Is Digital Post-Processing “Illegal?”
Posted by Aaron on June 10th, 2007 
The Bluff
There was a time, long ago, when photographs were conceived at the moment the shutter button was depressed. Darkroom techniques were limited at best (the idea that a photographic image could even be created was a modern miracle) and the photographer was required to make near-perfect exposures every time.
Things have changed a lot since then; it’s now possible to do amazing things long after the light has been captured by the camera. Today I’m going to explore some competing points of view and take a philosophical walk through the annals of photographic history to clear up some improper perceptions of digital post-processing.
First, Some History
The first commercially viable photographic technology was the Daguerrotype, a positive-only process (no negative is created and each image can only be made once) resulting in extremely fragile prints on copper plates.
Not only was the development and printing process inflexible and time consuming, but it also exposed photographers to chemicals such as mercury and iodine; not the kinds of things you want to be boiling and possibly inhaling!
Onward Upward II
Over time, photographic technology evolved. The system of using silver halide-based negatives emerged, allowing photographers to make more than one print from each of their images; prints that could be handled without fear of destroying them. The printing process itself was transformed from a cumbersome operation using metal substrates and boiling chemicals to the more refined and less hazardous procedure we use today.
It was the invention of the glass negative (circa 1839, possibly by John Herschel, an astronomer by trade1) that precipitated the institution of photographic post-processing. The negative expanded the photographic process into three steps, which should look very familiar:
- Exposure
- Development
- Printing
Spiral Ascent
Post-processing, by definition, is altering the image after the light has been captured (hence, post-). Traditionally, these alterations were achieved by modifying the way the exposed film was developed into a negative and the way the negative was printed. For the first time, photographers had the ability to enhance their images beyond the capacity of the film materials of the day; dodging and burning, for example, can create images with a tonal range beyond what can be captured by the film at exposure time.
As photographic technology and techniques surge forward, the photographer is given a progressively more expansive collection of post-processing tools and abilities. Digital photography has completed the transformation of post-processing into an art form unto itself, based concretely on captured-light imagery but possessing all of the characteristics and nuances of a full-fledged medium. Regardless of its flexibility and capabilities, is it not still bound to photography?
“While I have always worked with fairly conventional means and techniques, I anticipate new departures which, if I cannot examine them in my lifetime, will assure the power of future vision and accomplishment.” —Ansel Adams, Carmel, 1976
Artistic Integrity
Worm Food
Any debate over whether post-processing invalidates the artistic integrity of a photographic work is fundamentally academic. Even before chemical photography existed, artists used camera-like devices such as the camera obscura or optical contraptions like the camera lucida to trace a three-dimensional scene onto paper. Chemical photography and highly sensitive film materials simply permitted artists to capture their subjects faster and with greater accuracy, but never excused an artist from laying hands upon the entire process to reach their artistic goals. Never in the evolution of darkroom techniques was the final product’s status as a photograph questioned.
A perception exists that the medium of captured-light images is pure, not to be spoiled by the meddling of non-optical tools. It may be that the last few decades of photography, during which no paradigm shifts in traditional process have occurred2, are responsible for this notion. Or, it may be that the digital world is so vastly different—not in essence, but in physicality—from the world of the darkroom that this discussion has arisen.
Descenders
Still, there are those who perceive an imaginary line in post-processing across which a photograph passes into a different state of being and loses its status as a photograph. To me, this distinction is purely semantic. We could debate the definition of “photograph” ad infinitum and never reach a consensus. What does this discussion do for any of us as artists?
Far be it from me to make sweeping generalizations about a field as personal and subjective as art, but I feel as though the detractors of post-processing are the antithesis of its very spirit. Let me explain.
The Question of Intent
You could say that a watercolor splattered with acrylic ceases to be a watercolor. Semantically, that’s true enough; I think that the world of art would classify such a painting as “mixed media.” Perhaps the stumbling block in digital photography is the inextricable relationship between its traditional light-capture methods and the digital “development” tools that make even its most modest creations possible.
