How to create photos like "the masters", and is PhotoLab a useful tool?

If your “it’s not mine” sentiment comes from using the many presets available in DxO and other software, consider a couple of points: 1) Either don’t use the presets or use them as a starting point and tweak the settings to get what you previsualized before you took the shot (how you prevent “garbage in”), or 2) Realized that presets aren’t “cheating” any more than choosing to use a specific camera (as they all have different color science) or film. Those choices plus many other variables will affect the “final” look of the image (ideally a print, which introduces another set of variables). BtW, although any version of DxO software is powerful, the latest iterations (PL5, FP6, Nik 4) all have some very useful new tools (e.g., U Point) and they do have sales.

It’s good to be aware of what others have done (as well as those silly “rules” that should generally be ignored), but ultimately, your images need to be your images–your vision. Oh, and don’t leave home without a camera! :wink:

I wasn’t referring to the DxO presets, only to the Nik Collection presets. The Nik Collection presets are a combination of software from the Nik Collection, and they can be applied all at once, or individually. It bothers me that when I click on one of the combinations, I have no idea what is being done, or why.

I rarely use Nik Collection anyway, as this can’t be done with RAW files the way PhotoLab does with a .dop file. I look at my photos from years ago, with perhaps a raw file, or a jpg file, and then a tif file. I’m lucky to remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, let alone what changes I made using Nik. With DxO, it’s a no brainer, as I can see all the steps in the editing.

I don’t mean to influence what anyone else does do, or doesn’t, and I admit it’s fun to play around with Nik, or at least used to be.

I don’t see things that way. I choose a different camera mainly to go with a DSLR or a Rangefinder view of the world. To me, it doesn’t really matter which camera I’m using - they have a lens and film or a sensor, and controls for it. I do select a specific lens focal length, but that’s different.

Of all my cameras, some are film, and others re digital. Some are big and heavy, and others are small and light. Some are so quiet nobody notices, and some are so loud I assume everyone nearby knows I just took a photo. Some let me look “through” a hole in the camera to see what I’m shooting, and others show me a similar view using a mirror, so what I see vanishes when the mirror flips out of the way. All the above have to do with how I relate to the camera, or the other way around.

To me, I don’t agree. I don’t think the “final” look of the image is due to which camera I used. I use what I’ve got access to at the time, and I try to use a camera with the features I need to capture the images I want to take. My Rangefinder camera can take sports photos, but it’s a pain. My rangefinder camera works up to 135mm lenses, after which I need something that magnifies the image so I can see what I’m doing. When necessary, I just “make do”.

For me, I do this in reverse. If something is happening and a dozen photographers go to the same area to capture the photo, I always go someplace else. I want to photograph things my way. The term “my way” isn’t in any way “static”. I pay a LOT of attention to advice here on how to do things better, but when all is said and done, my final image is usually different from what was suggested. Maybe I’m just too stubborn, and maybe I haven’t realized yet what I was doing wrong.

You know what bothers me? This forum is mostly here so we can discuss PhotoLab and learn how to get the most out of it. The only other person who regularly posts images here though, is @Joanna . I post lots of images, as I want the feedback, and I know others are learning at the same time, buy why isn’t everyone in this forum posting their images?

Have you posted any of your images here? I enjoy seeing what others do, and explaining how they did it.

Just as you don’t know what is being done when you select a FilmPack Preset in PL.

And, in PL, some presets are single steps, like the FilmPack ones; and others are a combination of adjustments (a bit like a macro).

Personally, although I have Nik Collection, I only got it in case someone wanted help with it. Apart from that, I have never found a use for it, since I always shoot RAW and the few non-RAW images I have can also be processed perfectly well in PL.

Mike, no matter what you do, from the point of deciding what you want to crop in the camera, can be regarded as “cheating”, because it isn’t a true record of what was there - you decided what to exclude.

The big difference between your attitude to photography and post-processing, and that of the “masters”, is that they are in the business of making images, not just recording what was a there.

I know several photo journalists and most of them simply take photos, usually as JPEG, send them off to the picture editor and that is the last they know about them. They tell me they have no need for post-processing software because that is something that the picture desk takes care of. If it doesn’t work straight out of the camera, it gets deleted from the memory card and they take another one.

