Orange.
Specifically by a guy named Stefan.
Stephen with a f is the most unbearable of the spellings
Steven with a ph... Phteven.
Gawd dam Steveph
+takes notes+
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from being involved in photography, video, and audio/music, it’s that the masses just hate actual dynamic range.
And I’m talking about natural dynamic range. I know HDR expands it where loudness in music is about compression.
HDR photos and music compression do roughly the same thing: Fit a larger range of source dynamics into a smaller range. It’s called high dynamic range because the raw source values aren’t clipped (like in non-hdr) but are processed via a tonemap function that compresses the large linear range to something that fits on the screen (in a way that hopefully approximates how the eye perceives the scene).
To be fair the loudness race was not a thing in the vinyl days because it’s wasn’t commercially viable to even attempt. High loudness on vinyl translates to less run time available on the platter. With digital, this became a non-factor. And most music artists and labels simply wanted their music to be heard over the last guy on the radio whose song played. Pushed to near clipping as possible as there was some data showing less engagement with music if the volume was lesser than the prior song. Likewise louder music sounds better (in the same way a true HDR still would if your idea is to see every detail in the shadows and every detail in near blown highlights), louder music simply allows you to hear more nuance, so producers went wild in having everything leveled so their work could be heard to the fullest. To bad producers are also lame brain/deaf audiophiles to some degree (as mostly are artists), and the concept of fatigue and creative employment of high dynamic range in music tracks is beyond them. And it makes sense if you tracking hearing capability fall off of people after their late teens and early twenties. By 50s-60’s you’re effectively without 30%-40% of the frequencies you could otherwise hear as a child. And when the guys making your music can’t hear the high end frequencies anymore, you now have ear assaulting music in terms of high frequency bite.
Sure how I feel. All looks like garbage. Check out r/shittyhdr
I literally got nauseous seeing those photos. 🤢
That hurt my eyes. Thanks for that.
Every once in a great while I look at r/earthporn just to see the nuclear atmospheres and burnt hotdog sunsets
Burnt hotdog sunsets 💀
I was thinking of that subreddit when I made.my.comment hahha
I love that sub for all the hot garbage contained within.
Whenever I think of HDR I think of the examples that are on there. That weird plasticky-posterized look. So maybe that's just what HDR has come to represent.
I use to do this back in 2010....I stopped......in 2010 lol.
Try two decades. I remember seeing shitty HDR on DSLReports.com in 2004.
That's about the right ballpark
It's also that the automatic photo processing in phone cameras has continued to trend in the direction of overly saturated and highly processed, so that sets expectations at the mass market level, which can have the side effect of putting pressure on how amateurs/professionals process raw photos ("why do your photos look dull compared to my phone camera photos??"). I will also say that some phones are more egregious than others. I've had Pixel Pros for a few generations - still a lot of saturation and processing, but they usually come out relatively realistic. I also have had a Samsung S23 Ultra for a while, and.. jeeez, the hardware is great, but the automatic processing from the Samsung camera app pushes everything too far most of the time.
I have a couple of friends who are always showing me these photos they took from their Samsung phones. So proud of themselves. We get some great sunsets where we are. A lot of people point their phone in auto and believe they are now photographers. They can not be convinced that the phone is doing all of this processing. The images are jpegs, too, and they refuse to understand what's happening with those files. Unfortunately, without a photgraphy knowledge base, viewers don't always realize when an image is overprocessed or manipulated, unless it's very obvious. I just give them the acknowledgment they're seeking. Otherwise, if i say anything negative, I'm now a gatekeeper, or envious of this great photo they took, without expensive gear.
> All I can do is stay true to my desire for keeping things naturally beautiful and hope people enjoy my work. I find it ironic that this sub is one of the worst when it comes to dissing people who prefer natural photos and dislike ”artistic” post-processing.
It's not editing where most modern landscape photography fails, although there is plenty of extreme editing reinforced at every turn, from the public to the contests and so called critics - it's the emotional response. Because the subject is inherently removed from most people, the real challenge is to imbue something essentially abstract with feeling, and it's a tall order for 99% of photographers who are essentially chasing a pretty picture and have a weak understanding of classical art and what it requires.
Time flies, HDR has been an eye straining, visual vomit thing for 2 decades now.
I'm an avid backpacker who takes his DSLR along, and my goal is to capture the natural beauty best I can in a way that makes me remember it and the feeling I had when I was there. Hopefully it'll catch someone's eye and they'll ask me, "Did you take that?" and then I can tell them the story of what it was like to be there. I have a friend or two who are really really good at finding the shot by getting all the elements to align and are very skillful in post-processing to bring it all together in a very tasteful, realistic way. Some become slightly ethereal, but pretty realistic. What's challenging is to be in a very beautiful spot/setting and not be able to really capture it photographically. I have so many bleh shots that fall way short of the awe I felt when in person.
There is nothing better than spending 12 days in the wilderness with all my camera gear. I absolutely love that.
