Photo Manipulation

I always insisted I was a “purist” with film photography. I never wanted to do any photo manipulation, enhancing, or even cropping in most cases. Whatever Kodak or Fuji delivered was what I accepted. Yet with digital, I’m slowly beginning to experiment with image modifications.

For example, the color of light is very blue in open shade – is it wrong to remove some of that blue with a computer to make the scene look as I “saw” it? Likewise, in deep shadows, I want an image that looks like it’s in deep shadow – is it OK to darken/modify an image to convey that impression?

I sure don’t have an answer. Here are two examples from the last couple of days. The top image of each pair is the original; the lower image shows my modifications. I'm definitely a babe-in-the-woods so far with image modification.

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