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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Any thoughts on a PJ version of Photoshop..?
Fang Liang, Student/Intern, Photographer
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Fremont | CA | USA | Posted: 2:26 AM on 04.20.07 |
->> With all the recent events in photojournalism, is there anyone out there sees the need to create a toned down version of Photoshop, that can only perform certain basic function that a photojournalist would need? Just the dodge and burn, and cropping, and basic level, color adj, and such...
No copy and paste(no adding of no basketball), and none of that fancy stuff, prob. don't even need no layer, all that stuff that makes cloning so easy to perform, and so tempting for the cheating hearts....
I would think that editors would love that, it is certainly not fool-prof, but it helps.
It would certainly be cheaper, and easier on the newsroom budget, since we do not need as many feature as the current bloated/expensive CS3?
I see that... either we request Adobe to add the ability to turn-off some of these features at the managements' will. Or go the way of Open Source, and develop a version of GIMP that will suit a PJ's need, with added features for image protection, such as like embedding the original raw files in the image for future fact checking.
Any thoughts? |
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Ron Scheffler, Photographer
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Hamilton (Toronto area) | Ontario | Canada | Posted: 3:13 AM on 04.20.07 |
| ->> I would suggest it already exists - Photo Mechanic. What more is needed than cropping and captioning? All the other technical file preparation stuff can be handled by prepress. |
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Ron Erdrich, Photographer
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Abilene | TX | USA | Posted: 3:53 AM on 04.20.07 |
| ->> Assuming you have a prepress. |
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Damon Moritz, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Woodbridge | Va. | USA | Posted: 7:19 AM on 04.20.07 |
->> Fang,
I agree, but not only for reasons of ethics and finance. I'd also like to have light weight version so that it would launch the program before my laptop battery dies.
PM is great, but if you cant to color correct, you really do need PS. |
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John Plassenthal, Photographer
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Vandalia | OH | USA | Posted: 8:06 AM on 04.20.07 |
| ->> I agree that such products are already on the market. A friend turned me on to ACDSee and it fits nicely in this space as well. It has some powerful batch processing capabilities. I find the batch exposure adjustment valuable for night sports at a couple of the fields I shoot. I wish the cropping tool would default to the original proportion constraints, but that's the only drawback that I see. The nice thing is you can use the full version for 30 days before deciding to buy. The demo version isn't a wattered down limited function set which lets you get a full feel for what it has to offer. It took me less than a week to make my decision to spend the $. |
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Fj Hughes, Photographer, Assistant
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Baltimore | MD | USA | Posted: 8:12 AM on 04.20.07 |
| ->> Lightroom.....maybe? |
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Matthew Rosenberg, Photographer
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Charlottesville | VA | United States | Posted: 10:20 AM on 04.20.07 |
->> You can't blame the program, only the people. If somebody wants to do something unethical to a photo they will find a away.
I sometimes use my own laptop instead of the company laptop. Reason being I have CS2 installed on my laptop and I like to shoot in RAW format. If the company laptop had Photoshop PJ installed I could easily make the changes on my laptop and then submit the images.
I think having a dumbed down version of Photoshop would make editors and others more complacent. Their mentality would be that we don't have the capability to make unethical changes in post production.
Again ethical photographers make ethical photographs. Unethical photographers make unethical photos regardless of the tools they are provided.
-Matt |
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Jack Howard, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Somerville | NJ | USA | Posted: 10:37 AM on 04.20.07 |
->> I'd like to see a reporter version of MS Word, too! You know, to keep the Jayson Blairs out there honest while reporting.
And there could be a poet's version with lots of swirly fonts, and a psychopath's version with only one font--angry antique typewriter, no speelchecker, and a version for people who post to message boards but don't understand the homophones they're using--would automatically convert "intensive purposes" to "intents and purposes" "pre-madonna" which refers to the late seventies and early eighties when there was a lot of great punk and new wave music, to "prima donna" which is a term used to describe a high-maintenance pain in the @ss, and "perineal" (search it yourself) to "perennial" which is a type of flower which blooms year after year--or something, such as a blues musician who has enjoyed popularity and critical acclaim for a long period of years.