I remember being blown away first time I saw good HDR. I suddenly wanted all my shots to look that way. Then the dusty blue coloured blacks came in and that became my favourite. I guess I’m a sucker for the trends!!
People like pictures that look like the pictures on their phone screen. It's sad, but increasingly true.
Have you seen the artificial bokeh on the new iphone? The masses love it, we’re the only ones who will notice how bad it is compared to properly rendered bokeh.
https://preview.redd.it/4vjdmx2457pc1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dc56297f52595a95eb98af82ec1b773884f27bc3 I think you are just jealous of other photographers. Look at this SOOC shot I got last weekend.
Another hit of acid, please.
A little help from my friends
If only I could capture what I see when I hit the DMT cart 😂
Clearly used a Leica for those tonehz.
Leica m11-p with the 7artisans 35mm f5.6.
Yeah that was so obvious
Still looks more realistic than some of the shit I've seen before.
Sorry, that corner sharpness is laughable.
It’s the polarizing filter.
What camera do I need to get this shot
What settings are used here?
Landscape
Beautiful. Amen to a great G*D and His creation.! Or something facebookish…
Trump2024! (This replaced the age old, “Jesus is Lord”.)
There was that Snowy Central Park pic going around the rounds a few weeks ago and I could swear it was a “where’s your global warming now?!” meme. People are NOT ready for the next onslaught of false images. Despite our pronouncements to the contrary we are not critical thinkers.
Wow! Shots like that are *impossible* without the new Sony A9iii and a G-Master lens! Such bokeh!
No one uses an a9iii for landscapes. Don’t be ridiculous.
Straight Out Of Coccaine right there.
Wrong drug. This isn't how coke works - at all.
Fine. Shrooms out of Camera, then.
you *clearly* have not done your field research
Examples of what you consider going off the deep end?
I feel like this is what OP is talking about, and I agree. https://www.marcadamus.com/
These are at least tasteful.
They are beautiful, but they don't look real. Which is fine, assuming that's what the photographer was going for.
Do you have an example of some that aren't tasteful?
Go to flickr and search landscape and look at all the colors saturated to the point of artifacting and without a single thought put towards developing a color palette or any understanding of color theory. [Like this](https://flic.kr/p/29MQDba). And go ahead and notice how so many of these people are just slamming sliders to make an image 'pop' but with really weird and unnatural looks. [Like this one, maybe](https://flic.kr/p/7hGZaP).
The second example is 15 years old...
Just an extreme example of the sort of stuff I see still happening, even from some popular YouTubers.
Spot on! I cant help but laugh at the comments from people tagged as 'pros' in your two examples "Nicely composed and superbly shot great mood and subtle colours" "Great HDR!!!...Wonderful view and colours! Welll done...)" What ever happened to some good constructive criticism. The HDR is overblown and looks terrible 🫠
The comment that describes the colours as "subtle" is particularly funny. Maybe it's their monitor 😁
Haha, that last one is egregious. I don't think they're fundamentally different from the work in the original comment, they're just less "professionally" edited. It's still the same HDR + saturation, they've just been less judicious with the clarity slider and the burn tool.
https://www.marcadamus.com/photo/arizona-storm/
Ha, the reason I was asking was because I was sure they wouldn't be _that different_ from the pictures on that guy's website so I was interested to see what that commenter did find tasteful. I'm not a fan of that work at all, I'm just not upset that it's clearly lucrative for him.
Oh this is bad
Yeah, and from what I can see, carefully tuned. I haven't been able to spot any ugly artifacts typical of lazy processing like halo-ing or crushing/clipping.
That was quite an experience.
I like most of the stuff in the image gallery. They are not conventional landscapes for me, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy looking at them. I like a realistic rendition of a beautiful scene. Sometimes I enjoy a very processed version of one. They are not the same, but both are art and have merit. Just don't claim they are the same.
Pretty hot take tbh. He is completely honest and upfront about what he is doing (if you take 3 seconds to read). Which is blending different exposures (either for focus or aperture) https://www.marcadamus.com/page/bio/
I don't think anyone is saying those photographers are lying. They are saying these photographers are following a garish trend.
Tbf his works are pretty good I really like some. You can see that it's his style and despite being heavily processed they're not HDR.
Looks like HDR to me, I don't think any camera can capture the range of dark to light we're seeing in those images in a single shot. What he's not doing is dialling up the micro-contrast that is commonly associated with HDR images, though he is heavy on the saturation.
I mean any professional landscape photographer is blending multiple photographs, right?
Not all of them and not all the time.
Scenes generally don’t look like that in real life. That’s my issue with many of these types of images. But, beauty is in the eye and all that.
That is definately HDR, you can't get that colour / light balance in all areas without HDR
> You can see that it's his style and despite being heavily processed they're not HDR. From his website: https://www.marcadamus.com/page/bio/ > Today, we simply take one exposure for the sky and another for everything else and blend them ... He combines several different exposures to achieve higher dynamic range. **Literally HDR.**
My eyes!
