According to what I've been noticing in a lot of the comments posted here on Fstoppers, there seems to be plenty of photographers who absolutely hate Photoshop. So lets have a bit of a discussion.
Technology has become part of everything in our lives. Cars get better and better. Phones have become portable and are now the size of a credit card. Speaking of credit cards, you barely even have to carry cash anymore - just swipe and be on your way. Records were replaced by tapes, which were replaced by CDs and then the iPod replaced everything. Hell, I can't remember the last time I got a written letter instead of an email. All of these technological advances have come along and made our lives better and easier with hardly any complaints. I hardly ever hear anyone complain that their entire music library fits in their pocket, or that they can now communicate across the globe in just seconds.
There's been an even greater impact in what some of us have chosen as a career path. Computers make running our businesses easier, social media makes our advertising easier, and it seems every year cameras come out that make the ones we're already using seem like paperweights. No one complains about any of these advances, but go ahead and use Photoshop, an absolutely amazing piece of software, to enhance your images and out comes an army of tin foil hat wearing purists clutching their Kodak Brownies (or at least thats how I like to imagine them).
Why is there such a problem with using software to retouch and enhance images? It was done in the darkroom with film, the "digital darkroom" is just an extension of that. Before we get into an argument over bad retouching, let's only consider good retouching for the time being. These are the results the software was designed for and not the over-processed messes that are frequently brought up in the arguments against Photoshop.
Are we on the same page now? Good.
I'll start with my take on it.
I am all for Photoshop. Before I get accused of having never shot film, relax, I started with a Mamiya 645 PRO TL, which I still own today. In college, I learned to shoot, develop, and print my own film. I still shoot and appreciate film and enjoy being very technical with my lighting. That being said, I am a Professional Commercial Photographer in a digital age and I will use ANYTHING available to create a good product. I don't live by "fix it in post" which is another accusation made by the anti-Photoshop army, but I do know when I can employ it. Let's face it some things are 110% out of our control. What's the big problem with now being able to at least fix it?
Commercial Photography is driven by perfection and it seems this perfection is what drives many against Photoshop. Let's be real for a second though. If we were to get rid of retouching for one whole year ... absolutely no retouching allowed in any advertising for an entire year, could you imagine what our world would look like? I promise sales in every industry, from cars to jewelery, to clothes, and everything in between would plummet.
In any industry, you have to adapt to changes in technology or you'll get phased out. That holds true even in Photography. With so many people competing for so few jobs you have to set yourself apart from the crowd and stay memorable to clients. Why not have some knowledge of Photoshop in your arsenal? The more you know how to do the more valuable you'll be.
It just seems so odd to me that some photographers can harbor so much hate for something that was designed to make their lives easier. It's like the firefighters' union being offered trucks and hoses and replying, "no thanks, we're good with the buckets of water we've already got."
Even today as I write this there are multiple posts on the Fstoppers Facebook page that have comments like, "Photoshopped." What does that even mean?! Of course it is! Why would you deliver anything to a client that's less than perfect? There's even a post about Annie Leibovitz's Disney portraits with a comment, "20% on set, 80% in PS", which if anyone bothered to watch the behind the scenes video they could see is untrue. Annie is known for the quality of her light. Obviously its run through Photoshop to achieve her look, but it still starts with beautifully lit images which is totally visible in the video. Sometimes it seems like a lot of these complaints come from people that are upset they can't achieve the same. Can't light like Annie and retouch like her retoucher? Then it's far easier to just hate on her and call it Photoshopped than to work on your lighting and learn the software.
Anyway, I've given you my thoughts, now I want to hear yours. I'm opening this to a full discussion in the comments below. I'm not looking to argue with anyone, let's all get along and have an adult discussion about our opinions for and against image editing software. I'll go through them and follow this post up next week with a collection of the best opinions.
I shoot film and digital. I'm a keen amateur that enjoys photography.
There's darkroom manipulation for film and Photoshop (or Lightroom or...whatever brand of software) for digital. It's one and the same. I like the challenge of getting it right in the field. It cuts down on time in the darkroom or in front of a computer.
