Cool Picture, But It’s Photoshopped
My battle against trolls to convince them my photo was legit
I’m sitting in Seattle right now outside a coffee shop dreaming up all the things I could be doing with my time right now, and I’m overwhelmed. Getting back from over half a year of Central and South American adventures leaves me feeling that the old familiar surroundings of home are a bit lackluster. That being said, I am really excited to have more time to edit through pictures and get some writing done to supplement my images.
I’ll get the ball rolling by looking at one of the my most popular images of 2015 that was published by Nat Geo earlier this year. In particular, I’d like to address the persistent doubts about the veracity of my photograph of Volcano Fuego erupting (below).
Seeing Is (Not Always) Believing!
Trolls and naysayers emerged in numbers after the image trended on Reddit. I was accused of aggressive Photoshopping.
Negative comments will weigh you down more than any compliment will ever bring you up. Amongst the hundreds of comments on the image, really only a few pointed the finger. But a few was all it took.
This one stood out.
“Just to be clear, this isn’t what was actually seen. It has been heavily edited.”
The first thing that should have gone through my head when reading those comments should have been flattery. Let’s be honest, the fact that someone cannot believe that a photo could exist like the one you took, is pretty cool.
Instead, I got defensive. I’m not the kind of person that screams back at an accusation (that’s what it felt like), but I will step back and say what really happened. Specifically, here’s one of my responses on Reddit:
“Not really. Very minimal editing had to be done. I shot this in RAW with color saturation low so it doesn’t clip my colors. The exposure was (luckily) right on, so I just had to bump the highlights a touch and pull the blue from the sky back in. The moonlight really helped light the smoke too, so I didn’t need to edit that to be brighter. Super lucky with this image. It was just as we saw it.”
I pretty much wrote that entire response with my jaw clenched down. Not that I was mad, but it was so heart-wrenching that someone would dare try and take away a real moment that had happened to me. That comment was an attempt at claiming a unique moment in time to which I was witness. I think that’s why hearing someone claim “Photoshop” upset me so much.
To be given the opportunity to photograph the world as I see and feel it has been a blessing to me in ways that I struggle to describe. However, through all of my traveling, writing, and image capturing, I’m able to understand a bit more of what it has done for me. Photography has created my reality.
The Actual Processing
For those of you actually interested in how “Photoshopped” this image is. The left image is taken in RAW format and is a direct export from RAW to JPG via Lightroom. This is exactly as my Nikon Df captured the volcano. If I had been shooting in JPG, the out of camera image would actually look much closer to the final image. RAW format tends to render color and black and whites much more desaturated and flatter than JPG in order to preserve a wider dynamic range for final edit and retouch. The extent of this image editing was pulling the highlights to an appropriate level, brightening the image a touch (I always underexpose a little when possible), and giving life back to the color that was lost by RAW capture.
Oh, and for you super nerds out there, this was shot on a Nikon Df, Zeiss 21mm @ f/2.8, ISO 1600, 15s, on my trusty Gitzo traveler tripod.
Originally published at Andy Shepard
Thanks so much for taking some time to read about me and my work. Please make sure you check my work out on Instagram, 500PX, and Facebook for more travel and adventure pictures!