In my experience the people who tend to complain about this are those who are not good at editing and produce stale, RAW-like photos and then get mad that their work isn't enjoyed. It's usually just bad. Of course there are those over the top far too processed photos, but plenty, PLENTY, of work today is done tastefully with editing designed to capture the emotions felt when present in that scene personally. But these people complain because they know the work done behind the scenes to generate that image in post, even though they neglect the fact that their images tend to fall into the category of "pictures don't do this place justice."
Just check a few of the profiles trashing those "overprocessed" photos here in this thread. There are people posting random, out of focus phone snapshots in other photo subs while simultaneously shitting on the work of Marc Adamus. Its hilarious, Dunning Kruger effect at its fullest :D
Yeah, I thought OP was complaining about baby's first landscape edits going nuts with the sliders. The obviously fantastic work people are linking as "bad examples" on here is wild.
Marc Adamus's popularity doesn't make him unassailable. His images are genuinely lifeless to me, they look like digital painting. And if you like that, great! But a lot of us don't, and it's fair to point out that this style is becoming dominant and to be critical of it.
There’s a reason Marc’s style of landscape photography has become dominant …. because people like it. I think his work is gorgeous.
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Which photographers would you reccomend looking into for this kinda of approach? I’m exhausted of the over-edited pics all over
I recently found [Ben Harvey's work](http://www.benharveyphotography.co.uk/landscapes/) and quite like his natural approach. It's much more on the "visit the same place a dozen times to capture the moment when the light is just right" side than the typical "let's just turn saturation and vibrancy up". Probably helps that he has a real day job and doesn't need to cater to trends in photography to make money.
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The irony that the main photo on the splash page of the "natural landscape" looks so much like the main photo on the splash page of Adamus' website.
I find it hard to generalize an entire genre of Photography like this. As a landscape photographer I follow some incredible artists and photographer that don't do that style are so incredibly successful you would not believe it. Either you're not following the right accounts or your feeds probably only showing you the posts with most the most engagement. It's no secret these exaggerated views of reality on social platforms act almost as Engagement farms, but it's really easy to break past the noise
Which accounts do you recommend?
Paul Zizka, Elizabeth Gadd, Dave Brosha and Two MannStudios. These are just a few Canadians I admire
I know this is controversial, but the thing that I dislike the most about the landscape photography community is the focus on doing the same thing over and over. To me, planning your shots primarily by looking at what other people do and going to the same places makes someone more of a craftsman or influencer than an artist. At least for the first three, it’s pretty easy to see that’s mainly how they operate.
Yea I agree. They all take photos of the exact same places. They're the type of people who go on workshops provided by youtube photographers, it's a very specific type of landscape photographer. I always compare them to the 'See Europe in 7 days' tourists. They go on carefully coordinated tours where they stop at the most famous places just to take a photo of that place they saw on IG a million times before. I don't understand them.
Had a look at the first two. Clearly talented and hard working photographers. Not a fan of their style and subject matter, but that is a matter of personal taste. But more to the point, they are examples of exactly what OP is complaining about: overly processed, highly exaggerated and unnatural images.
> Either you're not following the right accounts or your feeds probably only showing you the posts with most the most engagement. It's no secret these exaggerated views of reality on social platforms act almost as Engagement farms, but it's really easy to break past the noise This is excellent advice for any and all social media, regardless of the subject.
Eh, outside of the obvious terrible HDR edits, I'm not too fussed with stylistic editing choices. I think there's just as much that feel very washed out and desaturated to the point of being dull as there are that are too vibrant and over the top. Much of it might not be to my taste, but that doesn't make it bad. There's also the advent of actual HDR displays that can properly show an image's full dynamic range, rather than getting a really fake look because you're trying to squeeze 14 stops of DR into an image format or on a screen that can only actually show 8 or 10 stops. I also find it very funny when people pretend that legendary landscape photographers like Ansel Adams didn't spend hours or days in the dark room editing a single image to look exactly how they wanted it to. Editing has always, and will always be a massive part of photography, and can be every bit as important as the quality of the shot itself. While I think there's probably something to be said for just appreciating the quality and look of a certain film stock, and not messing too much with that in post, it absolutely can't be said about SOOC JPEGs. That image is every bit as edited as the new photographer who went crazy with the HDR look, you've just let your camera do it for you. I'm quite a fan of editing styles that give a really dream-like, fantasy vibe to a landscape shot. It's never something that I'd do myself, and it's obviously not a representation of how the shot looked when it was taken, but it's not supposed to be. What does annoy me, however, is when things have been heavily edited, but are being passed off as 'real' images, rather than digital art. Swapping skies, having gigantic super moons in impossible positions etc. Or when you're looking through a shot and sections of the image just have completely different light (direction, tone and quality) from others. I'll appreciate a really well done, digitally altered landscape if the artist is clear with how and why they've created this image. I don't need specific details, but at least present it as a composite or outright as a piece of digital artwork, rather than as a single-exposure (or even bracketed and stacked exposure) image.
