Digital Imaging (Part III)

The Digital Darkroom (Part I)

The above image was made on 35mm film then scaned into a digital image 

from the negative and finally post processed in Lightroom 5 to correct the

deterioration that is comon with film, now the photo looks closer to the 

original image on the day it was shot. 

Photoshopped, an ugly word to some but an art to others. No matter what your take is on seeing a fake image created in Photoshop by Adobe software. You should probably get use to it because these kind of images are here to stay. One thing for sure, Photoshop is a much needed program.

In the earlier days of film, to display an image on photo paper the film had to undergo a process of chemicals and exposure to light. This process could be done in a lab or at home, in a Darkroom.

Long gone are the days of those red lights and the stench of chemicals that could be detected around the whole block. Not to mention the creeps and horror films that came along with them.

Why do we need Photoshop? Well that is not a short answer, but I’ll try to make it simple. If you read Part I then you know a little about how the image is made. Once the image has been captured then before we can sell it or put it out for display it needs to undergo a processing stage to produce an image that is pleasing to the eye. Most iPhones, and cell phones have software in them to aid in this process, however it is minimal and anything more than the small image that these camera’s tend to capture will become distorted the larger the image is made.

 credit Johnny Tores 

This image was shot and processed from an iPhone, notice the lack of detail.

Also pay attention to the fake look compared to the other two images in this 

post, all things are not created equal.

 photographed by Brad Tucker, Kevin Queen post processing

This image was shot digital and post processed in Lightroom 5 to give an vignetting effect, and ajust a change to the 

exposure to allow a washed out aging look. Friday we'll discuss how this is possible without changing the image. Because this image wasn't "photoshopped" you would never know if I hadn't told you.

While there are many software options for the post processing of digital images, I want to take a look at two. Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom by the same company. While the same each have a drastic different approach to the way an image can be post processed.

Tomorrow I will compare the two programs and Friday I will talk about the way an image is post processed in Lightroom and why doing this isn’t considered cheating or creating a fake image. That answer can be found in the life of Ansell Adams long before digital imaging.