NoClimbing
Because traditional darkroom development tools have always been part and parcel to the process we call “photography,” even since the earliest days of its existence, it’s hard to suggest that they are separate mediums or separate forms of art. I contend that digital photography is no different. A digital photographer may not use chemical developers or optical enlargers, but the process is fundamentally the same. Those who claim otherwise tend to draw the line at a subjective point in the editing process, one which marks no meaningful boundary.
Rather than introducing entirely new mechanics or technology, digital post-processing of any degree makes use of the same fundamental operations that produce simple and austere works. Because the tools are the same, it is the methods themselves, the intricacies of the artist’s process, that are called into question; something that has never happened in photography before, certainly not to this degree.
What do you think? Are there Photoshop filters or third-party software tools or certain editing techniques that transform a photograph into a photographically-derived work, not deserving of the name “photograph?” Where do you draw the line?
I think that it’s an artist’s duty to carefully examine each viewpoint in this discussion and then promptly ignore them all.
- Edit: It was brought to my attention that Herschel wasn’t responsible for the “invention” of the negative, although he probably coined the term. For more information about this stage in photography’s early development, read about William Fox Talbot, John Herschel, and the wet plate collodion process [back]
- Digital photography is unquestionably a paradigm shift, but the idea of collecting light through a lens, capturing the resulting image, and reproducing that image on paper is exactly the same as it was when the term “photography” was first conceived in 1832. [back]
Is Digital Post-Processing “Illegal?”…
Does digital post-processing turn photographs into something else? Explore some competing points of view and take a philosophical walk through the annals of photographic history to clear up some improper perceptions of digital post-processing….
Well, Aaron. A very well done article and one that has peeked my interest with regard to the art considerations of your quest for placement in the world of photography/art for the digital expression of images. Overall I might agree with your analysis however, I think a few other thoughts might be brought into your arguement.
Firstly, to anwer your title question: “Is Digital Post-Processing Illegal”? . I would have to anwer most certainly “No”. Digital photography along with the all of the digital enhancments provided by Photoshop is a new photographic as well as artistic medium. It can be compared to traditional methods but perhaps not meant to be forced into the same traditional meaning of photography.
The distinction between taking photographs and taking artistic photographs should be addressed. You stated in your article that “digital photography had completed the transformation of post-processing into an art form itself…”. An art form perhaps, but only art if handled by an artist. Painting is an art form, but not all who paint are artists. What modern post-processing has done to and for the photographer is to make techniques easier and instant, which can mesmerize a novice into thinking that they are creating art and/or a competent photograph.
This distinction, in my opinion, is more the question than whether or not it is legal. For example: Is digital animation as artistic as the hand drawn ways of the past? In many ways, it is not. Much aestheticism is lost. Perhaps an aesthetic issue should be part of your concern between the old and the new? What do you think? The newer technologies are less hands-on and more virtual. Not bad, but certainly different and requiring one’s involvement to be less intrinsically personal. More emphasis is placed on the product than the process…a long debated art theme!!!
I don’t think that when “ a photograph passes into a different state of being and loses its status as a photograph” it is “purely semantic”!! If a photo loses its status or its integrity as a photograph in the artistic sense, then it had better get itself another name! And, THAT is the crux of this entire debate….in my humble opinion.
The biggest sticking point in my mind regarding photographs that have been heavily edited in Photoshop et al. is simply how much editing a photograph can withstand before it must “get itself another name.” The debates that I have witnessed and participated in seem to gain momentum until they get to that point and then they stall; everyone’s idea of what a “photograph” is seems to differ.
The main point that I hope my article got across is that editing such as dodging, burning, hand-coloring negatives, and other “traditional” techniques produced work that was unquestionably accepted as “photographic.” Nowadays, the same effects are possible using Photoshop, et al., and those results tend to be accepted as “photographic,” but a few steps further down the editing pipeline, suddenly people are up-in-arms, decrying these prints as “digital media,” etc.
What is fascinating to me is that traditional darkroom techniques developed over years and years, offering more and more flexibility, and never was the final product’s status as a photograph questioned. Suddenly, digital is changing the way we look at photographically-derived work. Changing the way we evaluate it.
