When is Editing CHEATING?

[@TonyAndChelsea]

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[@benthompson9717]

The house with the added lights seems to have another issue. If you look at the scale of the window lower level, distance to the interior front right corner, distance from the unlit lower porch windows and distance from those windows to the same interior front right corner, I don't see how that could be two different rooms. So, how is the room pitch dark through one window and brightly very lit in the other? I would have suggested low light levels, such as on the house you didn't like the composition and doing it to all the windows to look more typical.

[@mauiholidayinformation4656]

Unless you're shooting for Reuters or Associated Press news agencies, or entering a photo contest that has specific editing guidelines - you're good. It's fine art photography.

[@SmallSpoonBrigade]

TBH, I think it's going to depend a bit on what you're saying you've done. In this case of that first photo, that seems fair enough. The majority of the image is a real photo and even the window could have been lit like that had the photographer been lucky enough. I wouldn't personally do it, as that's now how I work, but it's fully legitimate.

[@bngr_bngr]

I see some photography editing is just to much. It goes beyond reality.

[@jbr84tx]

@@SmallSpoonBrigade Exactly. As long as you don't misrepresent what you did, it's OK. If you used AI to enhance it, you should say so. Things like removing power lines or signposts is OK in my opinion.

[@jeroenschoondergang5923]

As long as the photographer is happy with it, who are we to judge? I see wildlife photos where some post editing would have really enhanced (my opinion) the picture. But if you made the photo and are happy, that is all that matters.

[@bobhendrick1175]

Cheater ,,,,,,,,😢

[@cmflyer]

We've been in our house in a river canyon for almost 30 years, and there's been a power line between our backyard and the river this whole time. I've gone to great lengths to keep them out of my photos, and perhaps edited them out a few times. Well, miracle of miracles, the power company decided (after storms and fires here in the west), that they were dangerous and antiquated, so they took them out! Cut down all the poles too! Never thought I'd see the day...

[@tstanley01]

That has to be a good feeling...enjoy your new and improved view...It probably made your property value go up as well! LOL

[@JZTechEngineering]

@@tstanley01prop value just doubled

[@25Dzone]

Chelsea being effortlessly stunning in every thumbnail is always amazing to me

[@theonlyredspecial]

oh you charmer you 😂

[@KNURKonesur]

cause they CHEAT with the editing ;)

[@john2000l]

I was lucky enough to see Ansel Adams twice in the 1960's, and this exact question came up. His comment ended with "as the photographer and the artist, I can do anything with my photograph that I want to create what I want people to see". "I believe that anything the photographer wants to do is perfectly alright and cannot be considered inappropriate" ......He is right, and so is Chelsea. The addition of the room light was a choice to increase the pleasure of the photograph and Chelsea has that right and ability. Remember, photography in its basic form is ART, that the opinion will be in the eye of the beholder.

[@openskyphotography]

I agree. In the end, it's art. Great quote from Adams, thanks for sharing that.

[@jg1007]

I completely agree. Photography is art just like a picture created with with pencil or paint or anything else. You wouldnt dream of telling a sculpur he is cheating because he used too much clay would you? Of course, the viewer of the art always has the ability and right to say they don't like your art because your edit ruined it in their opinion.

[@nytexano]

He died in 1984, just as digital imaging was beginning. Darkroom modifications could take hours and often many trials and still, from the most skilled operators, offered a tiny fraction of what is now possible in minutes by merely competent operators

[@JesseRedmanBand]

I love you guys! Great topic! I've been around the business for more than 50 years. Very thought provoking. It seems cheating may be a personal evaluation rather than a universal one. We probably each have our own definition that conforms more to what we are trying to achieve and is therefore subjective much more than objective. Fifty photographers and 56 definitions! Keep up all the great work!

[@phila3884]

I just posted a comment on one way to judge it- but yeah, just an opinion among a sea of interpretations. I think a baseline is plain willful misrepresentation.

[@ziggggy53ify]

Even some photojournalism platforms allow some 'distracting elements' removal in post-production, but most still do not allow elements removal. Some photojournalism platforms allow minor contrast or curves adjustments, minor clarity and saturation adjustments, etc. If you're shooting for photojournalism sites then definitely learn their particular rules about post-production editing. There was a time when newspaper and magazine editors were 'very' particular about post-production editing, and you had to add a disclaimer/notation of, "This is an illustration", to such edited images. I do not know of any great restrictions on cropping, however. In fact, publication editorial staff would often crop images to fit a column size.

[@Holtenstein]

In addition to Photojernos, the other field for which you have clear rules for editing is Real estate photography. For instance, you can't just edit out those powerlines in the background.

[@RandumbTech]

Yet many people do...😢

[@naughtyskweet6]

Disagree. You're trying to get attention and attract customers. Only a tool buys a house without going to look at it in real life.