The fact that you have chosen to embark on learning how to use PL shows that you are in the business of making images. As soon as you touch an image in PL, it loses its “integrity”. Altering the exposure compensation after the fact, adjusting the tone curve, reducing Digital noise, etc. - these are all things that you are doing to change how the camera made the file it created.

In the days of film, you wouldn’t choose one of your several cameras, unless it was for format reasons, you would alter what the camera produces by selecting this or that film - fine grain, coarse grain, colour, B&W, negative, transparency, etc. and you would use coloured filters to change the tonal qualities of a B&W shot or graduated ND filters for a colour shot.

Then, if you were in any way keen on photography, you would go into the darkroom and process the film, pushing or pulling to compensate for lack of or too much contrast, etc, etc. Then you would put the neg under the enlarger and dodge and burn, using multigrade paper and contrast filters, etc, etc.

All of the above is about making an image, as you visualised it before you took it. You entitled this thread “How to create photos like the masters and is PhotoLab a useful tool?”

The short answer is, provided you don’t insist on doing nothing more than the majority of photojournalists and just turning out dull, boring record shots that lack any sense of style or composition.

Now, composition you can do in camera, unless you want to crop the image, but you still have to place the elements of an image in the right place, which always has been a post-processing thing, whether that be adjusting the easel under the enlarger or cropping and rotating in software.

Now this I simply don’t get. The only way you are going to get a different view of the world through a camera is to use a different format that uses a different size film or sensor. Using a (35mm full frame) rangefinder over a DSLR, for me, is a total waste of time because I am left eye dominant and don’t get to see anything other than what I see in the viewfinder. Ignoring sensor characteristics and built-in firmware, there is absolutely no difference in the “view” that a camera records. You may have psychological preference for the physical look and feel of this or that camera but, the truth is, the result is totally up to what you want to make of the image it records.

In the “olden days” good photographers (the masters) would use whatever tools they needed to help change what the camera recorded on film, as I have listed above, in order to create the image they envisioned when they recorded the light rays on a piece of film.

Nowadays, we use RAW files instead of negatives, but, unless you shell out a fortune for a dedicated B&W digital camera, every shot you take is going to be in colour and will need converting to B&W using software like PhotoLab and the FilmPack presets.

Most average digital shooters don’t seem to bother with coloured filters in front of the lens, as film photographers used to. Why? Because all they will get out of the camera is a colour file that looks entirely red or orange or yellow or whatever the colour of the filter. Digital cameras don’t offer the choice of film that we used to have and use in certain circumstances to create a certain look - they just have a plain old boring colour sensor that always turns out the same old boring, precise colour rendering.

Which is where software like PhotoLab and especially FilmPack comes in so useful, giving you back the choice of “emulsion” and “grain” that film used to offer to discerning photographers, as well as the ability to apply coloured filters to emulate the tonalities that physical filters give to B&W negative film.

But it has to be said, the majority of the images you have previously posted are of a long stretch of water with a city skyline in the distance, which might have been useful for learning how to process images of water with a city skyline, but not for much else. I have posted various different subjects in order to explain various techniques and I would (politely) suggest again that you find something else, not to just photograph, but to create an image from - not relying on your journalistic eye but on your creative eye that seems to be currently hidden behind an eye patch :eye: :dark_sunglasses:

You want to create photos like “the masters” but you seem singularly unwilling to start finding the kind of subjects that the masters thought worthwhile making an image of and then changing the dull, boring, flat, journalistic, RAW image into something that will make people go “Wow!”

I would, once again, encourage you to find a subject, envision what you want the final image to look like before you press the shutter and then follow the process that realises that vision. After all, that is what the true masters of B&W film used to do :wink: :blush:

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Yep I fully agree! … but I´m no fan at all of intermediate/transfer formats like old TIFF. I want DXO to port NIK to really work with our RAW as a base instead.