So, to me, I don't care if it's a raised ISO, a strategically placed reflector to lighten a shadow, a clothespin to pull a shirt tight, a lick of spit to tame a wild hair, or that brush in camera raw, a masking layer, clone stamp tool, or that you moved the subject to the left in the field to eliminate that pesky telephone pole. Get the shot and get on with it!
LOL- I swore bloody blue murder that I would not get drawn in to reading the posts on this subject the last time I saw it posted.
Thanks for posting this article Mr. Link.
As a graphic designers first, photographer second, I think I have an easier time viewing an image as a completed piece of art rather than a photo thats been manipulated. There is value in shooting gorgeous photos SOC, but there is also value in knowing how to combine tools, graphics, and other elements to create something completely different. Perhaps a problem arises if a photographer claims a photo has not been re-touched when it has...but why would they? If a photographer can produce a consistent result every time, why would it matter how they got to that result? Photoshop, like disney, is what dreams are made of. Give me more photoshop! :D
So now Photographers hate Photoshop!!??
As far as I am concerned 97% of the photographers use Photoshop, oh, by the way, Lightroom is originally called PHOTOSHOP Lightroom!
And by the way, I know many, but many photographers that say that the so called amazing photo is straight from the camera, well, a photographer to show off an image straight from the camera has to shoot Jpeg, so in my opinion, the so called Photographer is not a photographer as a photographer would be shooting Raw.
I could be here all day talking about this, but I had to say something!
My name is Miguel Campos and I am a Photoshopaholic!
I am up and down with digital processing trends, but ultimately, I think it merely mirrors the various trends photography has ALWAYS seen (example: a constant shift to and from pictorialist-style to realism and back). What really needs to change is how derivative and ahistorical photography and photographers can be in this age. We need to educate ourselves and value history and vision while learning ways to express it in a less Xerox fashion. My portfolio can likely be dismantled when viewed through this lens, but I think it's an important path to push for and value. Making vision easier to achieve should be celebrated, but technique should never usurp art. And originality should be prized over compatibility.
To me, "trends" or "fads" is the worst thing about Photoshop (not that it's Photoshop's fault). As a commercial photographer, I get really tired of seeing the same look all the time. For a while it was eye melting HDR, then hyper-realism, now it is split toning. Who knows what it will be next? Some of these have more merits than others, but because of the relative ease of these techniques and the speed of the internet, they saturate the photography world. I just grow weary of them.
With film, people who didn't know how to develop film got it done at their local developer. They were all jealous of those with access to a dark room, who had knowledge of what they were doing. Even more-so of the people who knew how to retouch/composite images in the dark room. There wasn't anyone toting "darkroomed" comments because they knew it was an intricate art.
Today, people are lazier. We have a culture that thrives on instant gratification which is also too lazy to do work/learn skills for themselves. These people don't realize the amount of time that goes into learning how all the tools in Photoshop work together to create a beautiful image. They forget that the darkroom wasn't just about developing film. The more skilled photographers actually did their own dodging and burning, and also spent countless hours on their photos as we do today.
I think it's just overall ignorance of the real amount of work it takes to become a good digital developer that there are so many haters today.
If photoshop was a woman, I'd marry her.
Having that said, I believe that the use of photoshop should be used to give our photos that are already great these touches to make them as close as possible to perfection.
So yes, I love photoshop, I love it.
I have to say that I don't like the whole not having a physical copy thing. Adobe could raise the price at any time and the people who have the creative cloud will be at their mercy.
The word Photoshop is synonymous to any form of digital editing process by use of software. Weather Photoshop, Corel, Gimp or whatever is used, when you alter an image people will say it's Photoshopped. My first 35mm camera was a Mamiya/Sekor. I was self taught and did B/W out of my bathroom. I dodged and burned, adjusted exposure even added and removed parts. So what is the difference between a physical darkroom and a digital darkroom, the end result is basically the same. My favorite photographer is Jerry Uelsmann http://www.uelsmann.net/. In todays world he would be considered a Photoshopper, but his work is all film and a physical darkroom. The thing that does upset me in the use of photoshop is marketing an item for sale that falsely represents what is actually sold. What I like to call..."Bait and Switch"
if you can tell a photo is photoshopped, I don't think you can honestly call it a photo. It's art. it's a visual artistic expression, but it isn't a photo anymore. if you used photoshop to clean an image up just a tad, and 'perfect' it, it still looks like a photo, and most people can't tell it's been worked over... doesn't bother me one way or another, but I do understand why the distinction is important...