[@paristo]

Four different levels. 0) File is from the camera, only having adjustments the camera body can do or what can be done optically with filters or other means manipulating camera. 1) Corrections: Rotation, cropping, contrast, brightness, white balance, exposure and dust particle stamping away (like from surface of negative etc) and of course colors adjustment to maintain right color for final image via printing or display technical differences etc. 2) Editing: Keystone correction (tilting buildings etc), local exposure adjustments (darkening sky and brightening ground ratio etc), color altering (more yellowish flower, greenier foliage, bluer sky, blue dress to golden...). 3) Manipulation: Removing objects/subjects from the frame, a trash, a tree, a car, a building, a rock, a cloud, a moon, anything really. Changing the mood of the photo more unlike what you can see on-site in reality. Shifting objects positions. Making someone thinner, or fatter, whitening teeths, removing greace spot on tie etc etc.

[@ibrahimzain9472]

4) AI: using AI to generate images and saying you took them.

[@davidleonhardt5907]

If it’s art, then it’s not cheating. If it’s photojournalism, and you add something, that’s cheating.

[@The_SUN1234]

Whenever you edit a photo you are cheating. I mean why not call spade a spade. The problem is when you inster morale into the context.

[@royayersrules]

Or take something away

[@davidleonhardt5907]

@ exactly, good point.

[@tezkyflex7304]

@@The_SUN1234then every photo is cheating, so there is no cheating if its everywhere. Checkmate purist.

[@robertocolucci4069]

I was lucky enough to photograph the Aurora twice here in Dublin in the past year. The first time, yes, the aurora looked like grey wispy clouds to the eye. But the second time I went to a different location where there was much less light pollution. (It was on a cliff walk overlooking the Irish sea) and the colours - magenta, red, green - really were visible to the naked eye. It was absolutely stunning.

[@arkansasoutpost]

I'm envious. I managed to get a short timelapse of the aurora in New Mexico a few months ago. It wasn't visible to the eye, but a long exposure (10 sec iirc) brought it out. It was still dim in the video, so I tried to edit it to be a bit brighter. I ended up leaving it as it was, but I wondered at the time if that would be considered cheating.

[@Sedifet]

For me, it is not photography if something is added or taken away from the image as it was captured by the sensor or film. I think exceptions can be made for stuff that is temporary, such as a spot or bruise. but if you're going outside of what was present in the moment, then you're no longer capturing a photograph, but instead making a comp or collage made with parts of a photograph. The final image is no longer photography though (as in made with traces of light), but a artistic interpretation. I think it is ok to tweak an image, as you are still working with the tracing and light that was originally captured, but if you're adding things that were not present in the scene, then it was not recorded with light from that moment and therefore not photography

[@ddgyt50]

Ugh, this should not be a debate. Photography is a visual medium which encompasses a range from pure realism to fantasticus.

[@ShadowProductions94]

For me, cheating begins the moment you hide something you're intentionally keeping from others. As a digital artist, I use photography as a medium to express my vision and make statements. This often involves extensive Photoshop work and CGI, tailored to the concept and themes I'm exploring. If I were to conceal those details, then it would feel dishonest. I believe we should be transparent and unapologetically proud of our creative processes-whatever they may be. It doesn't matter if others approve or not; what matters is owning your craft with integrity.

[@jbr84tx]

Yes, transparency is the key. Don't misrepresent your product.

[@thierryhoornaert9950]

I don't get it: you don't conceal anything -- like litter, litter boxes, power lines or building works -- in your digital art too? Then what is your extensive Photoshop work and CGI about ?

[@qazwer001]

@@thierryhoornaert9950 the argument is if you remove those items from the photo and you are transparent that it was edited you are not covering up that it was edited, ie you do not present it as a depiction of reality. I go back and forth on it, I have a photo I want to print really large that has a distracting element I did not see when taking the photo, arguably my eye edited it out, but cloning it out also feels like cheating as there is no good way to say "I lightly edited the background" without giving the layman the impression it is purely a work of photoshop. At the same time other people depict edited photos as a reflection of reality so if one tries to be a pure photographer and get it right in camera, they will look less skilled to the layman that assumes most photos are as they would have seen were they there in person.

[@jeff_williams]

I once wanted to enter a photo contest a few years ago, but the rules said no noise reduction was allowed. I thought this was absurd considering that noise in my image was actually added by my camera to the scene I was shooting. It also seemed a wee bit elitist considering that photos taken with the most expensive cameras were less likely to have that noise in them than mine.

[@k34561]

That is funny considering just about every camera does noise reduction. Even raw images are not guaranteed to have no noise reduction.

[@qazwer001]

Agreed that is absurd. As it was a few years ago you can't even give the excuse that it was out of concern for AI noise reduction hallucinating detail that was not in the photo.