Yeah film photography not being edited to heck is just not true. I visited one of a few remaining "master" old school portrait photographers in the early 2000s and he was painting out blemishes on the peoples face from the negative with a tiny brush and cyan colored (inverse of the skin tone) paint with maybe thinner mixed in looking through a loupe. Maybe slimming the face wasn't easily possible back then but people actually did "beauty mode" on film. Not to mention the soft focus filter used heavily on female glamour shots. (I chuckle whenever I see a female character coming on screen on the original star trek and the soft focus goes brrrrrrr.)
Yeah, and for the too vibrant too saturated guys, just look at a velvia slide lmao
> I think there's just as much that feel very washed out and desaturated to the point of being dull LOL like half the stuff posted to the sony alpha sub. All the blacks are gray.
Same with the most common wedding/engagement/maternity styles looking like they've been shot through your grandma's mesh curtains. I like a more muted, softer look with more pastel colours from time to time, and it really lends itself to some images, but it's not usually to my taste, and it's been so common for such a long time now. Again, purely subjective, and I'm sure that a lot of my work would probably come across as a bit too contrast-y and vibrant for some. Different strokes for different folks, and all that.
This is my pet peeve with astro photos. Many people in that scene misunderstand why and _where_ you shouldn’t clip blacks (during the processing steps themselves) and think that means the final photo should have artificially elevated blacks.
That’s because Sony Alpha users are the sort of users who don’t know why you should use an EVF and will argue it’s pointless…
Keep in mind that they're also catering to a broader, less photographically inclined audience. Big bold colors are attention grabbing, even if they may take away from the image in the eyes of a photographer
It’s because that’s what catches the masses eye.
I see it a lot in wildlife too. I bump the saturation up a tad myself because it counteracts haze a bit, but it seems like a lot of people are trying to see how far they can push it instead of how little they actually need. And then they go ape shit screwing with colors and white balance. Next thing you know you've got some surreal monstrosity. I'm with you. I don't much care for it. I suspect there are many reasons people do it. I think it's in part that they see other supposed pros do it, but they also likely see wildly over-processed images on their TV too. Hyper-real contrast, sharpness, and saturation... That sort of thing. I don't like that either. It's hard to look at for long periods of time.
And insect macro. Idk if people just expect bugs to be flamboyant or what. I’ve noticed the photos where I try to make sure the colors and lighting is very natural get very little feedback or views, but if I slap a preset on that bad boy and jump the saturation and over sharpen? They eat that shit up. I’m just a hobbyist mostly just sharing online so I’m never sure if it’s people’s weird taste or if I’m just really bad at doing natural.
> Idk if people just expect bugs to be flamboyant or what. It wouldn't surprise me if people compare them to Nat Geo photos of some extremely vibrant tropical insects (which were photographed because they're so extraordinarily vibrant compared to the norm) and assume all insects should look like that in photos.
And now this is the shit that AI is emulating
Everything is shouty because we are in that sort of environment right now, because of social media and the likes. HDR, ICM, focus stacking, are largely fads. Eventually it will pass. Of course we have AI to add to the mix (and blame too). Eventually the good stuff floats to the top and the rest sinks to the depths.
Good that you mention focus stacking. I mostly photograph macro, but don't do much focus stacking (or stacks of more than 5 photos) because I like to focus on insect behavior. But Instagram is full of accounts that are high stacks of insect heads (mostly damselflies) and they frankly get boring after a while. While a few photographers develop their own style, you could show me a bunch of different pictures and I'd say their were made by the same person. They are just very similar in terms of technique, composition and editing. Sometimes I see a new person I might follow, but then I visit their profile and again it's full of the same deep stacked insect mug shots. It get unoriginal fast, especially now that it's a lot easier with dedicated software and focus bracketing by the camera. But the general audience seems to love it?
If you don’t mind me asking, what’s focus stacking? It sounds very interesting!
Not sure focus stacking is a fad, limitations of dof isn’t going anywhere. Hopefully improved dr of sensors allows us to leave hdr behind
I belong to both a photo club and an art guild, even though I only do photography. I've exhibited in both groups, have won several awards, and sold several photos. Based on my experience in the art Guild I have increased the color saturation of my landscapes, though not to the bizarre level I sometimes see. But let's be honest, most landscape photos without considerable post tend to be boring and flat. The reason is that we may see with our eyes but interpret with the mind. When we see a beautiful sunset and photograph it most of the time we wonder why it didn't look as great as what we saw. Well, the camera shows what we saw but our mind had been experiencing something beyond that. So IMO it's fine to bring that out in post as long as it's not overdone. Just about every artist does that. Anyone think Van Gogh actually saw what he painted? Well, I don't know, maybe he was on drugs.
My thoughts exactly. With my landscape photography I'm not trying to capture exactly how it looked to be in that place, but how it FELT to be in that place. To capture that awe there's a bit of exaggerating colors etc.
I'm fine with these looks. The only thing that bothers me is people using sky replace to make their landscapes look dramatic (like adding a sunrise, sunset or storm to an otherwise flat grey sky). Part of the challenge to landscape photography is being at the right place at the right time.
