Strike wrote:
(snips)

> Is it acceptable to use, for example, Adobe Photo Shop, to remove specks of
> particulate matter in the water so that it's possible to get a more
> realistic image of a fish, (or whatever)?  And having done that, to remove
> background images that detract from the main subject matter? :-)

Backscatter no doubt? ;)

Incidentally, I'm rather flattered, thank you, that you mentioned  me
in the same breath as the Bjorns of this world. :)

> The shots that I have in mind are not 'Great' pictures in terms of creative
> effort, but they'll look a hell of a lot better in terms of using them as an
> I.D. index without the distractions that the heavy February rains have
> brought to the waters around our part of the coastline.  :-)

To which Huw responded:
(snips)

> Of course it is!  AFAIAC, photography is all about creating the final
> image, not about the purity of how you get there...  Shooting slides is
> slightly different, as the slide *is* the finished product, but digital
> photography is much more like shooting prints.

Well, no, not actually. If you are going to see a pic in a newspaper,
magazine, whatever, then (today) that image has been digitised never
mind its original medium.

> Ansel Adams compared exposing a negative to a composer writing a musical
> score.  It's only the starting point...  Creating a print (or a final
> digital image) is then like a performance of the score.

Adams lived in a considerably simpler, pre digital, age. :)

Robert Cappa (born Ernest Andre Friedmann in Hungary) and war
correspondent photog extaordinaire used to say sump'n like "if you're
pictures aren't good enough, you aren't close enough". Now, he said
that in reference to the mouths of the cannons but it's equally
relevant to the mouths of the Great Whites. :)

Today I believe that a photograph is no longer admissible evidence in
court since it is no longer possible to establish whether it is a
"true" image.

Both of you would have by now read Robert Delf's response with which I
entirely agree (FWTIW).

May I point out that today it doesn't matter one jot whether the image
is created using conventional photography (negatives, slides,
reflective media) or (today) digital. It is all grist for the mill. If
it is to be manipulated however, today it will be done digitally,
every time.

If you manipulate (by whatever method) the image (however created)
such that it is radically altered, then, unless you are using it for
the enjoyment of yourself and your colleagues, you are cheating.

The objective word here is *radically*.

An example: I have taken a series of digital (could have been
reflective and then digitised/scanned) shots of the local "capital"
Gosford. This with the corporate digital camera mounted on a tripod
(it needn't have been, just made the job easier in PhotoShop in one
plane) for corporate purposes. This shot now looks much like a very
wide "landscape" shot taken by our own Ken Duncan who has made this
into an art form using conventional photography (a very wide angle
camera with special film).

It was done for a purpose and will never be used in a contest and I
have absolutely no qualms about this, especially since it is true to
the original landscape (there's no Boeing 747 or similar flying at
treetop height for example). If, however, it were to appear in a
photographic contest I would have to declare the method used to
achieve the image just as Ken Duncan would have to declare his
"special effects" camera.

I, like Robert and many others, believe that removal of undesirable
objects such as (in our case) backscatter, whether digitally or in the
darkroom is *valid* manipulation. In the old, pre Box Brownie, days when
lenses in particular (after all, any camera is only as good as its
lens/housing port) were significantly less sophisticated/exact than
they are today, this was often a requirement rather than an option.

If, however, this manipulation includes insertion/deletion of other
images (a la my "Gosford" pic), that resultant image only deserves to
be included in the "Digitally Enhanced" section of any photographic
competition, when/where I would consider it entirely valid in its own right.

Bottom line, if it's for *you* and your colleagues, anything goes. If
it's for competition and you cheat, it's just the same as the
weightlifter (or whatever) on steroids. Yet that same weightlifter is
allowed, and does take, other drugs to a level not used by us more
conventional hooman beans, which is where eradication of backscatter,
and suchlike, comes in. :)

Incidentally, a few years ago now a guy no-one had ever heard of
before came out of the woodwork to virtually scoop the pool of the
prizes at the South Pacific Underwater Photographer of the Year
Competition, generally considered to be the top comp in this neck of
the woods. He got Best Amateur and also Best of Show, something which
had not happened before, or since for that matter.

Following that there was quite a furore when some people who had been
on the liveaboards with him suggested that he could *never* have taken
those pics in the conditions of the time. He had taken them with a
medium format camera and converted them to 35mm slides (quite
legitimately - he supplied both formats as the rules required).

Both sets of slides came to my Artroom when it became evident that
there might be serious "manipulation" involved. Bearing in mind that
the technique of conversion from medium format to 35mm is not for the
amateur I didn't hold out much hope that I (actually not I, my
colleagues considerably better at this than myself) might detect a
glitch in his PhotoShop technique and, indeed, we couldn't.

He got to keep his prizes but hasn't been (to my knowledge) heard of
since. Hmmmmmmmm!

Cheers,

Christian