I believe in getting it right in camera but if you fix one detail in camera, it's lost forever. Photoshop is a helper or i should say a bigg helper besides people lean more towards the unreal than the real so why complaint? lol
I like Photoshop for things that are impossible to remove in reality. Such as a nice picture I took, looked great but the composition was marred by power lines in the skyline of the picture. Boom! Photoshop to the rescue. I was able to get the shot I wanted with the real world limitations of the location. Also good for security because I don't want to post other people's license plates online when a car is in a shot.
There are things I like about PS, (efficiency, spectacular range of possibilities) but it's just a tool. And as a tool, it's price has to be considered : in France, where I live, it's almost 50% above the US price... Come on !!!
And also : PS is STILL NOT taking advantage of multicore processors !!! It's barely faster on my 2012 Speedy multicore computer than it was on my 2004 3Ghz Pentium 4 PC. On fast core is enough, right ? And now only a few filters are GPU accelerated, but how many of them ? Iris / lens blur ? Liquify ? That's it ??
What's the use ow owning a 12 core configuration then ? Even 8 cores ? Who said 6 ? 4 ??? Yeah, two is plenty... All we need.
Right...
And I don't even use PS to get creative, I need it to perform batch processing, handle large files, apply simple filters on large images, etc. I could really use a multicore-optimized photoshop...
And many of us could.
Adobe, are you listening ?
Thanks !
The "capture" aspect of photography is about collecting as much data as possible from the beginning. You can only do so much in camera..exposure, dof, shutter speed. Editing is absolutely necessary to create tonal & contrast transitions with in the image. I shoot 4x5 and 5x7 film and edit digitally. Photoshop is the only program that can handle drum scanned files.
We use Photoshop almost exclusively, Weather its a tweak to the white balance or clone stamping blemishes, it is used. We strive to get images right in camera to cut down on editing time, but cannot imagine photography without this great tool. I agree it has opened up the door to those, who know nothing of the art, and allow them to think they make great images with a bought action. We like and will continue to use Photoshop, and for those that aren't fans of CC, we still run older versions of Ps and Lr, and they work flawlessly. Why upgrade when you already have the tools, software is paid for?? Let them continue to charge what they want, unless they come up with something that makes retouching easier, than it is right now, we will stick with what we have.
Actually, after seeing an old time retoucher (pre-digital) using a hot air gun to "liquify" an image, I'm all for photoshop...
PS is a tool, and if you know how to use it you can get amazing results. If we used filters and hot air and masks to dodge and burn in the old days, what's the problem with PS?
Even over processed images can be good, if it's your style.
Let's all stop using Photoshop... and NO MORE special-FX in movies! and uh... NO MORE audio mastering... -_-'
I don't think photoshop is here to make our work easier... As a matter of fact it probably makes it even harder (depends on how u use it though). There are thing's you can do in photoshop which cannot be done without it. Photoshop is used to make our images better, and that is exactly what i use it for.
And ok it's expensive indeed... But the bright side of that is that the amateur photographer probably doesn't have it. In my opinion they are asking the right price for a good professional product.
People who can't afford photoshop get insecure about their own pictures when they see a great image and so their first reaction is.. It's photoshopped, with a negative tone to it...
And of course there are purist people who like to keep things true and that's great, i respect that because we need that kind of photography as well.
But everybody please... stop the b*ching about photoshop.. I've been using photoshop for 5 years now and i'm pretty skilled at it but i still don't know everything there is to know about it. And that's what i love about this program.
<3 Photoshop <3 Lightroom <3 Capture One
Don't worry about my brownie.