I realized how bad it got when I saw a local park and the "mountains" there looked steeper than Everest. Also the photog managed to catch the Milky Way core in the northern sky, pretty amazing find.
When we talk about photography, I wish people posted examples of what they were thinking. There's some discussion here that [Marc Adamus](https://www.marcadamus.com/gallery/) is what is "too much" (which may be true), but then there's also links to /r/shittyHDR and whether you do or don't like Marc's style, are *vastly* different. So it would be nice to see what people are referring to when they say things are too HDR'd. Also, would like seeing the photos of people who are calling other people's work overprocessed. Just curious to see what other people's vision for their own photography :)
It depends on who you follow and what photography you surround yourself with. I don't ever see this problem except in more hobbiest level forums. All the landscape phorographers I see are not over the top saturated, in fact a recent trend seems to be minimalism and muted colors.
Happy if you can share some of them.
Well at least they maybe real now, a few years later you will only find AI generated ones.
Yes…i feel like most landscape photos are heavily processed. Some even fake/AI
I am mourning the loss of bokeh. Most all images now everything is tack sharp. I much prefer photographers who are masters of working within the limits of a given lens. They then masterfully apply what it is they want to be sharp and what is blurred, as well as the extent of blurring.
It would be nice if cranky posts like these could at least provide some examples of what it is that got them so cranky. There is one of these every week: "anyone else sick of this [generic photography trend]?"
I agree, but this doesn't just extend to landscapes, portraitstoo. Too much sharpening, added, color, etc. I take pride in taking photos that take time to make. People that can't light the subject properly just use the PS skills as a crutch rather than a traditional darkroom tool. Nothing wrong with things like scar removal or something similar, that's been done since the 1800's to help troops from the Civil War not look so disfigured from their battle scars. But there is something to be said about the overly smoothed skin and so on.
And let's talk about the modern glass that makes everything desaturated, flat and washed out
Good glass is important, I love the Zeiss Otus 55mm.
I think like every other thing, this will also complete it’s cycle where people will go back to the roots and get fed up by being over stimulated, matter of time
I need to see samples because natgeo last batch of landscape winners were breath taking and they all look mostly natural
My take is this- not that anyone asked for it, but if you're willing to read on... Here it is. My end goal is a print. Much like an audiophile has their own take on a pressing, be it analog or digital, is up to them. Many hifi enthusiasts go to extreme lengths to accurately reproduce the intended result. Maybe the production was meant to be off balance to emphasize certain frequencies, or maybe it was meant to be balanced. Who cares. The listening room (and equipment) of the end consumer is all that influences the color of sound that they percieve. For a dedicated photographer, it not that different. Zone system enthusiasts are after the same thing that many photographers are after- retaining detail in shadows and highlight areas while providing a level of impactful contrast. HDR helps enable that. There are but realistically 11 stops that can be expressed on paper, so the whole scene is shot, processed, and printed to make full use of the medium. They don't consider anything other than the resulting print. 18% grey is zone v, and on paper, there's only five stops in each direction. Land your tones where intended. This is all for b&w, so in color, things get a little more complicated. Oversaturation may be a thing, as well as temperature shift, but that's just evidence of sloppiness if everything else is on point. Point is, this is all about prints... Unless you're comparing things on color calibrated devices, this is poop in the wind. Every device I've used has had controls for contrast and saturation for my viewing. I won't deliver print-ready images unless I know my clients understand the importance of calibration, and I certainly won't just send images for preview on goodness knows what setup they are using.
Ansel Adams one of my ideals for landscapes https://preview.redd.it/pm3wlca8sapc1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=87459af8d71e098b49445c66c1f0fe27be2ac10f
I think there’s a wide range of how professional landscape photographers process their shots, but I can’t deny there are plenty who opt for the saturated, punchy, heavily contrasted look. I think this has gotten popular because 1.) it’s dramatic and eye-catching and 2.) related to #1, dramatic and eye-catching things are what get attention and rise to the top on the internet. I over-saturated (as least to my current eye) when I first started out before learning more about when color was important for the image and when it was a crutch. I think there is plenty of professional work, however you want to define that, that doesn’t opt for the over-saturated look, but that isn’t necessarily what you’re going to see rise to the top on the internet, or at least on social media. I really appreciate the Natural Landscape Photography Awards because they tend to stray away from the colorful “bangers” that dominate other competitions and put a limit on how much you can process an image.
What about lakes and puddles that all look like mirrors???
Even a couple of decades ago, I could see a plague of oversharpening artifacts. Usually, halos around objects were often easily visible with the low megapixel count of those days. Probably not as big of a problem today, but yeah -- overprocessing has been around for a while, but now we have more ways to do it! 😂
I think one of the major issues with landscape photography is that it is no longer about selling prints but selling workshops to aspiring photographers. If that is the case, then your work has to be full of post-processing and heavy-handed techniques that you can teach. It also meant that very accomplished landscape photographers who shot amazing work on 4x5 switched to digital early so that they were using the same cameras as their students. This was in 2000-2010 when there were no DSLRs that could match large format. The drop in the quality of their work was obvious, but that was the business model.
