Reptile photography - real or fake?

[Waterrat]

Hi,
inspired by other thread I would like to explain few facts about digital photography. It's a fickle business, I admit that.

If I take a shot of one snake with 3 different cameras (not necessarily different brands) I will end up with 3 different looking images. Pocket cameras tend to exaggerate colour saturation, whilst pro cameras are bit harsh on contrast, etc..
Apart from that, look at these 4 images, taken without and with flash - huge difference!

and these two:

Trust me, none of these pics represent the true colours of the snakes.

That's not the end of it - if I then upload the pic into Photobacket, SmugMug or into APS attachments, the image will look different again, there will be a slight colour shift, loss of sharpness or loss of contrast or maybe the opposite.
One other thing to consider, is the monitor. I have my monitors regularly calibrated and if yours is even slightly out of whack, you will see different quality pic to what can see in front of me.

After converting RAW to JPEG or TIFF file, it takes sometimes a lot of fiddling in Photoshop; correcting white balance, contrast, saturation, colour temperature, etc., to get a true to live image. It's not faking, it's a necessary step in post-production, which every pro photographer does. It's then up to the photographer's integrity not to exaggerate any aspect of the process for whatever reason.

If I was selling the snake in the two top pictures (or the bottom ones), the first one would be more eye-pleasing and more impressive to use in an advertisement. However, the buyer would be disappointed upon receiving the real thing and it would fly into my face.

Gee it reminds me of something ....... "it comes down to trust" .... have I heard that before?

 

[orientalis]

When sending pictures to prospective buyers who you may have never met, it only takes half an hour to snap 100 or more pictures indoors, outdoors, on white paper, on newspaper etc, save and send without any editing at all so the buyer get's to see the true colours of the specimen(s) in question in the different lights or settings.
Very easy to do and saves any disappointment, exaggeration or mis-representation.

 

[Waterrat]

.... and then email 100 or more pictures. Not to me, thanks.
Realistically, would you subject your snake to that kind of shoot? Inside, outside, on this paper and that paper for what may a tyrekicker?

 

[D3pro]

There are many photo editing techniques that can be used to improve a photo. Improve because the camera may exaggerate an image.
It all depends on what your editing it for. I know some images in the latest book "the complete carpet" were over done with saturation.

Although I doubt people will be angry when they receive their green tree python M.... unless they were expecting a white and purple gtp

 

[Waterrat]

Very true. Printing is another stage of the post-production. A perfect images can be ruined by poor scanning, colour separations, paper quality, etc..

 

[D3pro]

Very true. Printing is another stage of the post-production. A perfect images can be ruined by poor scanning, colour separations, paper quality, etc..

Oh these images (of which I won't mention) were oversaturated from the get go. I think people often forget to convert their images to CMYK and then start editing the image, if an RBG images goes to print the computers will try to convert it themselves, often mucking the image. Although anyone who knows me professionally knows my passionate hate for printing companies.

 

[Waterrat]

It just occurred to me, when people refer to "modifying" images in Photoshop (or any other program), do you remember film photography? LOL
To print a colour image from a negative or from slide, you had to adjust red, cyan and yellow filters on the enlarger's head or on any print machine to get the right colours ..... is that "faking" or "enhancing" too?

 

[Wrightpython]

There are many photo editing techniques that can be used to improve a photo. Improve because the camera may exaggerate an image.
It all depends on what your editing it for. I know some images in the latest book "the complete carpet" were over done with saturation.

Although I doubt people will be angry when they receive their green tree python M.... unless they were expecting a white and purple gtp

How much for a white and purple gtp or is it called wptp

 

[Waterrat]

How much for a white and purple gtp or is it called wptp

You're in the wrong thread. I think. (what is wptp?)

 

[Red-Ink]

It just occurred to me, when people refer to "modifying" images in Photoshop (or any other program), do you remember film photography? LOL
To print a colour image from a negative or from slide, you had to adjust red, cyan and yellow filters on the enlarger's head or on any print machine to get the right colours ..... is that "faking" or "enhancing" too?

That would depend on the negative and the picture....
Correcting a bad pic post production I would consider just to be a correction.
Taking a good "realistic" correctly exposed photo and making the colours "pop" I would say to be enhancing.

 

[D3pro]

Taking a good "realistic" correctly exposed photo and making the colours "pop" I would say to be enhancing.

Well it depends why you want it to "pop". I make flyers all the time, and exaggeration is what gets peoples attention.
But if your editing an image to sell, then you better tread carefully.

Here is a pop technique on M's image.*



*Hopefully M won't send his lawyers :O

 

[Red-Ink]

Well it depends why you want it to "pop". I make flyers all the time, and exaggeration is what gets peoples attention.
But if your editing an image to sell, then you better tread carefully.

Here is a pop technique on M's image.*

View attachment 236569

*Hopefully M won't send his lawyers :O

Agreed mate... the act of enhancing is neither good nor bad. It's were the intended use that the grey area starts....

 

[kr0nick]

WOW Water Rat, That snake in the first pic of the second row is amazing, Do you breed guys like this offspring?

 

[Wrightpython]

You're in the wrong thread. I think. (what is wptp?)

WPTP -White and Purple Tree Python

 

[D3pro]

How much for a white and purple gtp or is it called wptp

Hets are 6k

 

[UrbanJungle]

Very interesting topic, also to add Your computer screen can display the image different too and thats not even mentioning the settings you can change!
On another note Waterrat should have a pic thread!

 

[Waterrat]

Books, magazines, flyers, posters are work of art to a degree and publishers insist on "instant effect". In other words, the image has to "jump at the reader", otherwise it's not good enough. In the commercial world, they call it "hero shots". Even National Geographic used over-saturated images, especially of Asian markets, etc., shots with a lots of contrasting colors.

Using photos to offer a snake to potential buyer is different category, it should resemble the true looks of the snakes, no matter how it has been "processed". Photos of politicians are different, they have to look younger, warmer and sincere - the opposite to their "true colours". LOL

 

[Wrightpython]

Well it depends why you want it to "pop". I make flyers all the time, and exaggeration is what gets peoples attention.
But if your editing an image to sell, then you better tread carefully.

Here is a pop technique on M's image.*

View attachment 236569

*Hopefully M won't send his lawyers :O

photo doesnt look all that different on my monitor just looks like a photo with a line thru it and i would have snake whichever way you photographed it. Photos are never perfect

 

[Tristan]

don't forget the screen\monitor your looking at can have an impact on how the image will look. if the person doing the photo shop editing has their screen colour off then they will be editing the picture wrong or vice verse, i may have my screen colour balance off so the images will look wrong to how you did your post production.

 

[D3pro]

photo doesnt look all that different on my monitor just looks like a photo with a line thru it and i would have snake whichever way you photographed it. Photos are never perfect

The effect is called HDR.... I'll see if I can demonstrate a better example... with my dream car