I'll just spray you in the face with some farmer's reducer and hammer you into the ground with my 4x5 on the big sturdy bogen.
Does photoshop take hours and hours to master? Is it an art in itself? Yes and yes.
My personal reasons for not being a fan of it are varied.
I personally can't stand sitting in front of a computer for hours and hours at a time, when I can take maybe one to get most everything in camera with some more patience. It's not photography.
It's being an editor and retoucher. Do I know how to do some clean and basic retouching and editing? Absolutely, and that is necessary, but I call myself a photographer. That's my CRAFT. People can gripe and moan about photoshop as a craft, but I don't buy it. I started out in the digital sphere. I was so enamored and up to date with all the photoshop tricks, the new gear, blah blah blah.
Then I got into the darkroom and I discovered a true craft. Digital gets more and more blah with every hour I spend in the darkroom printing, or being done with a digital scan once I've cleaned all the dust. I spent a few years shooting digital and I got a little better, but when I only had twelve shots per roll or having to go through this multi step
Process before I could even take just ONE photo with a field camera, my work got a lot better a lot faster.
For far too many people it's a crutch.
It ends up making a lot of people lazy. It also ends up making decent pictures look awful because someone just found this new little tool in the program, or some kind of filter. At the end of the day, it's the goofy ass people who don't know how to use the tool that makes it such a sore, but if it weren't what it was, they'd never have these nutty notions that it ALWAYS works and makes EVERYTHING look better.
And in regard to having worked with film and blah blah, it doesn't hold too much weight. I see people who have two or three years of experience in the darkroom and they're still pretty bad. Their eyes are bad, they're technique is bad, etc etc.
I use lightroom because I need to make money, but very seldom do I sit there with photoshop, the faux craft that is not photography, not even a substantial percentage of just real photography.
My time is better spent actually marking with light.
Sound's like your time is spent making useless comments on FStoppers, Good job bro! The staff hates you. Don't forget tell us more about how awesome your 4x5 is on the next post too.
hmm do photographer hate photoshop because they cant afford it? do they hate it because they cant replicate the same image that their hating on? hmm
As a graphic designer/creative director I've had my fair share of exposure to situations the "require" photoshop to even come close to a credible image. Things like composites for example can't really happen without it. I live in a rather small town with absolutely no redeeming features at all, yet I have to "sex up" product images. I had a buddy send me some shots of a Nike recycled gym that was made entirely out of recycled nike products. Blacked out everything even the bleachers. I'm shooting basket ball gear. I shoot a player in the product in studio. Composite the photos and deliver to my client. "Amazeballs!!" (client's quote not mine). Mind blown. Photoshop allows me to over deliver on or below budget.
I will agree there are times where people take things to far. I say to those people, good for you. Apparently you have a market that looks/asks for that and you're pretty good at. Who am I to judge you when I'm putting teen age boys from Kansas in gyms in Los Angeles? All I have to say is thank goodness there aren't any PS Police. Hell I kinda wish there were, then we may actually have some sort of regulation as photographers. That may be scarier though.
To me, Lightroom has effectively become "the Photoshop" for photographers, I now use it for 80% or more of my post work. If you can't do it from the camera, Lightroom should have you pretty well covered. My work professionally is almost always editorial, so any time I bring something into Photoshop—whether my own or someone else's photos—it's typically an effort to make the image work for a layout (i.e. adding more sky or ground to accommodate headline/copy, maybe clean up some minor background objects/debris, etc.). I'm on staff and regularly sent portfolios from other photographers looking for freelance opportunities. While anyone who has worked with us knows better, there are a lot of shooters who I see are leaning way too heavily on Photoshop to manipulate their work, and while it's skilled, it's deceiving, and in the professional world it approaches and can exceed plagiarism.
I find that I and most photographers can/should be able to work perfectly with just Lightroom. The program is made for photographers whereas Photoshop is made with graphic artists/designers in mind. There are a few features in Photoshop that are non-tainting, for example changing color modes for printing services. However if you're spending more than 25% or so of your editing time in Photoshop, is your artistic talent really photography? Or is it something else? Not to say that it's not art, it's just not photography either.