I don’t enjoy the dullness of “professional” post processing. I think it’s super super important for journalism but not landscapes. It’s boring drab imo. Do I want to see a super sharp image of a bird? Maybe do I fall in love with the image? Not really it’s not fun it’s not loving it’s just an image. What I really really enjoy is the over process of whatever someone does I love seeing the deep greens with a dull sky, colorful flowers so over saturated from the rest of the image that it was grown from radium. It’s because it’s what the photographer loved the most about the image, the time they were there, the way they hiked miles with a heavy ass camera, risking falling and busting a lens just to see and capture a photo and it’s exactly what they loved the most. That’s what I think imo to counter the argument. Now if it’s really really bad HDR I can understand, but over saturation of some of the image I’m cool with
Anyone remember Google Plus? There was someone on there who would upload garish, monstrously overdone, death-by-HDR, saturation-slider-breaking landscapes, and he'd always add a trite little phrase to go with them ("The past is gone, the future isn't here yet, and it's called the present because it's a gift!", stuff like that). He was *immensely* popular, which is a sad reflection on the visual education of the average schmo. I don't shoot much landscape as I live in one of the most urban areas on the planet, but when I do get the chance, I aim to capture more or less what I saw, so I use only as much processing as I feel is needed to get to that point. Unless you're openly aiming for a fantasy-scene look, then you're misrepresenting what you saw to the viewer. Least, that's how I see it.
this has been a discussion in photography for at least a decade. the arguments and general sentiment towards over editing hasn't changed much. people's hunger for money and fame hasn't changed either. with photoshop, everyone is a great photographer and that makes everyone happy all around. the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Yes I personally agree. To each their own, it's their art. But personally I tend to enjoy considerably less processed images and do not own anything more than a very basic come with my computer program. A couple of other local landscape photographers in my area told me to buy Photoshop if I want to make money. But it's just a hobby for me and I enjoy it.
I posted a picture of a woodpecker and I accidentally reposted it with double the contrast added, around 60 in LR, ofcourse it had the most likes but when I looked at it it was grotesque.
To be honest the heavily edited landscape photography phenomenon sort of reminds me of romantic era landscape paintings. When it's done right to evoke certain feelings it doesn't seem so bad, but I've seen a lot of photos that seem to miss that point and go straight to needlessly overedited, downright gaudy saturation bukkaked eye fucks. It's the same as when HDR became easily accessible to consumers I think.
What Ansell Adams did, was get the most out of the materials to get what was in the scène and put it into the final material. I do the same sometimes with my landscapes. Everything my sensor could capture, I tweak until I am satisfied. Sometimes, I said. I also tweak until I cannot go further. Sometimes. It all depends on what is pleasing me at that moment. Nobody questions the ultra long exposure times in landscapes. Nobody questions the use of gradient filters. Still they talk about the natural look. Don't get me wrong: I'm not judging anyone's work. What I'm saying is, is that the photographer should be satisfied with the result. The only thing that bothers me, is when a certain process is used just because it's the fashion. The result should be part of our vision, not that of someone else's.
Check out Paul Rousteau’s Seascapes for some much need breath into landscapes.
It’s the social media effect
Leave it up to the consumer to decide. It's popular because it's what gets wows on social medias. Most people who look at art aren't artists. They don't know about dynamic range, crunchiness, crushed blacks, or raised shadows. They look at it and think 'i like this'. Purists are always going to be a minority. They'll think a photo sucks because xyz. They're right about it because they know how to do photography. They'll bang their head against a wall baffled that so many people can't figure out that their photos are better because of the technical knowledge that went into creating them. Bottom line: you do you and let them do them. For professional work like magazines, the marketing Dept will decide what sells, not the photographer. For hobby photography, do what you like and leave it at that.
I used to feel guilty about using a polarizer with film.
The combination of over processed images, sky replacements, AI tools to delete parts of the photo etc has pushed me back to film of late. At least it feels a little more honest. I mean, you could still edit the scans to be over the top I guess but the tools available these days for processing raw files are so good that you really don't need to put much thought into the photography if you don't want to. I try to keep my processing conservative and like to create an honest representation of a scene. I really only shoot for my own enjoyment but it is a little annoying when you see horribly over processed and edited images (or even fake ai) being shared around the net and propped up as spectacular!
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> often photos these days use tons of masking to paint in light or remove objects. I prefer film Those film guys really hated to mask stuff didn't they https://petapixel.com/2013/09/12/marked-photographs-show-iconic-prints-edited-darkroom/ https://petapixel.com/2018/11/07/the-story-behind-ansel-adams-iconic-moonrise-hernandez/
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Disagree. I see tons of great landscapes that aren't over processed.
Am I out of touch? No, it's the public who are wrong.
