The post processing dilemma .

A R G E N T U M said

I think you'll find that's down to the MUA, not Photoshop.  I wonder how many people get confused between the two?

ClickMore 📷 said

Another "It's not fair" FPI post. Just let it be. You can't change what has happened. Just forget the FPI scenario and get on with what you love to photograph. If I get a positive comment on an image it is so much more significant than the FPI logarithm automation. If you get your 24 hours of FPI fame, so be it. Does it make you a better photographer/model? Or does it just massage your ego. All these people who have to champion themselves by posting about their xxxth FPI, what does it prove? Chill out and enjoy your photography/modelling and be happy with the improvement in your images. It was a couple of years before I realised FPIs existed and I had some. I just want to take photographs that I and maybe others enjoy rather than chase FPIs.

What do you mean by this? Selection is a manual process, there is no algorithm or automation involved at all other than the order in which fpi's drop

Wondrous said

Art Acumen hi Art acumen you could be viewed as a usual suspect in objecting , perhaps you are just disappointed in yourself that your photography is not recognised and that's understandable.

There are great examples on the FPI page of photography that is not edited over the top but just fine and this idea of there being an FPI aesthetic is not provable because various different photographers and creatives of different styles have been recognised. Perhaps less on the art sector though.

Edited by Wondrous

Hey Wondrous...  It isn't my post, and I don't recall objecting or expressing any disappointment about anything.  What I did mention, with the usual tongue in cheek aplomb and  little roll of the eyes, was the predictable responses churned out  by the same advocates of the system every time anyone levels any comment or criticism about the FPI process.

Yes, you are absolutely right, my photographs and artwork have never been recognised, so are you really suggesting that in-order to ease my alleged "disappointment" and secure recognition I have for the past four years consistently antagonised the selection team in the hope that criticising the system will result in a rosette? :')  Where's the logic in that?   

Let's keep the debate real...  When members "object," as you put it, to the glaring disparities of the FPI system, and there has been lots who have objected ,  it isn't because they feel their lives might be will be magically transformed by recognition, it is because they observe a system that has unfairly and unflinchingly, from a potential recipient list of thousands, shamelessly doled out a staggering 900 FPI awards to  a tiny minority of just five?   Repeatedly heaping rosettes on the same few undoubtedly lends credence to concerns about nepotism and bias, and understandably pisses  members off, why wouldn't it?

 So,  unless selectors are ridiculously suggesting that the  privileged beneficiaries in question consistently produce a combined level of quality that is 900 times higher than the best image on any of those members consistently ignored, the apportioning has to be contentious if not flawed.   we are left with a system in which selectors,  left with the unenviable task of ensuring images from within  the parameters they have been set, play safe and continue to select from the same group, often driven by those with the largest number of followers,  and in doing so exacerbate the problem still further...  and round and round we go! ;)

All good fun eh?  :')

Cheers,

John.

CalmNudes said

Art Acumen said

Wondrous said

Disagree with the thoughts written by OP.

Edited by Wondrous

I don't think the O.P will be too concerned by that.

Having just endured 16 hours of being efficiently mauled and clubbed in to quiet submission by  the "usual suspects" he has promised never to criticise the FPI selection system again, and has just signed a document pledging only to shoot "interesting things"...   with the additional clause that he will edit every image he uploads from now on.  ;)

Maybe I'm one of the usual suspects but... The FPI system is what its - a bunch of volunteers who are selected because they will choose the stuff that site likes to have chosen. Anyone can apply to be an elf, but you only get selected to be one if you put up a collection of pictures which shows what you would nominate is roughly in line with what existing elves nominate. A rogue elf who puts up things which the other elves think isn't right soaks up their time and wastes his or her own. 

I've had a bunch of my pictures suggested and passed over by the elves, and other pictures which have made it to FPI status. A couple of suggestions I've looked at and said "no the elves won't go for that" and the rest... I have no more idea why did select one than why they didn't select another. And the same applies when I suggest other people's work, some gets a rosette, some doesn't. If I knew what would get picked I'd save time and not suggest the un-pickable.