Firstly I wanted to say thankyou for an interesting read and a well written article. All too often we get so tied up in our debates that few people take the time to add some hard facts and a bit of history into their arguement.
Returning to the debate, I think you and Shae have hit the nail on the head as to what the issue is here.
The problem is whether or not a photograph loses it’s status as a photograph after a certain amount of editting.
If it does lose it’s status, at what point can we define that as having occured.
I have tried to approach this from a logical point of view rather than an emotional one (as I am definately a photoshop junkie and as such can’t help but resent suggestions that my images are any less worthy than another persons’).
With my logical head on I first considdered the term photograph. As a ‘photograph’ refers only to a singular item (image), with a number of images being refered to with the plural ‘photographs’ my first thought was:
“As soon as the individual uses more than one image in a composite the image is no longer ‘a’ photograph”.
The problem arose when I tried to compare the analogy to automobiles. If you take two cars and cut them in half, then weld the front of one car to the rear of the other, you still end up with ‘a car’ (albeit one you wouldn’t want to buy second-hand)!
This led me to the conclusion that all artwork which involves photographic capture is ‘a photograph’. The best way to manage the field would be to add a suffix to the title such as the following:
Photograph – Historic Record
No post processing other then brightness, contrast and white balance and all with the aim of reproducing reality.
In addition the original image captured by the camera must not mis-represent reality.
Photograph – Artistic
A single image which has been taken and manipulated to produce a result which pleases the photographer (&/or client).
Photograph – Composite
An image composed of a number of images and manipulated to produce a result which pleases the photographer (&/or client).
Of course the problem this presents is that having defined a new set of guidelines we have a whole new set of ambiguities. For example a war correspondent who takes a photo which compresses distances. He may have chosen his equipment in order to do this as it best represented the feeling of danger which he was experiencing. He has still followed the guidelines to portray reality but everyones percetion is different.
Thanks, John, I’m glad you liked the article. Your reply is thorough and brings up some additional food for thought.
How would you classify a photograph created by compositing two separate exposures of the same scene? For example, HDR, or more classically the “Orton effect?” Is that still a photograph?
My friends and relatives have called me pedantic in the past, but in this case, I tend toward the position that any photographically derived image should be classified as a photograph unless someone can come up with a very convincing argument to the contrary. I agree with you that there is a huge chasm dividing archival, documentary, and forensic photography from artistic and aesthetic photography, but I am mostly concerned with the latter. It goes without saying that even a small touch from Photoshop can discredit forensic photographic work, which is why they make those encrypted media cards and so on.
I think that correspondents and photojournalists labor under an entirely different set of expectations and definitions, and although some of their work is highly artistic, it is what it is; a documentary photograph. My fundamental point is that an artist should be driven by their own process and their own desired outcomes and not by definitions and semantics.
Thanks again for participating.
I, for one, class what I do in 2 ways, when I shoot a car race or soccer game or something journalistic I tend to call those photographs. However if I chose to change the photo aside from sharpening and slight color issues like they do in most modern labs with 3rd party filters, HDR, etc then I call it PhotoArt. It may be too simplistic for most people but it cuts down on the amount of headaches I suffer worrying about it.
I think it’s more than fair to divide photography into two very distinct arenas: photography of literal portrayal, such as journalistic, forensic, historical, etc.; and photography of aesthetic interest, e.g. art. In my mind, art photography has no technological limits and remains photography through and through. It is what it is.
A correction to your history section.
It was Talbot, not Herschel, who invented the positive/negative photographic process. He used paper as a suport for his negatives since it would absorb the silver nitrate solution. Herschel’s main and possiblely only contribute to photography was to tell his friend Talbot to use hypo to fix his paper negatives.
Archer invented the glass plate wet collodion process and published his discovery in March 1851. Since it solved numerous technical problems of the earlier processes, it soon became the prefered method of photography for the next 30 or so years.
Other than this minor error, I found your article well written and interesting
Thanks, Joel! Remind me not to use Wikipedia as my only source next time