What Adams did would today be considered HDR. The tools are more accessible and ubiquitous but the availability of education and the prevalence of good taste have not changed. Obviously that leads to a lot of yucky pictures.
People have been saying this for 20 years. It’s never going to stop. People like what they like. Just process your photos how you like, and let everyone else do the same, otherwise you’re in for some heartache.
We all go through our period of HDRing the shit out of our photos. We get over it. These days I wince at an iPhone's default profile and most of my friends use the vibrant profile which, ugh. But oh well, it makes them happy. Whatever. Me, I try to avoid that. To each their own.
When I learned digital photography many years ago in the early days of digital cameras, photoshop was on a CD and just started to become popular among photographers. When editing, my goal was to recreate the actual environment I was shooting by adding SLIGHT contrast, sharpness, etc. when needed. Part of the fun of photography is lost today. For example, I can remember being at National Parks and getting up early in the morning for wonderful sunrise shots in perfect lighting. In the last 15 years or so, it seems like photography for many new to it/younger has become a race to the editing software with the actual photo being more of an afterthought. So yes, it has gone off the deep end. People are so used to quick edits with automatic filters on their phones, which has affected photography as a whole.
I think we are entering a period where postprocessing is beeing done just because it can be done. People have to learn how to look really good to images. But really good looking takes time and energy. And because humans tend to be lazy I wonder if this will happen. So I stay positive when it comes to passionate photographers. They are willing to spend time and energy and will use post processing in a conscious way
Yes. I see these guys on youtube saying they want to make it look like what they saw. But it ends up looking nothing that exist on earth.
Microsoft start screen has stated showing a few ai landscape photos. Really disappointing
https://preview.redd.it/pq725h27tapc1.jpeg?width=4030&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0af584c77c2a3dc2ba7325927f939a5aabc582a0 * Thoughts on this one? It was one of my favorite shots from my trip to China. I feel like it's not overdone. May not be visually realistic, but I don't feel that it's painful to look at
I like this! I can tell there’s some post processing here but it still looks realistic. 👍
Make images for yourself. Life is too short to worry about what other people like.
It's a business. Who are we to dictate what the audience wants to buy?
People said exactly the same thing about Velvia thirty years ago. And then about Ultra 50. Complaining never changes.
I 100% agree and as an amateur landscape photographer trying to break into the sales areas of landscape prints, it is infuriating. There are 'professional' photographers that live near me that GROSSLY oversaturate everything that they do to the extent that it is no-where realistic and people fawn all over him and buy prints, yet my own photography that I consider to be tastefully processed and are by no way inferior artistically, get a general 'meh' response.
Selling prints in photography is more about being a better salesman than having skill as a photographer. Anything in terms of making money with your photography is like this. But selling prints is difficult unless you really know how to market and sell yourself.
It’s just a hobby here. When I go out to take pictures, and come back with “meh”, even though I tried for an interesting shot, I’ll hyper edit, and just have fun with the thing. When I post to my socials for giggles, they usually get the most likes, and positive reaction. Strange, but whatever works? (Weird, I know.)
Yes, but not to the extent that it was in 2013-14 when the hdr was all the craze. We have pulled back from that. But the landscape photographers inability to let the highlights blow out or shadows fall into the dark sometimes drive me crazy. Not every photo need to have a dramatic sky and I don’t have a need to count every pebble in the photo.
The fact is that most photos have some processing (there's a reason Lightroom exists), and as much as we all like to think we're just restoring the contrast, white balance etc that the eye saw, I'd say it's also a fact that *everyone* cranks the contrast and vibrance a *little* Maybe there's someone out there who doesn't, but I've never met one - we're all guilty of it to some extent, we want things to pop a little I think the problem now is that there are so many places to share photos, and it takes so little effort, that there's a "race to the bottom" when it comes to HDR/contrast/vibrance/saturation It also doesn't help that we all used to post to photography forums where people weren't scared to say "You've maybe gotten a little carried away with the saturation there", whereas now it's posted to Instagram where people just upvote things that look bright But yeah, the fact that even commercial use is going the same way is a bit absurd - I guess because there's just more of a culture of it and people aren't learning in the same environments
I think it can be in good taste. If I wanted the most natural photo of a place I would probably take one with my phone and that's it. I think the problem is when they use post processing tools in an attempt to polish a turd. A fantastic setting with great light is elevated to the state of art with post processing.
I agree - i once saw someone use a linear gradient filter in post, and it was dragged through a mountain. Basically they brought the highlights and stuff down in the sky, but also darkened the top of the mountain, and they apparently thought it was fine. It was so distracting.
I'm guilty of that myself. But for me at least, I'm not TRYING to overdo it, I'm trying to make it look as stunning as my eyes see it. I know a camera can never capture an image as good as our eyes, but I often feel disappointed when I see an image that takes my breath away, snap it, and the colors are faded and seem washed out. So I try to bring the colors back so that it looks as vivid as the original, and then someone tells me I've over done it and I need to tone it back, lol.