[@richardbedford3244]

-- I started in the '60s as a newspaper photographer. Photos were always cropped to fit the space allotted. When I became a medical photographer, photos were also cropped by myself or the publisher of the medical journals for the same reason. This did not change the essence of the images. Publicity photos such as headshots were either dodged and burned or cleaned up in post!! I never did weddings, but I know that many of my fellow photographers who did would also dodge/burn, and sometimes remove distractions from the photos. Never added "stuff" that wasn't there. I take a variety of photos today --anything I see that I like--but mostly motorsports. I continue to do many of these things in digital. But, I have never added anything that wasn't in the original image.

[@grjlynch]

As an amateur photographer in his sixties, I love that the 'art of photography' now includes both the pictures you shot, and any editing applied in post. When I used film and early digital cameras, having a dark room or owning editing software was beyond the budget and skills of most amateurs. As a result, I was often disappointed that the images I saw through the lens was not what I captured in the camera. So now, I do make ‘lighting’ corrections in post and (because I have a Leica Q3) I do a lot of cropping too. Occasionally, I also use the new AI powered removal tools in Lightroom to get rid of 'distractions’ that I feel detracts from what I was trying to get from the picture. I accept of course that if I was a better (more ‘professional’) photographer, I would probably need to do less in post. In mitigation however, I usually factor in the cropping and subject removal I will need to do in Lightroom when I press the shutter release. Unlike a photojournalist, I am not always trying to capture an exact ‘photocopy’ of what I am taking a picture of, but what I want the image to look like or convey in a story. For me, photography is more of an art than a science and if I and others get joy from looking at the final images, I don’t really care what other people think. Am I cheating? I don’t think so, but then I drive an automatic sportscar and many car enthusiasts tell me that it’s not real driving unless I drive a manual car!

[@stew_redman]

There are a few photographers that "never crop" and say so as if it somehow validates there images and makes them a better photographer. I just see it as them choosing to limit how they present their images. It doesn't make them or their images better.

[@rknevt3530]

Whenever I encounter someone questioning the ethics of intentionally manipulating an image for effect, I want to ask: "If we were painters, would anyone question the colors, composition, techniques that we would use to create an image? Or would it simply be judged by the experience of the person viewing it, and NOT by the method used to create it or its fidelity to the original scene?" For me it's a matter of intent, and some confuse the purpose of photography by journalists, scientists, archivists, etc. to record the reality of a scene or object as accurately as possible, with those for which photography is simply a medium for their artistic expression.

[@romiemiller7876]

The intended use makes a difference. Most news publications don’t allow any editing. The photos have to be trusted. Some of my landscapes have sky replacements, etc., because they’re art, not news.

[@GonkThePowerDroid]

I live in the south of Norway and get the occasional chance to see the aurora (I can count on one disfigured hand how many times a year). And it's only because I have been alerted to a potential high kp-index. Even with eyes slightly attuned to the dark any real color can be difficult to see. You see something that you suspect might be aurora and so you take a several seconds long test exposure and inspect the screen for color. A few times you can see the greens with your own eyes and sometimes also reds. You can get a faint glimpse of billowing curtains lasting from seconds to a few minutes. And then it might go quiet for hours. Now... in northern Norway it shouldn't be uncommon to clearly see colors and curtains even with eyes not attuned to night and probably pretty vivid too.

[@modelcitizen1977]

If you're adding something that wasnt there, whether its a hot air baloon or a lit window, its cheating. Changing the color balance or sharpness or CA or barrel distortion, that's all fine.

[@jbr84tx]

Unless you say you added it.

[@Tarets]

How is changing the colors to the ones that were not there not cheating by your own rules?

[@klartext2225]

Sorry, makes NO sense. The light IS there, perhaps 15 minutes later. A hot air balloon that NEVER was there is cheating.

[@jbr84tx]

@@Tarets Sometimes you are making up for the deficiencies of the camera -- lack of dynamic range, color fidelity etc. Sometimes you see a sunset in glorious reds, oranges and yellows, and when you see it on your monitor, it looks much duller. You have to increase the saturation and maybe contrast to make it look like your eyes saw it.

[@jg1007]

​@@jbr84txThe problem is that once you start making judgements as to which edits are ok because you are making up for deficiencies, you make it subjective. And once you make it subjective, then you cannot judge whether one photographers opinion. About what needs to change is right or wrong.

[@risetteconsul5402]

Great discussion. I enjoy and learn very much from your show. I am a dentist from Mexico and I take pictures of the mouth, teeth, surrounding areas if needed. And the problem I´ve had was to obtain a true to life, exact color of tissues and teeth. This is very important for dental follow through or referral. This problem is due to the automatism of the camera which has to be dealt with. Gee in the days of film, I used slide color reversal film - very precise and demanding.

[@TheShockwave44]

Looks better without the lit window. Makes you wonder if anyone is home. Plus with the lit window it's difficult to look at anything else.