I also wonder how Cartier Bresson would have look upon the functions we have today like the Real Time AI smart hierarchical autofocus paired with Auto ISO Minimum Shutter Speed and image stabilization that handles so well that we don´t need to think all that much on “shake” issues anymore since it will always at least give us the commun thumb rule of “1/the actual focal lengt”, if we dont´t override it and bisect it with the AIMSS “Fast” or Faster if necessary.

If I´m in a real hurry today with my A7 IV I know that I can rely to 100% on what i use to call “the Sony Click”-configuration (described above) to be able to capture that “decisive moment”. The only thing I care about in these days is in fact to choose a suitable aperture to secure the image expression I want. This technique as improved my/our timing a lot. I or we using this method are able to fully concentrate on motifs and the moments in a way that never was really possible with our old analog gear.

Today all this automation tech has really freed us from these cumbersome and slow camera interfaces that has been an obstacle and a chain for such a long time. The funny thing is that it´s really all this new tech that finally has made it possible to fully concentrate on the motifs and moments instead of all these buttons, knobs and wheels and I don´t really know if all these anti tech analog nostalgic photographs a la the Analog Photo Society or what it was called in the english TV-series Midsomer that used the Slogan " No microchips, No batteries and No goddamn pixels". Finally the classical contradiction and conflict between the tech oriented photographers and the may bee slightly over sensitive anti tech group of people/photographers more into group hugging “THE IMAGE” (the author Pirsig defined these groups already 50 years ago) seem to have gotten peacefully resolved and that happened without most people even notised a thing.

So what is it that you think Nik offers that you can’t do in PL?

I need to re-read everything else you wrote, before I respond, but I disagree about why I would change to a different camera. Put a 135mm lens on a rangefinder camera, and a tiny set of frame lines appears on my viewfinder, usually too small to really see or understand what I am taking a photo of. When I took sports photos with my Nikon SP, I was trying to get good action photos, but it was like being partially blinded - I couldn’t see what was going on. Then I got my Nikon F, and with that 135mm focal length, I could see everything perfectly, filling up my viewfinder.

Everything else you wrote is most likely true, but has nothing to do with which camera I selected.

Furthermore, when I traveled, I selected a camera mostly by size and weight. In retrospect, I don’t really like my Canon Pro-1, but at the time, with a zoom lens in a small, powerful body, I loved it. I could get it to do most of what I wanted.

I’ll read the rest of what you wrote later today, after breakfast, and after my family Zoom meeting.

Hmm, this is also where we differ:
“dull, boring record shots” vs “style and composition”.

For as long as I can remember, my goal in photography has been to record the world around me. I guess that means “photojournalist”.

All the concepts you are involved in, creating style and composition", to me, is a very different type of photography, and probably breaks the rules of what is photojournalism.

An artist can do things that a photojournalist is not allowed to do.
Both ways of “seeing” are important.
I’ve always tried to capture what I saw with my eyes.

There’s a little “wiggle room”, but not much - I’ve already posted the list of what I’m not allowed to do, when I capture photographs as a “photojournalist”.

PhotoLab allows me to create a better image of something without breaking those rules.
PhotoLab also allows me to go way beyond that, and probably create an image that is “prettier” than the reality being photographed.

For better or worse, in my mind, I’m trying to record an image of what I saw with my eyes.

Gotta stop here, and will return to this later, slowly and carefully reading what you just wrote.

Maybe everyone in this discussion should could write a one paragraph description of what their purpose and goals are in photography, and how they use PhotoLab to better accomplish those goals.

Questions…

  • Are you still employed as a photojournalist?

    • If not, that means you are no longer a photojournalist
  • If the answer to the first question is no, why do you insist on being bound to rules that only apply to working photojournalists?

    • You are a retired photojournalist, which means you can do what the heck you like to a photo without the fear of being castigated by the “powers that be” for daring to be creative.
  • If you acknowledge that you now owe nobody any duty of pictorial integrity, what is stopping you from enjoying your “freedom”?

    • You have now got to the stage where you can make a perfectly technically competent photojournalistic image using PL - in which case, unless you want to “convert” to being a less restricted photographer, as you indicated in the title of this thread, I’m not sure how much more PL and members of these forums can offer.

Since you are no longer a paid, working, photojournalist, why not “join the other side” and enjoy your retirement as an artist?

