Keep them coming and thanks!

Its funny to read the comments of Gav and Joseph, it seems to me that some people have real conversation in a post of someones blog:-)

I really have enjoyed these Before/After videos. They have combined the best of all your tips, but also showed a workflow that makes it easier to implement all those tips. More, please! By the way, I shared your video with my Digital Workflow class at College of Dupage – it neatly summarized what we had learned and taught us new things as well!

As it didn’t seem like you used the PS clone panel to modify the angle when you cloned the roof, why would you not have removed that spot in Lightroom? I’ve always found the LR Spot Removal tool perfectly fine for something like this. Anything I’m missing??

And, thanks for these. Always great to see the workflow. I’ve picked up tons of tips from these vids. Greatly appreciated!

No point of view about right or wrong – to each his own in that respect, but thank you for the ongoing education and insight into how the tools at our disposal can be used.

I’m sure I’ll use the techiques I’m learning from your videos, sometimes to simply get from my raw files the image I saw on the day and sometimes to change the results to something I want to hang on my wall…either way you help me continue to learn in easy to follow ways.

So thank you!

I understand the purists’ point of view (especially since my background includes many years as a photojournalist), but photography serves a lot more than photojournalism and other documentary purposes. It is ART. Photographers have used complimentary techniques beyond the process of creating the original image on film for years. From retouching negatives and prints, to toning using chemicals not long after Daguerre first exposed his plate (thanks to PS & LR, I don’t have to go shopping at chemical stores anymore). Like the other Joseph said, photography is a journey, and it’s up to you what tools you use and to what extent – to effect your final result. Even in photojournalism, there is a certain latitude to what can and what can not be modified in an image to make it more visually accepted (without altering the material facts, such as replicating smoke clouds coming off an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon, by a local Reuters stringer back in 2006). Associated Press as well as other news gathering organizations have published books and internal communications as to those guidelines.

When it comes to ART, you, the artist, get to make the choice of tools to use and techniques to employ. If you choose to remain narrow-minded, that is solely your choice. The only important feedback from the viewer is on the final result.