[@mikebrownhill4662]

I photograph wildlife, and my take on this is that adding elements to a photo is wrong - unless you declare what you've done and leave it to the viewer to decide. Personally, I don't do it. Removing elements can be OK if it's just distractions like branches, but for me it's a last resort, done to rescue an image. Tone and colour correction is not only OK - it's absolutely necessary if you shoot RAW because a camera doesn't record these in the same way as our eyes work. If you shoot JPG then your camera has already "edited" the tone and colour in the image so there's nothing you can do about it - that image has been edited according to the settings in your camera. As for cropping - absolutely fine. I can't understand why anyone would have a problem with this. If you're printing the image then it''ll probably need a crop anyway, to fit the size and aspect of the frame... are we supposed to print the full image and then take a pair of scissors to it, just so we can say we didn't crop in Photoshop? Anyway, that's my take - I know others will work differently and I accept that my "rules" would be a bit different if I was working in other genres.

[@coolerdaniel9899]

Maybe I'm imagining it, but Chelsea got really good at this video format in like the last year. She's so good now at making entertaining conversation on camera.

[@sylvaindupuis5595]

Personnally, I would not use Photoshop. I just take pictures and tries to recreate the feeling I had when I took it with Ligthroom or DxO. I will adjust contrast, lighning and may remove dust on the lens, do some crooping to remove unwanted things on the border or redress the horizon, but I limit my edit. Maybe because I'm not that good at it. I have notting against people who use photoshop or make lot more adjusting, but it's not what I aspire to do.

[@jiridvorak]

Love your energy and chemistry still working between you both :) Hello from Prague !

[@ElGuajiro48]

Ansel Adams took a picture of Mt. Whitney from Lone Pine, California. I've been the exact place where the image was taken. Today as it was when he took the image, there is an LP in the hill in the middle ground of the image. Mr. Adams did a lot of manipulation of the image in the darkroom but he did not completely remove the "LP" in the image the presented. If you were to get a recent print of that image, the "LP" will have been cloned out. Perhaps Mr. Adams would have cloned the "LP" out the image if the had the tools at the time, or perhaps not. I don't know what constitutes "cheating" but I find that manipulating an image after a photographer is dead very upsetting. Specially when it is marketed as an original work.

[@ricodeco2139]

Older amateur photographer here with two cents worth. My favorite subjects are everyday female humans and critters of all kinds. The former tend to love a little extra retouching, the latter ask for none. After over-capitulating to pressures probably real and imagined in earlier years, I've settled on a target that seems to work for me and my human models... "how that person really looks on a good day to a loving eye." Our eyes tend to naturally accentuate the most appealing features in the people we like, but we all know cameras can and sometimes will do the exact opposite. Echoing some of Tony's point, since I tend to be fond of the subjects who make my pictures possible, I'm really just aiming to display them the way I saw them in the viewfinder. The finished product may be embellished to some, but they are reality to me. The good news is, there's plenty of room for everyone to do the work that pleases them. The only photos I often wish there were fewer of... 1. The overcooked HDR images that look more like illustrations than photographs. 2. The mannequin like, zero"imperfection" beauty shots that sadly contribute to many millions of natural and beautiful girls and women feeling not beautiful enough. Thanks for the consistently good content you provide, wishing you both continued success.

[@deloceanophoto]

I’m with Chelsea on this! Unless you’re doing photojournalism or entering a competition that has rules - in which case you should obey the competition rules. And I agree that too much editing in fashion photography can be a problem with unrealistic beauty expectations, although some retouching is always going to happen.

[@TigaWould]

actually, you're makeup artist, hair stylist, designer and crew are supposed to catch a lot of things in fashion photography. I think you also have to think about lighting and so many other things in fashion photography (especially high end or couture), that you shouldn't be editing a ton. You can make a lot of the mistakes go away simply by lighting your subject correctly.

[@jbr84tx]

@@TigaWould I don't see much difference between adjusting the lighting, makeup, hair style, etc. before the shoot and doing the same things in postprocessing the photos.

[@TigaWould]

@@jbr84tx Depends on how you shoot. I clearly see a difference, but that's what I am trained in, so we might have 2 different experiences (I mean no offense when I say any of this). I will mess with lighting until I get the effect that I want and have the makeup artist touch up the model after I pose to get the desired effect. I will use Gels on strobes, adjust the models angles, use a negative fill technique to reduce the flash impact, use filters on my lenses, etc... I do a lot of work before taking the shots. So we might have 2 different styles of shooting and we might be talking about 2 different types of "fashion photography" (once again no offense). but all modifiers and different methods can drastically effect the outcome of an image in a what that photoshop and others post editing software can't do yet! if you're just taking a picture and editing everything in post, there isn't anything wrong with that, but... I make sure that my photos are as close to post ready as possible in camera, that way when I get to the editing process or have my editor take care of the photos, there's not much that needs to be cleaned up and it's as close to depicting the model and the designs as possible.