But you are no longer a photojournalist and those rules no longer apply.

… which you are no longer bound to.

I’m sorry Mike but that is not the sole purpose of photography. Whilst I was running the UKLFPG, Paul Sanders, who used to be a picture editor for The Times newspaper in the UK, attended one of our workshops. Apart from his photojournalistic efforts, he also developed an interest in landscape photography and in making more “artistic” images, for which he is rightly highly respected. Here is a link to an article in the RPS (Royal Photographic Society) journal Five favourite landscapes by Paul Sanders. He also runs photographic workshops and, if you look at some of the images on his site, you will see he is definitely no longer a photojournalist https://www.discoverstill.com

Which reminds me, I must get back in touch with him.

Quite a lot when it comes to all these different presets. Even I prefer NIK before Photolab and Film pack sometimes especially Silver Efex Pro. They have been slightly converging for years but there are still a lot of resources present in NIK that are not yet awailable in Photolab. That´s why I think it would be nice if DXO implemented even what is missing in Photolab.

By the way, very intresting discussion Mike and Joanna.

I wonder if a photo journalistic image necessary needs to be seen as dull and boring :slight_smile:
Isn´t that more of a context issue? How many “free standing” images do I really think “stands for themselves”? Pretty few if you ask me I would say.

What kind of value would a severely unsharp Capa image, taken at the landing of the US troops at the beaches of Normandy during the D-day have without it´s context? It´s nothing wrong at all with an artistic touch at all as long as you tell the world that you have “manipulated” your images and broken the authenticy and by that have broken the rules of “unmanipulated” images.

Personally I say these days that all my images are manipulated because I have given up completely on defending a stance they are not since it is so subtle the difference sometimes. It´s nothing destinctive really and it´s more or less boiling down to just how much you pull the sliders in Photolab. There are quite a few of these isn¨t it. Who want to be the judge?

I just liked taking pictures, capturing beautiful moments and hanging posters in my apartment that I took myself. I focus on one camera model and its lenses, try to master them and not get lost in the cosmos of a lot of “which brand is better, which equipment is more expensive, what’s the latest on the market…”. Because that doesn’t make my photos any better. And I don’t compare myself with great photographers whose level I can’t reach and simply enjoy their pictures in photo books, at exhibitions and also sometimes on TV when they are reported about e.g. photographer Morten Krogvold,
Maybe this would be a good recommendation for some to act similarly

Always good light

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Joanna, I’ll reply to you a bit later, but first, maybe we should consider the NPAA Code of Ethics:
NPPA Code of Ethics

The actual wording for what we’re discussing is:

  • Editing should maintain the integrity of the photographic images’ content and context. Do not manipulate images or add or alter sound in any way that can mislead viewers or misrepresent subjects.

I think they have deliberately worded it this way, so there is some “wiggle room”. Making the sky darker or making a tilted photo level, or cropping is allowed within limits, as they wrote.

I was wrong about this. Until now, I thought excess manipulation was not allowed, but apparently it is allowed as long as we’re not fooling the public by using a manipulated image.

  • If I take a photo of someone and it is too light or too dark, I can correct this.

  • If I take a photo of someone with a wart on their face, I can NOT remove it.

  • If there are annoying elements in my photo, I am free to crop them out, unless it changes the image in a way that gives a false impression to the viewer. I assume if four people were standing together, and I didn’t like one of them, I can’t use technology to remove that person.

  • If I aim my camera up at a building, and I don’t have a view camera or an enlarger, I can correct the false perspective in software.

  • If I take a photo of a sunrise or sunset, and part of the image is burnt out or hidden, I am free to correct that.

  • If I’m taking a photo of a group on a stage, and a waste basket is in my photo, I can’t remove it in the computer, as it would no longer be the image I captured.

  • If I miss taking a photo of a handshake, I CAN NOT ask them to repeat it for the camera.

I predict @Wolfgang is going to give me examples, that I might not be able to answer. I’m no expert at this.

On a positive note, there is a lot of stuff that I CAN do to an image, as long as it doesn’t “give a false impression to the viewer”. So making the image more artistic is acceptable, within those boundaries.