Bottom line: decide what you want to do, decide how you want to do, master the tools that work with your aesthetic....
the greatest sin in photography these days is not the use, abuse or overuse of photoshop, it is people defining and judging the entire field by their own aesthetics. it is disrespectful and rude.
I try to appreciate the artistry, talent and skill in a wide range of work, whether or not it appeals to me. I would never be so arrogant as to condemn it solely because the photographer works in a manner or with tools I prefer not to.
You are being mistaken. Photographers absolutely love Photoshop. They just hate new cloud format.
... think you missed the point.... but the cloud format is definitely another point of contention
Photoshop is an image processing TOOL! How can you hate a tool??
You can say bleaching chemicals are not my taste (in negative film world, but you can't hate it. It's just about your style and taste. You can't also say I hate bleaching because there are people who overuse it while you can say I hate those photos. That's not a very wise statement.
Personally, I am in love with Photoshop and Illustrator. I am mostly a self-educated artist, and digital art has been the easy and free lab for me to help me get started. Through Photoshop I've learned things that would take me much longer in a darkroom.
These are my ART TOOLS. I CREATE with them. How can you hate your brush or paints or canvas,....?? If you can't use them professionally, just take some courses, instead of nagging on them
To be honest, I only use Lightroom and even then, when I do I don't go crazy on it. Photoshop though to me is still hieroglyphs. I don't know how to use it at all, but it is a necessary tool. At least have the knowledge to use such a worldwide standard today. Will plan on taking courses this year to learn how to use it, and use it efficiently when the time comes.
To be honest, Lightroom is crude. As a cataloging app I suppose it's OK, but as an adjustment tool it's crude. Crude brushes, crude masking, no levels, a postage stamp sized curves box, and tug-o-war adjustment parameters. Yes, you should learn Photoshop.
Oh I agree, it's crude, it's like a sample program to give you a taste of what the other programs can give you which is far more. Still trying to find out differences between Adobe Photoshop and Elements what they are.
There is nothing wrong with using Photoshop..The problem with Photoshop is the person using it..SIMPLE!..You cant use Photoshop to polish a turd you want a bet? Iv'e polished a turd with Photoshop i added gold glitter to it smooth out the rough edges enhance the colour sharpen it a bit and now looks like a million dollar turd compare to the original turd.i rather have a pretty looking turd than an ugly turd.
What annoys me is not photoshopping, but the photographers who gets a camera for christmas, and come new years eve they've gotten the idea that they desperately needs Photoshop. No, you don't need Photoshop - learn how to use your camera beforehand. Photoshop is an excellent tool, and all of my images are being processed in it at one point or another. But the mentality of "I'll fix it in post" is 90% of the times just an excuse for being lazy at the time of capture.
Another thing that annoys me is, as is mentioned in the article, the "purists" and the whole trend of posting images that are "untouched". If you're completely satisfied with your untouched image: go ahead and post it online! But your end product is your end product, no matter how much or how little retouched it is. Your posted image is your advertisement, and an unfinished product is not the best way to advertise for yourself.
The idiots who think everything is photoshopped are the same people who go around trying to present their photography portfolios to clients via their instagram accounts. You know those people with no actual knowledge of wtf is really going on, but spew bullshit with such confidence the average-joe believes them. Yeah those Photography-Experts who learned everything they know about photography on Facebook Comment sections of fan pages. Them.
Personally i do as much in cam and then do a bit of post in Lightroom, Photoshop is for only cloning the bits i cant do in Lightroom. It has its place, i think where most photographers i know get annoyed with it, is the abuse.
For me i hear and read alot of "well, i didnt get the photo but never mind, i'll photoshop it". Its becoming more about the "fix" and less about actually learning how to use your camera or taking the time to get the shot. This particularly bugs me on nature photography "well, nature didnt deliver, and the landscape doesnt actually look like that-never mind i'll layer a later image and edit out that bit of land"
If you don't like photoshop, don't use it. If you don't like images that look perfect, that's fine. Some forms of photography you can't avoid it. In others, you should, or maybe even have to.