_____________________
Of course, if someone's a reporter, but also a poet, it causes some problems, huh? |
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Robert O'Rourk, Photographer
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Setauket | NY | USA | Posted: 10:39 AM on 04.20.07 |
| ->> Lightroom certaintly is a candidate. I do my ingest, editing, exposure, color correct and other minor items before sending to several papers I freelance for. I have come to like it enough that I will also get a PC copy for my laptop, which isn't a MAC (yet). |
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Jason Orth, Photographer
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Omaha | NE | USA | Posted: 10:48 AM on 04.20.07 |
->> Isn't it kind of like the "P" on the camera - just don't use it?
Lightroom, Photo Mechanic, Elements, ACDsee...heck if you're broke the free Picasa and IrfanView do that job.
When I've done larger shoots, the biggest issue of handling a shoot is managing the mass of files more than making changes to them. What I don't get right, I usually toss. |
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Jim Leary, Photographer
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| NY | USA | Posted: 12:06 PM on 04.20.07 |
| ->> Seems to me lightroom is exactly what you are talking about. Great program! |
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Alicia Wagner Calzada, Photographer
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San Antonio | TX | USA | Posted: 1:03 PM on 04.20.07 |
->> The clone tool is also used for removing camera sensor dust, which is not consider unethical.
Newspapers need to be able to trust that their journalists and "content providers" are being ethical and following a certain code. No amount of denying access to software will substitute for ethics training and proper oversight and checks and balances in the newsroom.
Training on ethics is the answer. Those who didn't get a formal journalism education (and even those who did) need to familiarize themselves with the NPPA code of ethics. NPPA ethics chair John Long recently produced a DVD on ethics in the digital age. It is also a useful resource. Here is a link to it:
https://www.nppa.org/assets/applications/Template.cfm?Template=Ecommerce/Pr...
Every photo department should be reviewing ethics with their staff on a regular basis. The moment when you are caught with an ethical violation (or 79 ethical violations) is too late. If it is really important, it should be emphasized and reviewed on a regular basis. |
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Primoz Jeroncic, Photographer
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Kranj | SI | Slovenia | Posted: 2:14 PM on 04.20.07 |
->> Maybe I'm just naive, but I still hope we live in (more or less) honest world, and few people can't change that. So I would say that more then PJ version of PS, we need honest journalists. I know it doesn't always go, but I still think huge majority of us is honest.
PS: I still need clone tool. Unfortunately dust comes on my sensor, when I need it the least. |
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Fang Liang, Student/Intern, Photographer
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Fremont | CA | USA | Posted: 2:33 PM on 04.20.07 |
->> I haven't tried Lightroom, sounds like it have a great following.... I used PhotoMechanic too, it just don't have some of the dodge-n-burn features.
I would agree that it ulltimatly will be up to the photographer, and if you do want to cheat, there will always be ways...
Photoshop is just so bloated with extra features that no PJ will ever need. Just thought that there might be a cheaper solution that will address both of these problems, maybe with the extra saving, they can buy me a new lens that's not so scratched up....
Dream on.. |
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Samuel Lewis, Photographer
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Miami | FL | USA | Posted: 3:03 PM on 04.20.07 |
->> I respectfully disagree with the notion that PM is enough for legitimate editing purposes (and this is from the point of view of someone who uses PM more than Photoshop).
I have yet to see a digital camera that properly determines white balance every time. Realistically, we're lucky if the camera correctly "guesses" the white balance about half the time. I also have yet to see a digital camera that accurately creates black and white images, and PM simply doesn't allow the sort of dodging and burning that was done with film and was never considered unethical.