IMHO.

I’m stopping myself from doing so. I prefer to post “real” photos, not manipulated ideas from my imagination. Sort of like “a leopard can’t change its spots”. After doing this since the 1960’s, it part of me, and what I do.

If I’m driving along in my car, and there is a stop sign, but nobody else is within sight, I still stop and then continue.

I know I’m not obligated to follow those old “rules”, but they have become part of me, who I am, what I do, and so on.

I’m already enjoying myself, and there is no reason why I can’t also do things “as an artist”, and all I need to do is say it’s a “Photo Illustration” and none of the old rules apply. I’m enjoying what I do now. I don’t think I have the skill to do things as an artist, as you do. I can still try, but my attempts so far, like the huge sculpture on Lincoln Road, were apparently a failure, even though I was happy with them. Regardless of anything else, I have no desire to copy what other people have done - I’d rather do things my way. Usually I get good feedback, on how to do things better. I think all of us eventually build up a “style”, which becomes how we see the world, and think. It’s who we are, and all of us have a unique style eventually (which is most likely shaped by other people and feedback…)

Not true. I’m not bound to those rules because I’m no longer a working photojournalist, but those rules have become a part of me, how I see, how I take photos, and so on.

Like being in a car coming to a stop sign, and there isn’t another car in sight, but I will still come to a stop. Habit?

I agree completely, but for the most part it has become MY purpose of photography.

Agreed! Completely. And I too am free to change when/if I want to. He makes beautiful photos, and I would love to create similar photos. Maybe I’ll find a way to start doing so.

Screen Shot 2022-02-27 at 14.44.26

Personally, I see no difference between “the taking of the picture” and “the experience of creating the photograph”. For me, they blend together seamlessly. Also, if I knew how to do photos like these, I think they are all within the world of “photojournalism”, meaning I wouldn’t have broken any of those “rules” had I captured these images. The “rules” are there so that we don’t trick people into seeing photos differently because of their being manipulated. The photos on that page don’t trick me into anything - they’re beautiful. I want to start taking photos like these too…

As far as photo “ethos” is concerned, while it’s clearly not “ethical” (and could be illegal in some cases) to manipulate an image so as to deliberately misrepresent an occurrence for “nefarious” purposes, this does not apply to personal photos or ones created as works of art. In the first place, no camera “sees” or can record an image the way the human eye and visual cortex see/interpret an image–the camera always “lies!” Ansel’s not only known as one of the greatest photographers (and darkroom masters) ever, and throughout his writings (The Camera, The Negative, and The Print are required reading for any serious photographer, even if they never use film), he stresses how it’s impossible to accurately capture what you see–what’s more important is conveying what you felt when you came upon the scene, then previsualized and determined how to achieve that look in a print. Take a look at Monolith, The Face of Half Dome (Shop Monolith The Face of Half Dome Replica Print - Ansel Adams). The sky he saw was nowhere near that dark! He used a Wratten No. 29 dark red filter, as after using a No. 8 yellow, he realized that it wouldn’t be enough to get the look he saw in his mind’s eye. Fortunately, he had one more plate.

I’ve attached an image I processed using PL5 Elite and then Silver Efex Pro 3. As the TIFF file is 225MB, I resized it to 1080 pixels vertically (269KB–I’m not sure how big a file you can attach here). It looks great with the blue sky and thin clouds, but converting it to B&W in SEP3, tweaking tonality/structure/contrast (I can’t recall the exact details but I should try and replicate the look and save it as a custom preset–brain fart), and perhaps most significantly, applying a filter (I set the wavelength in the red-orange range with an intensity somewhere in the 60-70% range–it goes up to 200) really made it “pop” (the delicate detail of the crystalline ice looks amazing on baryta paper out of my Epson P900–it’s nowhere nearly as impressive onscreen). The point is, although I found this rare event jaw-dropping (I can’t recall ever seeing hoarfrost that high up or extensive–I shot a lot of other images), in order to try to capture the awe I felt required taking a few liberties with reality. Initially processing the RAW file in PL5 and finishing it in SEP3 allowed me the flexibility to get the effect I wanted. PL5 has great tools and it’s the best RAW converter I’ve used (and DeepPRIME is a game-changer for low light) and FP6 is useful and fun, but no program can match SEP3 for getting as close to a silver-gelatin B&W print as you can get with digital (even with a Leica M10 Monochrom). The level of control is amazing.

