Photoshop or Traditional Darkroom...

I see people write when they post a photo that it isn't Photoshopped. Well, I use Photoshop on most of my photos because I want them to be the best presentation they can be.

I was a traditional darkroom photographer. I have spent thousands of hours in a dark small room with the smell of developing chemicals, which one day someone is going to say they caused cancer, developing negatives and then printing them. What most people don't know is from the beginning most photographers found ways to make their photos look better by way of darkroom magic. If a negative wasn't quite what you were after and with a negative you can't go back and retake it if it was a one of a kind photo, you would dodge, burn or many other things to create that perfect print from an imperfect negative.

Well, I've got news for you working with Photoshop is the same as working on a negative in a darkroom to fix what was not the perfect negative to begin with. I take thousands of photos and not all come out the way I want them to nor do most photographers come up with that perfect photo the first time. The tricks we once used in the darkroom now you can do and much more within Photoshop.

When you have a bad exposure do you just delete it? I don't. I work on it in Photoshop and most times use a plugin called Colorwasher or Focalblade which a friend of mine developed. I got to beta test both and his newer one called B/W Styler which can covert color to black and white and much more than just that. I don't delete any photo, I save everyone. I will see what I can do with the ones you would delete and surprise they can be saved many times.

So saying with disgust or writing Photoshop like it is a dirty word isn't called for in my humble opinion. Photoshop is like any other tool, just that a tool for the artist/photographer to create that which he or she was trying for to begin with when they took that photo. I have posted many photos that I would say most would never know were worked on within Photoshop. All I did was correct the exposure many times to get that which I was trying for from the beginning. Was I cheating? Not in my mind was I cheating only fixing what I couldn't get from the original shot.

So don't be so disdainful of Photoshopped photographs. They are only the modern way of fixing a bad negative that we used to have to work hours on and waste so much paper in the darkroom to create that perfect shot. It is just a tool, nothing more and used in the right hands it can show you things you never would have seen before.

I've been using Photoshop since version 5.0 and have loved every minute of learning what I can do within it working on my imperfect digital photos to bring you the beautiful world I see. If you are so afraid that you will see something terrible then don't look at my work for I will continue to use Photoshop to correct my imperfect talent and bring out what I was trying to with my camera.

Out of the over 34,000 photos I have taken you see on Gather only a few hundred of them. If you look at the National Geographic Magazine do you realize just how many photos their photographers take to bring you those few great shots? They take thousands just for one article in their magazine and you see the few best shots they came up with out of those thousands. And they don't hesitate to correct for bad exposures and with digital now you can even correct for out of focus shots with Photoshop and the plugins I have mentioned above.

Traditional darkroom, I loved working in there those many nights. Even the frustrating nights when nothing seemed to come out as I wanted it. But I will take Photoshop over the traditional darkroom every day and any day. I can do more in a few minutes than I could do in weeks in a darkroom. I can correct exposure, fix highlights, you name it and it can be fixed in Photoshop where the traditional darkroom would fail. Sure I would love to have my own darkroom again but only to do black and white developing and then would scan in the negative onto my computer to work in Photoshop on it and print it with my designjet printer.

I'm spoiled. I admit it. I can take my photo and with PS do so much more with it than I once could in my many experiments in the old darkroom I had years back. You can look down your nose at Photoshop and say it is cheating. Not me, I'll keep it and love every minute of working with it and what I can do with it.

If you want to be a "Purist" then go ahead. There is room for both in my book. I've worked in darkrooms way too many nights to want to go back to that full time ever again. Just don't look down your nose at me for using Photoshop, I know the tricks used in the traditional darkroom that took hours to achieve what I can do in Photoshop in seconds.

The old darkroom was a tool, so is Photoshop. It isn't the means it is the finished product that I look for in my work. Or are you letting the professional lab do your work for you? I do my own work, from taking the photo to the finished print.

Hey it takes all kinds, which is what makes the world so great. Go out and take some great photos today!