I think the image is processed does have some effect, and always has. If a shot looks like the cover of vogue, it's got a better chance of being selected than if it looks like the readers' wives page of Razzle (I've no idea if Razzle still exists or had a readers' wives page.) And if you're into a grungy aesthetic and work hard to get that, you're probably putting yourself at a disadvantage if you covet FPIs. If you leave a model's skin blemishes in you probably should be at disadvantage over an equal shot with blemishes cleaned up, but the person who dials the fixing up to 11 should also be at disadvantage. 

If the OP thinks the ideal level of processing is "dial it to 3", and observes that 3 steps too few (direct from the camera) fares worse than 3 steps too many (a 6), he may well be right. Possibly the elves think the ideal is 4 or 5 so the out-of-camera JPG is 4 or 5 too few, and the one with hours of photoshop is a forgivable step or two too many.
No single view is "right": the OP thinking for himself and saying he'd draw his optimum is to do a bit less, is normal, it doesn't make him an idiot nor does it make the elves wrong. I'm one of those who says the elves do, what they do, the result is what I'd expect, you can live with it or hate it but there's little chance to change the system.  

I've sided with the Ansel Adams idea of the "The negative is the score and the print is the performance" since I first learned darkroom techniques in the 1980s; there's the captured idea - the score, the negative, the raw file,  and there's what people experience - the sound of the orchestra, the print hanging on the wall, the JPG posted on line. Hours of work in darkrooms or in front of photoshop are put in to "improve" what's experienced at the end, and that work wouldn't be put in if there wasn't an expectation that people would prefer the version after the work was done. 

Complaining that people use some tool or another and get results that some other set of people prefer doesn't get anyone anywhere. Whether that was darkroom and airbrush, filters, or photoshop. If you're making stuff for you, then get to results you like and don't use tools you dislike. If you're making stuff for others get to results they like using which ever tool gets that "best" - however you define best.

I'll have a proper look at this later  James, when I have more time.

Copies of Razzle???  I had you down as a  "spread sheet" man, not a connoisseur of "centre spreads" But, we all have skeletons in the closet! ;)

John 

It is a rare image that usn't improved by some processing, but there comes a point where it becomes over-processed. That bar will be higher for some than others, but for me it is pretty low.

Light is an important part of my photography and that is where I enjoy the challenge, but the quality of light has to be right to start with, so that it within the realms of balancing it with filters or in PP. To a large degree quality has to there for most images. It used to be that you couldn't polish a turd (unless it is rock hard - e.g coprolite :P), but the lines are blurring and it is getting easier to polish a turd.

The popular appearance will always be predominant, regardless of what the current trend is, despite the attempts by those who don't follow the trend to offer alternatives.

I confess I hate images that are processed to within an inch of their life. I like a natural look and minimal processing. The odd crop here and there or a slight colour change, but to me some people process so much that the image looks artificial and un-natural. I believe in the KISS principle, Keep It Simple Stupid.

Tabitha Boydell said

FPI = quality image

Quality image = great post processing

The two are not mutually exclusive

Or sometimes a great 'in camera' capture, surely ??

Holly Alexander said

Editing is hard work! I admire it!

Personally (as a photographer) I don't consider my images as finished until they have been through post process. This could be a tiny change in tones on Lightroom, or a full skin retouch in Photoshop - it depends totally on the shoot!

The JOY of this artform is it's up to us to decide how we create our images.

I certainly wouldn't consider retouching and AI anywhere near close, because retouching takes a lot of work, time, knowledge.

Edited by Holly Alexander

The irony of your last sentence is not lost on me.

IMVVOH the way AI is going is just exactly the same as folks who live and breathe and live for fantasy everything and let's fake to death with everything they do. Heck - even in my 'escapes' from model photography, with normal antidotes like nature photography, you see it to !! (surprise surprise, more often than not a sort of 'disease' imported from the US more than anywhere else).

With both of these very different genres, where I see the difference before 'before' and 'after' ... I despair often at how 'stretched' and exaggerated (vs very very subtly enhanced) the final image is. What damage this does to 'keeping it real', people's mental health and lots of other things besides = an ongoing 'ticking time bomb'.

Aardvark🎯VonEssfolk I think if you have exceptional lighting and styling and a great MUA then possibly.

Has the OP any evidence that potential FPIs have been rejected purely because they weren't "over-processed", I wonder?  A potential FPI that didn't make the cut might not even have been seen by the Elves.