If you want you want is a simplified version of photoshop, elements might suffice. However, it doesn't include curves, and I can't speak to whether it works with plug-ins like NoiseNinja, etc. |
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Andrew Kornylak, Photographer
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Decatur | GA | USA | Posted: 3:18 PM on 04.20.07 |
->> I would suggest that Adobe Bridge is what you are talking about.
I agree with the informative (and humorous) posts above for the most part. The burden of honesty lies with the photographer. However, I think editors and newsrooms can (and do) take measures to to enforce ethical standards, though perhaps image metadata standards should include modification flags to help with this.
Andrew Kornylak
www.akornphoto.com |
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Jim Colburn, Photographer
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Omaha | NE | USA | Posted: 3:36 AM on 04.21.07 |
| ->> If you want to install a "light" version of Photoshop on your laptop go right ahead. Do the normal install and then delete all of the excess stuff that you don't need. Things like all those silly "spherize" filters and brushes and plug-ins to read Targa files. I did it and Photoshop CS2 now only takes up 262Mb on my hard drive. |
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Bob Markey, Photographer
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Royal Palm Beach | FL | US | Posted: 3:01 AM on 04.22.07 |
->> Photoshop Elements?
Isn't there now a Photoshop that can be used online? |
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Ronda Churchill, Photographer
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Las Vegas | NV | United States | Posted: 3:34 AM on 04.22.07 |
->> Do you ever wonder when the mentality of "more, more, more!" will ever stop? Do we really need all of these extra functions? Even though most agree, we know they will keep making more programs with more "oomph." Same goes with cameras...where will they stop? A 25 megapixel camera with a file size that will kill your computer? Wait, no that won't happen because there will be a bigger better computer by then, right?
Everything in life, it seems is thrown at us with "more is better." More functions, more options, more money! I try to step back and remind myself that "less is more." and bring it back to the roots of things...i.e. shooting several rolls on my Holga last week. I am not against advances in technology (because where would we be today as photojournalists) I just think that if only people could just slow down perhaps they would make better images that wouldn't need unethical altering. |
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Jeff Mills, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Columbus | OH | USA | Posted: 3:09 PM on 04.22.07 |
->> I think a dumbed down version of photo shop is somewhat missing the point of a larger issue. Maybe you can somehow find a way to make all your PJ's use a given version of software (that alone I can't ever see happening) but what did it solve ? Stopped someone from cloning out a pair of legs maybe but is the world now going to be a fair, just, moral and 100% ethical place in regards to news coverage ? Not hardly
How about a PJ version of a Canon 1D mkII that only can shoot news as it unfolds and thats shutter can't fire for set up photos or situations where you missed the moment but ask the subject to redo the pose ?
Questionable ethics in what could be called "the media" have been a problem long, long before photoshop ever existed.
No matter what technology exist, from hand retouching, retouching, stagged photos, purposefully running the wrong photo or whatever else, the begining and end comes down to people.
A 'pj' photoshop version is well and good, but whats even better is a hardworking ethical employee and editors to support him/her. Thats where the development resouces need to go, not new software. |
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Eric Francis, Photographer
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Omaha | NE | United States | Posted: 3:13 PM on 04.22.07 |
->> yes, it's called Adobe lightroom
it works so well it also has me shooting more RAW
eric |
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Jeff Mills, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Columbus | OH | USA | Posted: 9:38 PM on 04.22.07 |
->> I'm going out on a limb here maybe, but guys, you do realize that Lightroom actually has a much more powerful and easy to use clone tool than photoshop cs2 right ???
In lightroom you can actually freely move around both the cloned region and the source! Makes it much easier to get seamless blends.
Not to mention the targeted adjust tool makes tweaking color and exposure a piece of cake. As a whole Lightroom makes it easier to make drastic edits.
Its a great program yes, but if your suggesting it as a means to stop people from doing manipulations to their photos its rather like giving someone who has a habit of playing with matches a cigarette lighter. |
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