(Rant) On Manipulating Photos — The Beginning
I’ll get this article as a series to record whether I like editing photos ‘destructively’ over the course of my photography journey.
I’m a firm believer of ‘vanilla editing’, that is editing a photo as a whole, ensuring its authenticity and imperfections as a defining trait of my end result. You know, the part when it’s not as overly extravagant like those in advertisement banners, magazine covers, and YouTube video thumbnails.
Looking back to my last rant about Instagram posts, I too find overly-edited photos to be… for the lack of a better word, disgusting. Too much clarity, color saturation, and overall looks too surreal for something captured straight-up from reality. I do understand that it is ‘stylistic choice’ but I draw a strict line between ‘interpreting what we see in reality’ and ‘manipulating what we see in reality’.
I remember the first time I read an encyclopedia about journalism sometime when I was still in college, and found about even slightly manipulating photos is a violation against ethics of journalism. Note: if the photos are for journalistic purposes only. Otherwise, one is permitted to edit, and therefore manipulate, their photos as they wish.
It is one of my main goals to capture photos that shows reality as close as it is, but over the years I’ve included stylistic choices to my workflow, including clarity, light intensity, and color balance. That, following the previous paragraph, is a violation, esp. knowing that I ‘interpret what I see in reality’.
Well, that’s at least what I understand from ‘ethical journalism’, and I’m no journalist.
Over the years, I’ve getting lots and lots of criticism and even complaints that summed up that people don’t like my end results: my portraits could be so bland in color or contrast, the composition is off, and the lack of ‘vibes’ they often see in other photo works all over the Internet (for reference, I compared my works to Steve McCurry’s portfolio, at the time he still used the Kodachrome film, giving that signature looks and consistency).
After years dabbling with Adobe Photoshop and Affinity Photo in editing photos, I got to try Capture One Pro in 2024, as I seek better apps that may handle batch editing and not as consumer-unfriendly as Adobe CC subscription method (I’ll try Lightroom sometime in the future). Capture One Pro provided an editing experience I never knew I’ll do and I love it.
After days trying and getting results, I start to see if on some — or most — scenarios, I may need to ‘destructively’ edit my photos, otherwise even I will be repulsed to see it. However, this brought a melancholy to my heart as I also devote myself to capture reality as close at it is to the actual thing, so that I’m not going with magazine cover-route or the beauty standards that exist among us.
Some of Capture One Pro’s feature are game-changers, really; I like how it edits skin tone and masking features that uses layer (if I can recall, layered editing only exist in JPEG editing when it’s on Photoshop or Photo) and overall a unique handling on exposure and color editing, though it’s quite aggressive on exposure and noise restoration, as it just doesn’t get ‘it’.
It was a nice experience. I’ll look forward to what Capture One Pro has to offer in the future.
Let’s see if my mind changes.