BtW, I shoot RAW+JPG and had the camera (Lumix G9) in L Monochrome D mode as it’s so much easier to visualize in B&W when you’re actually seeing B&W in the EVF–non-mirrorless cameras make no sense any more (and it’s hard to make a case for film either–and I say that as a late adopter of digital–it’s just gotten so good, especially with post-processing tools like these that enable you to realize your vision).

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Mike,

Honestly, if the photojournalism standard is not one which you can get away from, you should get the best shots you can in camera and save to fine jpegs only. Then just limit your edits to crops, and perhaps occasionally add a touch of sharpness and some slight contrast, and leave it at that.

These conversations of yours keep going round and round in circles and always end up at the same stumbling block, you’re adherence to strict photojournalist standards. I don’t think anyone is suggesting that you don’t maintain your standards, but you are certainly limiting yourself.

Many of us are more interested in making photographs that are appealing to the eye, and appealing to the soul, rather than ones that meet strict, but artistically limiting, photojournalism standards. Photos that are manipulated for artistic purposes are still photos, and very often are more interesting than photos captured to meet journalistic purposes. It’s a choice, and the decision is yours. But, you can’t have it both ways. You need to choose.

Mark

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I disagree - of course I can have it both ways. If I think my editing goes “too far” I just call it a “photo illustration”.

  • Photo Illustration is a general term which refers to the idea of taking a photograph (or several photographs), and editing it to turn it into something different. Illustrative photography is often used in advertising, marketing, book cover art, and even journalism.

To me, my cameras capture images which can be printed or uploaded, and they almost always start out as photographs. Tools like PhotoLab can be used to make them more appealing, up to a point. Should I take one of my photos, and edit out a tree or building, or replace the sky with a prettier sky, it’s no longer “real” and it becomes a photo illustration (or some other similar term).

Personally, I find it satisfying to capture a scene with my camera, and use PhotoLab to enhance it. There’s a lot of what I’ll call “wiggle room” between “photograph” and “photo illustration”.

I don’t think you understand. In no way am I suggesting or telling others what to do. I prefer doing things most of the time as you described. I don’t see how or why anyone should be bothered with it.

…and I’m still free to throw out all the rules when/if I want to, and create something that nobody else will see as “reality”, such as my infrared photos.

As for “the masters”, I’m not good enough, and don’t have the skills, to achieve what they have done. I’d like to be able to do so, but I don’t know how, and even if I did learn “how”, matching what they have done would be like my going to a Major League Baseball game, and hitting a home run. Ain’t gonna happen.

If everyone else in this forum is so skilled at doing this, why aren’t they posting THEIR photos for us to discuss? The only two people who do so are @Joanna who also posts images from Helen. If others are doing so, maybe I’m not looking in the right places.

I believe the main reason you are not seeing many general discussions of photos captured by members here is because historically that was not the purpose of this forum.

In my experience, this has not been a general photographic forum, although, as you know well, there is nothing wrong with creating topics of a more general nature that are only peripherally related to DxO products. Perhaps eventually DxO will create a separate section geared specifically to that purpose which might be a very useful addition to this site. Then perhaps you will see an increase in the type of discussions to which you were referring.

However, in the four years I’ve been here the primary focus of this feedback site has been the review of DxO products, the sharing of knowledge about the use of these products and learning from the experiences of others, suggesting and discussing potential new enhancements as well as updates to existing features, and the reporting of bugs and issues and hopefully getting resolutions to them.

Mark.

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Not at all! :grin:

In a journalistic context, not much, because journalism is all about context. But the mass audience for photographs is much more about “images” for images’ sake. If someone sees an image of a beautiful landscape, what usually makes an impact isn’t where it was taken but, more likely, simply, what a beautiful image.

Unless folks are looking at images in a journalistic context, they usually don’t care about “integrity”, usually it’s more about beauty or feelings.