[@jbr84tx]

@@TigaWould I agree - do everything you can to prepare the model, background, lighting etc. but there will always be need for some editing later.

[@TigaWould]

@@jbr84tx agreed

[@wayfinderak]

As someone who lives in Alaska, you are kinda correct on the aurora. Most of the time it does just look like wispy clouds. But there are times when it is as vivid as you see in pictures.

[@Kellysher]

The conversation is interesting, but this will be moot very quickly. We will have no idea what is real and what is not very soon with AI. Photography or digital art lines are going to be gone soon. I’m not a professional. I do nature photography for my own personal enjoyment. I use all the tools Lightroom offers to make my images satisfying to me. If you are competing with others, this topic will drive you nuts. I can just imagine the day when I hang a gorgeous picture in my house and when someone admires it, saying… Ya, it’s actually a real photo!”.

[@mikaelwester]

I was thinking about the aurora. I talk about the fact that the camera sensor is more sensitive than the human eye in this case. But nobody is listening……..But all of us living in the north know it. But in someways it’s better in real life. If it covers the hole sky,the dance, sometimes the sound. So the overall experience is better in real life. But every single moment is stronger in photos.

[@WilliamSullivan-h8o]

I live in southern Minnesota. We do not get the frequency nor intensity of aurora much further north. This year, 2024, We had a number of chances to see the aurora due to solar eruptions. I found that looking at the aurora, I saw a large irregular gray area. When I put my camera on a tripod and set the exposure to 30 seconds or 1 minute, the photo showed color. In post this color could easily be intensified to the normal intensity of driving 250 miles north. It's a choice.

[@mikaelwester]

@ Yes, it’s a choice. One thing I haven’t been thinking about. Is that not only is the camera sensor more sensitive. It’s also a matter of exposure time. For an example. 1s adds up a lot more light than the live thing for the human eye. But sometimes they are almost as strong as seen in photos. Sunsets and sunrises I sometimes decrease effects in edit from the originals. Because otherwise they look over edited/unreal. No need for that with auroras. I live at 60°N so it’s often strong.

[@dave8210]

Midjourney does generate pictures. It doesn’t generate photos…right?

[@SecureSnowball]

So all photos are images but not all images are photos?

[@lilguilty]

Specifically on the window light vs powerline debate. I would have to agree with Tony, just because I feel like the light in the window becomes the main point of interest in this specific photo. While removing a power line is not taking away from the main subject.

[@scottyvorenberg1424]

Love your chemistry! Thanks for all the years of insight!

[@mandypockets8818]

At 23:04 Chelsea remarks that " We're going to have a generation of people that have really weird ideas" That is so much the point of the whole discussion. I'm afraid that’s here and now. The wide use of AI generated "junk" is already distorting reality so much, fake and reality walk hand in hand.

[@clintkaster6269]

Great discussion! I spent a couple years just figuring out which end of the thing pointed at the thing and held myself to a "no edit" standard to push myself to create it SOOC. It was a good process for learning. I finally got into Lightroom (and dread having to learn something else as Adobe becomes more evil) which has been a revelation as far as control of an edit process that takes me pretty much as far as I want right now. I AM becoming interested in layering and skin tone processing in Photoshop as I have a few shots where I need to fix something to really elevate the overall image. I don't think that's "cheating" -- I think I draw that line in changing a figure or adding/subtracting major visual components. Early on I had a model show me some images from another photographer. I liked them and remember her anger as she pointed out all the changes he had made to her body. Her question was "why was I there" and I got it. Deeply intrusive edits have a place -- art, retail, fashion...I think there are places where people understand that "something has been done". But that's a personal or business decision. Thankfully, I am not a commercial photographer and so I am free to follow a particular idea as far as I care to take it, which for me is primarily physical in the moment. At the same time one of my favorite images took pretty heavy editing to coax something out of it. Actually, several of them. The original picture simply did not capture what I could plainly see.

[@oldguy1030]

I think of three categories: 1. Photos to show what you saw. Minimal changes to just fix things so that you present what you actually saw. 2. Photos to show what you wish you saw. More aggressive editing. 3. Photos to show what you want others to see. When you are done editing the image may have little to do with reality. Cheating? Well, sure - and no. Even if you are trying to show what you saw it's using a bleeding digital camera which (especially in JPG) alters the photo. You have a system which is killing hot pixels, you may be changing the white balance, you may be using artificial lighting, de-noising, etc. And even printing the photo will likely change the colors - and it certainly won't be a true 3-D image.

[@GlennSchultes]

The days of shooting RAW means almost every image will be edited. Even loading it into Lightroom, Adobe will apply a template - and is technically an Edit...

[@TheHutchMusic]

Jpegs (and other digital formats) are totally a lossy process... is that an edit?