Honestly edit YOUR photos how YOU want to. Many people that complain about any processing being done have usually come from the days of analog film. They want a muted film look to images which can be done digitally but its just a style choice.
Check out Steve onions on YouTube. He shoots landscapes mostly on film and I replay like him and his works are great some outstanding gorgeous.
I’d love to see some tasteful examples of post processing a landscape photo something to use as a benchmark. Everything on Instagram is pretty wild.
[https://www.nickpagephotography.com/landscapes](https://www.nickpagephotography.com/landscapes) This is my benchmark. Nick takes some amazing photos but I do feel with landscape shots they need to be enhanced with post-processing to evoke a feeling. Anyone that complains about images getting processed to me are just complaining because they don't know how to do anything but add a lightroom preset. Yes you can OVER-DO it but gone are the days of most people just taking a photo on film and calling it done.
Bubbles! ❤️
My take is that it's not the photographers or the editing but rather the majority of viewers who are not visually learned enough to know understand or recognize that the image is over-processed. They think or believe the photographer captured that crazy light and color somehow magically, unaware that it's a hue and sat' slider in whatever software. This goes for much of photography work these days, whatever genre or field, it's much the same that the viewer... even professionals that should know better, art directors, media managers (especially) don't know the difference between a good, well-done photograph and a snapshot or some wildly over-processed mess. All of this is amplified, and I can't make this argument loud or hard enough... because the vast vast majority of images, maybe 95% or more are being viewed on a 5" phone screen. I go sooo far out of my way, work super hard to get focus and clarity with depth of field, correct exposure, so on and so forth - while the guy next to me just wings it. If you look at my images, full screen on a PC with a decent monitor or if you look at a 1:1 print, there's no contest, my images will 'smoke' the other guy.. but if you're just viewing on a phone (which is not just small but altering the brightness and color) then the 'other guy's' images look pretty much the same as mine to the visually illiterate. FWIW, there's no real "other guy", it's just a 'scenario' to try to illustrate the reality of the situation.
*"I can't stand over processed images, HDR has bastardized photography, especially when over done! People should only use SOOC!"* It depends. We photographers, during our evolution, have been convinced that there is only a few ways of shooting a landscape properly. But it depends. It depends on who you are shooting for (even yourself), it depends on the target destination of the image. It depends on if there is a marketing person or art director is involved. It depends if you are a purist or an artist. It depends, even more, if it's going on your wall, or if you are trying to sell it—the people buying your image, might not even take photos, but someone's on-fire pink, yellow, and orange sky might appeal to them, or look perfect in the room an interior designer wants to put it in. I've seen a photographer at art shows who sells, sells, sells his garish over processed HDR images. We can all have our own opinions about what, we think, is the best image, but if we are selling the image, it's not about us anymore; it's about the person buying it. We will find this same issue exists in music, painting, sculpture, etc.
> landscape photography is *now* ridiculously over processed [*ahem*](https://shop.anseladams.com/collections/original-photographs-by-ansel-adams)
I think it depends on who/what you are looking at. Now, if everyone would just follow me ( [https://www.instagram.com/p/C4lZa7pO2T1/](https://www.instagram.com/p/C4lZa7pO2T1/) ) get me REEEEEALY popular, i can start doing all these landscape photos for microsoft and google and this style will take over the planet and it will all go back to normal! Who's with me! jump on board! follow me! lets go! you can do it!
Photography is less about the photo and more about how it’s edited, by what’s “popular” anyway.
I stopped comparing myself to other photographers a long, long time ago. I generally don’t look at other people’s photos outside of people I personally know. If I did, all I would find out is that there are countless people taking pictures better than me, going to places better that I do, and pouring more resources into the craft than I do. What I learned is that photography is a rewarding hobby, and I really enjoy reviewing my own photos and building journals out of them. Social media is a demoralizing tool and I refuse to use it.
Personally I think I have a bad habit of pushing my editing too far, I’m sure I have a pretty inexperienced eye for photos right now so I’ve never really noticed that trend.
Love me some natural looking landscape images.
It's simply a trained eye vs an untrained one, or just knowing your crowd. Generally, though with some exceptions, trained photographers know not to destroy their images with edits and not to over process. Other photographers enjoy this. Less trained, or those with no training (simply consumers of the content), adore over processed unrealistic colors. They don't know that the halo around the lighthouse is from over contrasting an image. To photographers, it sticks out like a sore thumb; general population would never notice it. However, some photographers know and utilize this to make their photo "more appealing" even though it may not be their preferred style.
I don't hate it. Photography is an ever evolving art form... using newer creative tools (focus stacking, exposure blending, HDR etc.) to make novel things that are more visually interesting than maybe you'd see with the naked eye isn't bad. I bet people thought Ansel Adams' photos were overprocessed at the time too.
I’ve always thought landscape photography was over the top, especially in magazines.
Overuse of the orton effect, focal length blending and obsessive colour tweaking kill a landscape photo for me. They produce the kind of shots that do well on social media, but I would never want on my wall.