What is Real?

Just participated in the 4th Affordable Photo Fair organized by Objectifs in their new premises. It is a fantastic event for photographers to show their works and chat with people.

Objectifs has gathered a good mix of photographers representing different genres. With 13 photographers each displaying at least 20 images, visitors were able to feast on 260 different images to say the least.

During the course of the fair, I was asked if I had photoshopped my images as the colors are saturated and seemingly unreal. Thou my answers is a simple no, in hindsight, have I been telling the truth?

Most photographers who scan their own transparencies would know that the scanned images are usually dull and less sharp as compare to the slide. Thou you have the option to tweak the image with the scanner’s software, it makes better sense and productivity to scan then process images in photo editing software like Photoshop; especially if you have loads of images to scan.

The film stock I use are Fuji Velvia for colour images and Ilford XP2 for black and white images. Velvia is not unknown to photographers for its saturated colours. To approximate the hues on Velvia, scanned images would have to be processed in Photoshop.

Thus, the question of whether I use Photoshop in my images, the answer is yes. In the context of whether I had presented the colours more saturated, i.e. unreal, than what it should be, the answer would be no; using the original slides as benchmark. On the other hand, how would you consider the colours captured on the slides, is it “photoshopped”?