To Photoshop or Not??

[Benson_Media]

Ok, so we get a lot of models who think we just want to make em look stoopid and ugly, but like other producers there are times when we do have to open up a can of Photoshop on a girl's ass!

Personally I'm not a great fan of the airbrush etc but this week's feature is all about treating your pet to a bit of body mod so we re-worked a few pics.

[img]http://www.petgirls.com/img/preview.jpg[/img]

[SpunkySam]

Nice photoshop work, i think it suits the style of your site.

Personally ive always tried to avoid photoshopping because ive always worked in the amateur genre and ive found realism is key.

[TT4u2e]

To photoshop or not is a difficult question. We never use to but now always do. The kodak airbrush filter set around 50%. Set up an action and run as a batch takes little affect in photoshop.

[MelodyChase]

I think after looks better, some times us girls need a bit of help and no matter how hard you try unless your ubber slim some positions do give you a bit of a bump in the wrong place, so hell yeah smooth it out and we feel miles better about the shot, also you can relax a bit more and throw yourself into a shoot if ur not consciously thinking about if you have a bit of a wobbly tummy etc etc...

Thats purely my thoughts, im just learning photoshop, ive been doing a college course 1 night a week since september and absolutley loving it, no where near professional photoshopper but im aiming to get there lol.

Melodyx

[Daz Savage]

The bloody rows I've had about this subject.
Basically if it's your genre or your customers desire/need to have reality or filters then that's what you do.
The above image shows what can be achieved when the software is used well.

[M_IMAGE]

Some interesting thoughts on the user of Photoshop; as a photographer I regard it as an essential part of the post shoot workflow. It allows you to correct a massive amount of the image, without changing the ?image? such as white light balance and colour correction, exposure, clarity, shadow/highlight balance and contrast to name a few.

May be one deciding factor is do you shoot in RAW or .jpeg?

Then you can start to look at image manipulation ? as in the example above; then cropping and rotating plus, plus, plus ????. the list goes on forever, not least of which is to prepare images for low res web/screen output rather than higher quality print output.

As I said interesting comments but all our images get ?photoshopped? as some level and Photoshop is definitely more than image manipulation software, think of it as a Digital Darkroom.

[Benson_Media]

Well I generally use Photoshop as a kind of virtual plastic surgery and just modify anything that could be modified in reality - such as makeup, lighting and facial appearance. Or if a model hasn't turned up with makeup, ten pounds over weight or wearing an attractive rash she forgot to mention...

[myson]

Nowt wrong with using Photoshop but I would say that it shouldn't be used as a replacement for "getting it right in camera" to start with. It can of course be used to "rescue" a photo that might otherwise have to be deleted.

The "purists" seem to despise Photoshop but they also tend to forget that photographers have been "messing about" with photographs (dodging, burning, etc, etc) since the art was developed (excuse pun) a couple hundred years or so ago. They've just been doing it in the darkroom until digital came in a few years ago. In my opinion, a photograph is an image that the photographer wishes to produce which may not necessarily be an acurate and factual record of what is physically there.

Photoshop is good if you want to produce an image that would be too expensive, very difficult or downright impossible in the real word (e.g. a group of girls naked at the North Pole !grin!).

Admittedly, overuse of Photoshop might not always be a good thing. For example, it can make a persons skin look very plastic (like a shop window dummy) but used in moderation it can improve photos no end. It's a case of learning that moderation (something I'm still learning !laugh!).

That's my 2 pennyworth anyway, others may disagree.

Myson
!oldie!

[Daz Savage]

The opinions here see to be converging - not surprising since we're all coming from a similar standpoint. Filters are good so long as they don't make your work too surreal - I mean who wants their models to look like they're coated in wax eh? (Look out for waxcoateddummygirls.com from Bensonmedia !grin! )
I like the point made by Myson about using it to create the difficult/impossible shots. Dare we anticipate nude2cold.com in the near future? !grin!

Daz.
In the words of Tony Hancock. "I don't take snaps, I paint with light."

[nikonman]

In the old days when togs used to work in darkroom you would expect to do dodging and burning in ect. on the photographs, so i see no difference in using Photoshop or a equivalent product.