So you were intentionally taking a photo where truth is compromised by the unavoidable waste basket that someone forgot to remove until ten seconds after you took your shot? In that kind of case, was it so important that the shot was taken at exactly 20:15:10 or 20:15:20? If you had had the right access, would you have removed the waste basket before taking the shot?

What if you took a shot from one particular angle that avoided the waste basket? Would that have been manipulation of reality? After all, the waste basket that you so faithfully captured was still there but you could have chosen to change reality before taking the shot, or even by moving yourself.

So, the headline for the article accompanying your image is “Donald Trump shakes hands with Mike Pence”. Do you really think it is going to change people’s perception of history if you asked them to pose? How many times have you seen TV news footage when subjects have been asked to make their signature gesture to yet another photographer because the initial angle wasn’t good for that photographer?

So why have you moved from shooting film to shooting digital? You’ve changed your spots for that. You are no longer recording the effect that photons have on negative film. Instead you are now relying on Nikon or Leica to translate the effect of photons striking a silicon sensor into an electronic signal, which they then interpret according to a particular algorithm to yield an image that reflects their idea of reality, not yours.

At the moment, you seem to be trying to justify your adherence to photojournalistic rules by stating that the photos you have been sharing and asking for help with are for photojournalistic purposes. But I have yet to see any of your photos that justify that stance, and most barely justify the status of “photo illustration”.

Which is what I have been encouraging you to do. The world can only take so many photos of the entirety of Biscayne Bay before they want to know what little jewels may be lurking in its backwaters and docks.

Time for an example.

The port at Perros Guirec…

Meahh :wink:

The Black Pearl oyster bar at Perros Guirec…

Meahh :wink:

But how about the anchor on the Black Pearl oyster bar…

… or even the dock on the miniature boating lake at Perros Guirec…

No journalists’ integrity has been harmed in the making of these images :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

This is what I mean by artistic, not something “manipulated” to death. Yes, I may have removed specks of floating algae or anything else that distracts the eye, but the end result is images that folks (hopefully) would want to hang on the wall.

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I’ve got to say I very much agree with the sentiments in your post and absolutely love the image.

And this is the kind of thing that PL and FP does so well - creating “filmic” images from digital files.

As an LF film photographer as well, I have to say that the FP colour filters for B&W work don’t give me quite the same effect as a physical filter of the same colour, or maybe I’ve just got to knuckle down and practice a bit more; but I find that the film presets do an excellent job. My favourite B&W film is Fuji Neopan Acros 100 and, to my eye, the FP preset represents it beautifully, with the tonal interpretations of colours being everything I would expect. I print my B&W images, processed via PL and FP, on Canson Baryta Photographique 310gm paper and they look simply stunning on the wall. As I would guess your lovely image would.

Now, stop right there! Up until about three years ago, I had never taken a portrait. Then we did a workshop at our club photo and I decided to take the bull by the horns and took my Ebony 5" x 4" camera and set up a daylight studio next to a window, with a reflector hanging from a tripod on the other side.

I just did what I had seen other portrait photographers doing and - much to my surprise, I got the most beautiful images, which have led me on to do more. I have even had a fellow photographer tell me that I have a great eye for portraiture and encourage me to do more.

Nobody has been more surprised than me and I would encourage you to do something that you haven’t done before. There’s plenty of guidance and folks to copy out there. Go on, put your photojournalism in its box for a while and try something. How about doing some detail shots of the docks where you are, like mine at Perros Guirec, to start with?

…and no animals have been harmed too (I suppose)…

PhotoLab can be used to make any image of whatever look different than it was. We can make an image look old and lousy with FilmPack mostly and who cares about whether it is fake or not - unless one tries to sell the fake as true.

Of course, we could restrict ourselves and live with unaltered ooc jpegs - or we can use PhotoLab to create - the word is in the title - our own interpretations

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What is an “unaltered” jpg? - This does not really exist - a software engineering department decided how this jpg looks like hence a Canon jpg will look different from a Nikon jpg etc… So what is “unaltered”?

@Sigi, you have altered my expression. An unaltered out of camera jpeg is what it is. A file with some content, both of which have been left alone.