To all you short sighted people that think Adobe has you by the balls:
#1 i highly doubt they will raise the price. They didn't just wake up one morning and decide that $50/month seems like a fair price. If you even have a half a clue about a concept called 'market research' you will know that Adobe spent a considerable amount of time $$ and resources coming up with that # and it ain't changing too fast.
#2 Even if they did raise the price to a (gasp) $100/month. There is simple term called 'cost of doing business'. If you don't know what that is, or if you can't afford an extra few $$ a month, than you have MUCH bigger issues to worry about... Maybe your money would be wiser invested in some business courses instead...
"Sometimes it seems like a lot of these complaints come from people that are upset they can’t achieve the same"
thats the truth!
Fear is usually the underlying motive for any negative reaction to something new. I find the photographers most critical of Photoshop are the ones who don't know how to use it well and couldn't be bothered learning. Down deep they're terrified they'll be left behind (and they're probably right) so they lash out at the ones leaving them behind.
I am guessing, and I feel a little bit this way as well, that most people who left negative Photoshop comments regarding the Annie Leibovitz's post mentioned above is the perception that if you are that famous, that well regarded, have a massive budget, a huge team of professionals and have done everything humanly possible to have a successful shoot that you wouldn't need to heavily retouch the final image. I imagine that if the art director had handed Annie a layout for the Disney movie "Dumbo" and she need to photograph an elephant flying over head, that the expectation to get it right in camera would be much less and that foul cries of retouching wouldn't be that loud.
I spent the first 16 years of my commercial photography career shooting film and the last 13 years shooting digital. There isn't one day during those decades when I wouldn't tape, staple, cut and paste, hold the camera upside down, over process, under process, shoot at 3:00am or do anything else that wasn't illegal to get the highest quality for my client.
Photoshop is the darkroom of the digital process. My take: pressing the shutter button is the first step. Photoshop the second. Printing the third. It's as ridiculous to "hate" Photoshop as it would be to "hate" the things that used to go on in the photochemical darkroom — and still does in some esoteric quarters. Somehow I think Ansel Adams would have loved Photoshop.
We had just over 100 years to turn out the masters and artists of filmic photography. Now we have at least another 100 to turn out the masters and artists of digital photography. And they're coming now, thick and fast!
In times of digital photography post production becomes more and more important. To get the best result at the end it doesn't matter how you make it to the goal. People who don't like photoshop and post production at all, will miss a great opportunity to get much more out of their images. Photoshop is a possibility to enhance your images and get the best result out of it. Why then should we don't make use of this possibility.
Let's face it, we all have our preferences! First of all though I think this subject should be split - the whole Adobe corporate thing, the software itself, and truth.
1. The Adobe corporate thing - they've done business the way they have; is it good or bad? Whichever it is we have what we have because of it.
2. Photoshop! Is the issue REALLY to do with it? It seems to me more about opinions on how things should be done. We have our preferences, likes and dislikes, loves and hates, opinions on what's right and wrong...and that's an argument that will never go away! Because we all like different things for different reasons. The point is this: photography is an art form. Some people love pop-art and others hate it. There are lovers of oils, watercolours, pastels, cubism, Turner, collages...and it goes on. There are those who hate them too. Does it make them wrong? Is someone's interpretation wrong because others don't like it? If someone creates an overproduced HDR of a turd and loves it, does a different opinion make it wrong?
3. Truth. Even the whole 'truth' thing becomes irrelevant if the purpose of an image was to manipulate reality. I would agree it's wrong to sell something as truth/reality when actually it isn't - but actually who is doing that? Even in fashion! They may portray an ideal but we choose whether or not we buy into that. I don't look at a picture and think that if I buy that watch I will magically get a tan and a six-pack! I would personally say that no art form can really display truth - it can only give an interpretation or perspective or opinion of it. It can't change truth, only influence the way others perceive it...and then, only if the viewer allows it.