[@GlennSchultes]

@ yes, because the camera has applied the manufacturer’s colour science and sharpening- which is an edit

[@bryantwalley]

Regarding adding the light in the window. The light looks like it would have if you had called someone in the house and had them turn the light on. No one would say that was cheating. So, adding the light was not cheating. If you were to add or change something that would not be able to be done "in the real world" then you have moved to another area of photography

[@andrass.2842]

I just had an argument about this under an instagram post. I think it also depends on what genre we are talking about. If you photograph for customers or marketing purposes, then nothing is cheating, however when it comes to nature photography, there are some things I can not tolerate. When I take a photo of a bird and change the complete background color, add warm color, that's cheating. If I want warm colors, I should get out the right time in the right conditions and get the warm colors in camera on the field. This is why I'm a photographer and not a painter. A photograph is showing what I captured on the field, but if I add extra things, then how can we call it a photograph? The problem is not that we use lightroom or photoshop or even ai. These are just tools so we can create more and more unique stuff. The problem is that we still confuse it with photography and we still share these images as photographs. But if we look at a final result where I changed the colors to something else than what was on the field, then it's only 80% photography and 20% digital painting. And the more things we change and edit, the less we can call it photography. In my opinion, photography happens on the field with a camera. Of course. we need to edit raw images, but everything else that we add (that was not on the field) does not belong to photography.

[@cdmc2]

I used to work at a high quality coffee roaster and the problem for roasters is overtime they like darker and darker roasts. There's a slow drift to more intense. I see the same in photography, notably landscape photography, where editing images has become so powerful, even without AI, that final images are more intense, deeper darks and brighter whites, more refined and perfect but completely removed from reality. You'd never see that lighting in that scene in real life. I think in decades to come this look will seem artificial and be rejected.

[@kimdangtrong1940]

I think it is a very good discussion. Today it is more important than ever that we tell the truth. I agree with most of the posters that you can edit your images with all your tools like adjusting brightness, color and cropping but never add or erase any objects in the final image. If you do you should call it a fine art image or illustration or whatever but not a photograph.

[@davesusko3517]

Since I became a landscape photographer, I CAN’T NOT see power lines… even when I’m not taking a photograph.

[@pshulins]

Great discussion! With regard to the Northern Lights: I think we need to remember that the film (or chip) records more detail than the eye can see. So a human would not experience the same colors or intensity that is depicted in a photograph. So I would argue that in the end the photo of the aroura that is presented to the viewer while not being "modified" presents another sense of reality, not what the photographer saw or experienced, but rather a representation of what the laws of physics did to the chip by allowing photons to excite CCD pixels instead of what those same photons do to a human retina.

[@brucetrue]

Tony's on the couch tonight! That was my thought on his initial answer. he may have saved himself later. Seriously though, it is great to listen to them talk to each other.

[@visibleinvisibility8557]

Except for very specific situations, like photojournalism or photo contests, to name a couple, either all editing is cheating or no editing is cheating. It can’t be “editing is cheating but dodging and burning is okay” or “removing power lines is okay” or “cropping is okay” etc. it’s all editing. What’s okay and what isn’t depends entirely on the photographer who took the photo. If you think lighting up a window is okay for your photo then it’s okay. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says.

[@schmfr1950]

Chelsea&Tony at their best. Tx u very much for this video

[@nickditoro]

I'm more in line with Tony that it's okay to, say, expand the canvas to add the tip of a bird's wing as that doesn't change the reality of the bird. I did this very thing while in a fast-moving boat. The bird was in focus, but I missed getting the tip of its wing in frame. Similarly, if I somehow miss the very top of a prominent tree in a landscape shot, I'll expand the frame to let AI generate the last few inches. Finally, when I see that my too-wide aperture captured bushes or a solitary tree branch, I'll edit these out in Photoshop. To the good, I always resolve to try to be a better photographer the next time so that there are fewer things to change in post. (I probably wouldn't have added the lights in the house, though, but I didn't mind that Chelsea did.)

[@CarolineClaireJensen]

This cracks me up! I live to light up windows, but I also say it is more composite editing as no one would look at mine and think it was sooc. 😂 Love you guys!

[@whitewaterwillie88]

Love the content you guys present as for the 'Cheating' I think it's all in how you present the work. It's like writing we have both fiction and nonfiction as long as you not misrepresenting it it's ok.

[@wardonwords]

I like thoughtful, gracious, knowledgeable people. Well done.

[@bmwohl]

This is one of your best photography discussions ever. Thank you. It is cheating if you cheat or lie or deceive and you don't come clean. An optical illusion can be entertaining and educational or it can be deceiving.

[@sjaakcoppens1000]

👏 like the discussion; THNX. I think storytelling with photos or video is the same as storytelling in words. Each time (during steps in postediting )the story is getting better and better. Nowadays with spectacular telelenses; cameras with lots of shots per second you can tell a story (the real story) that was not possible in the past. An extreme example is in my opinion the possible of challenges in sport to review possibilities of penalty’s and fieldgoals. I think it’s great to see details (for example in sports) in a photo or video that’s impossible to see from the stands. There is a great responsibility when you’re in news to be as objective as you can be.