So, just my thoughts on it. :)
WOW!!! I have my Mamiya 645 too! I sold the lens and filled the body with sand...my clients think it is a very cool incense holder....Now it keeps my studio smelling great....but I digress, Look! if you want your work to look like a JPG that came right out of he camera? Go for it!...ALL of our work is shot raw(of course) and we took a little time to make some personal presets in Lightroom. This takes less that 5 minutes to give my work an enhanced and amazing boost. The only one who knows? Is me.... The client thinks I have a magic camera, and that the way we should create that magic in the studio.
Catch the edge of the wave! Ride it until everyone in your area copy you...THEN! go back out into the deep water and ride the next wave , it may be a good one or maybe full of nothing...Go get a new wave.
Not using photoshop is like a mechanic not using power tools. Sure you can do a lot of things without them, but why not use the tools if you have them.
Let me ask a simple question to all the Ps-haters : Do you sort out the pics you have been taking during vacation ? Did you, i.e, already erased a pic just because you could see a sick homeless child begging just between you and the gorgeous statue ? Cause if you did that, then you manipulated the reality, just as strong as if you would Stamp-out the child and keep the photo. Think about that ! Where is "truth" ?
GIGO = Garbage In, Garbage Out
Scenarios:
Unskilled Shooter + Unskilled PS = Garbage
Unskilled Shooter + Skilled PS = Maybe/Probably Garbage
Skilled Shooter + Unskilled PS = Maybe Garbage/Maybe Golden
Skilled Shooter + Skilled PS = Golden
At this time, digital photography has created a huge dichotomy. On one side you have mediocrity, whereby every Joe and Jane now has a digital capture device and thinks they're a seasoned shooter. Over-baked HDR comes to mind! Then there's seasoned shooters who've adapted and utilized PS to create amazing visual art. I marvel at the imaginative work of others like Erik Johansson: http://www.adobe.com/products/creativecloud/photography.html#contentbody...
If someone hates PS, I have 2 words - Ansel Adams! Because I'd bet most of these people hating it probably loved his work, which was at least the darkroom equivalent of LR / ACR. He didn't darkroom photomontage like Jerry Uelsmann, but tonally his images were far from SOOC. The whole attitude of getting it right in-camera is partially correct, but the camera isn't capable of always handling the DR of a scene, so it's impossible to get it fully captured in-camera without digital post-production. Again, think AA overexposing and under-developing his film, and burning & dodging the print.
If you shoot RAW (and I sure hope you do) then there's no way to avoid some form of digital imaging post-production. The files have to be processed. You don't need to use PS and all of its tools, but you obviously have more potential opportunities at your disposal if you do. Due to time and budget constraints, most commercial projects require digital capture over analog. PS is just another stage of the workflow.
I've been shooting for 40 years, doing digital imaging/PS for 20 years, and all digital capture for 11.5 years. I don't miss film, certainly don't miss B&W darkroom, and I don't ever want to do my own film scanning again, or pay to have new images drum scanned! Nowadays I use LR 95% and PS 5%. www.johnmaclean.com
I don't hate Photoshop, I just hate Creative Cloud.
Honestly, let the cavemen, oh sorry, purists complain about something being photoshopped. My clients don't care what process is used to achieve a final look, they only care about what that product looks like.
Most every photographer calls their best photograph their "Moonrise shot", after Ansel Adams' super-famous landscape shot. When you read Ansel Adams' notes about what went into creating that image, you find out that a TON of darkroom manipulation went into making the finished product as dramatic as it is. Of course Mr. Adams had great skills in getting things right in-camera, but I believe that were he alive today, he would put this conversation to rest by saying that Photoshop is just another means to creating an expressive and dramatic work of art. I think it's important, especially in journalism, for photography to be honest in representing the facts, but we all know that photos do not always show only what our eyes see, but they often include distractions that are best left out of the photo in order to tell the story. When you really get down to it, all art is storytelling, and sometime in storytelling you leave out some details and ruminate on or accentuate other details to add more drama and impact to the story. Tools like Photoshop just do visually what any storyteller does in his/her mind when that one was there, so then others can see the story they saw.
I think people are too distracted by how other people make their images. The tools are not a secret.