[@FACTUALITY-1]

Yes, it has been done for a long time, but not everyone could do it. What once required a lot of skill, time, and money can now be done by anyone with a smartphone, no skill and little to no money.

[@lloydbligh5601]

Every different camera product renders the photos differently you choose which one pleases your eye. When you start questioning a photo taken for its authenticity then it’s on you to decide if it pleases.

[@davidb9682]

This was a really good discussion. Not that I agreed with everything, but I do agree with the importance of this conversation at the current time. We are all beginning to realize we can't trust any photographs we see to be as the subject actually is. It was true for fashion, but now it's true for landscapes and tourist locations and so much more. Nobody tells you they've cloned out wires or poles or even people from scenes. I personally don't know what conclusion I've come to, or what it means for my photography.

[@StarLightDotPhotos]

I started my career on the photojournalism side so this really hit home for me. I need to remember I am trying to be an artist now and the rules are different.

[@waltermayr339]

Long before the invention of digital photography, I read an article in the German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. It was about a drawing by the painter Albrecht Dürer that showed a mill mountain near the city of Nuremberg. The article praised Dürer for walking around the hill and condensing the various visual aspects into one image. At that time I thought how lucky painters are because they have this creative freedom. Now with the possibilities of digital photography, I am not convinced that it is a blessing. Extreme self-discipline is probably required.

[@IanAllans]

kahma AI fixes this. Editing by Tony & Chelsea Northrup.

[@jamesmlodynia8757]

Going back to my film days, i photographed my parents on the steps of the restaurant that they celebrated their 5oth wedding anniversary in, at the time i had my photos printed in 5x7 inches, i wanted a larger print to frame and give to my parents so I had a 8 x 10 inche print made. When I got the print back I noticed that the name of the restaurant was cropped partially, it was then that I got a lesson about aspect ratio and that a 5 x 7 inche print would be slightly different than the 8 x 10 inch prints. Today I print most of my own work, the exception is when I want a print larger than 13 x 19 inches.

[@envyss2572]

I personally only make edits like cropping, brightness, contrast, saturation. I don’t believe in adding or removing things. I’ll edit out scratches or tears in scanned photos if I don’t have the original negatives. But I’m not getting paid for my pictures, so I don’t see the point in wasting time in extensive modifications.

[@michaelperez3009]

I think adding something might be arguable. I would like to defend deleting obstructions or minor eyesores like water bottles, extraneous people, etc. I take concert photos and inevitably there is a mic stand or small video cameras that would spoil the shot at times, well, most times. The new remove tool in PS is incredible! It has saved many images, in my opinion. There is nothing added, everything that is left was there all along, the camera just couldn't see it.

[@rphandler]

Delightful video with wisely chosen subject and well researched. Let's clarify why digital photographs of auroras show brilliant colors not seen by the naked eye. Our eyes in low light sacrifice color detection for high sensitivity black and white (cones for color with low sensitivity, rods for panchromatic B&W with high sensitivity). This is like film photography where we had high sensitivity Tri-X and Ilford HPS in B&W, but lower sensitivity Kodachrome for color. Neither our eyes nor film emulsions can detect color in the low luminosity of a night sky. Aurora columns of red light from excited oxygen above 120 miles altitude (which is mostly what we see coming from the northern horizon at temperate latitudes, searchlight-like shafts of dim white) appear pale white to the naked eye, yet with a digital photo, even from the tiny sensor in a phone, monochromatic red is revealed . The waves of green from lower altitude oxygen also appear white to our eyes. But digital sensors reveal the green, while amplified to extraordinary ISOs. Since when is it kosher only to show in a photograph what our eyes can detect? Maybe photography, and visual arts, should show us more than we can appreciate on our own. A parallel is white balance in underwater photography. To our naked eyes, at depth the corals and fish are dull shades of green-blue, while bright reds become dull brown, because long wavelength red in sunlight is filtered out by the water column. Overcoming this with lens filters or with strobes is well accepted, yet I was once questioned regarding using sliders in post to achieve the same corrections. (Is artificial light cheating??) But my point is to explain why the aurora is so different in digital photography than in our eyes and on film emulsions.

[@MightyCraicDJ]

Great topic and interesting discussion, thak you. When it comes to editing is there a difference bewteen removing (eg power lines) and adding (eg a light)?

[@Bashe1965]

i was a artist first then got into photography as a sophomore in high school we only shot black & white at school . We developed our work film and prints for our given assignments our artistic expression was captured in camera. Fast forward to today I have never edited a photo added to or taken away content. I still shoot a lot of B&W film and digital, to me a photo unedited is a photograph anything edited is simply art.

[@GM8D79]

Cheating is defined as any additions or deletions made to the original picture. While certain tasks may be accomplished using the original content without any changes, others may require some tweaking. Photographic manipulation has existed since the invention of film. Remember that the camera has limits and is merely a tool. Controlling light and dark sometimes requires considerable adjustment. Thanks for sharing an interesting topic.

[@donhagner4845]

Framing, cropping, choice of lens (field of view) are all editing choices. As a High School photography student I used to think that National Geographic photographers just naturally produced exceptional “grab shots” of reality that I was never good enough to produce myself. As a cultural anthropologist the debate was over focal length, 35mm (full field of view) vs. 50mm (center of field of view) vs. 90~100+ mm (close up on details, portraits).

[@michaelkissane6138]

Digital camera sensors are more sensitive than eyes in rendering the Auroras. This helps exaggerate them in photography. As a guide in Iceland I've had to urge photographers to take the shot despite what they saw. Invariably they were pleasantly surprised with their results.

[@TheLightChaser]

Yeah, interesting question... How about exposure and focus bracketing/stacking, especially exposure stacking in astrophotography? How about image cropping in photojournalism? CPL, ND filters? Dodging and burning? To what extent post process is not cheating?

[@zygmuntziokowski7877]

Thanks for the video and the conversation. I agree that the light on in house is a little over done. The light on in the house was overboard. The other photos you shown, they were not that bright. I do agree that there is fine line between editing a photo and graphic design, touching up the sky is one thing, but adding clouds is another. I also think removing the power lines is going too far, because you are misrepresenting the scene. I was camping in western NC and saw a beautiful sunrise, but the power lines where in the scene. The power lines were part of the character. Would it look better, cleaner, without the power lines. Yes! But from my view point that was the scene.

[@R.Hogarth]

I will typically edit my pics to represent how I remember the scene. This means I will adjust tone & contrast and will remove most distractions such as power lines, people "photo-bombing", or cars /people in the background. If I am shooting astro where I shoot the foreground and the sky separately, then of course I will composite the two images, but I will be honest that it is a composite. I will state something along the lines of: "The foreground was shot during the last light of "Blue Hour" and the Milky Way/sky was shot using a star tracker from an unobstructed viewpoint a few feet away about an hour later."

[@al_in_philly5832]

Photographs exist on a continuum between "capturing" and "creating." And, like most continuums, few, if any objects occur fully at either end. A photographer alters "reality" by his/her choices of lenses, position, framing, etc. What is important is the honesty which the photographer employs with his/her audience. Ansel Adams was correct to manipulate his images because he made no bones about doing so--his audience was aware of where, in the continuum between capturing nature and creating the manifestation of an idea about nature, his photographs stood. Chelsea's addition of a lit window was problematic as it was, at least initially, presented as a view being captured. Did the light in the window make the image more aesthetically pleasing? Absolutely! But at the same time, it robbed the viewer of seeing what really existed. And, if the latter was what the viewer thought they were being presented with, then a serious rift of honesty has been created between the photographer and his/her viewer.

[@jamesmlodynia8757]

I don't enter my photos in any contest, I have sold prints, during the years I photographed events, i would aðd different processes filters to give some photos and different look and i also converted files to B&W. To me cropping is just a part of postprocessing. I don't add elements to a photo from another photo, the sky or elements like birds were in the photos that I have taken, while photographing a sunrise on the Virginia coast, a horseshoe crab washed up on the beach and i used it as a foreground element before the sea took it back. So if you think of photography as an art form, adding something in post processing is fine as long as you represent it as such. If you're doing documentary photography then that would be a different situation.

[@paulcooper8818]

Sometimes individuals who want everything done in camera, just don't want to do post processing, because that is not their creativity or they're lazy. When you press the shutter you can decide, am I taking a photo or creating an image.

[@SoSaMin0524]

Photography is supposed to be fun, creative, and reflective…Adding light to me does not equal cheating…it reflects a slightly more cheerful mood than the original scene…glad you had fun in Norway…most people would have returned with a blurred photo with the light that low…

[@JasonMcMullen]

If you add something that was not there, that's going too far (imo). If you use camera techniques to bring out something that is there in frame, that is being creative. If you use editing to clean things up then its not the same as adding things that were never there

[@Gianni_Martino_Photography]

Great episode! I love your back and forth! You wore him down a bit, Chelsea! lol

[@simonmeeds1886]

You can only "cheat" if there are rules and in general when creating an image there are no rules. An image may be presented as fine art in which case there are definitely no rules, but if it is presented as applied art that may introduce rules depending on the application. You have discussed photojournalism and natural history photography, and you touched on travel photography. The problem is that even in these fields the rules or the existence of rules depends on exactly where and how an image is applied. For example if an image is used as editorial in a news outlet then it better be faithful (sometimes difficult given that every photograph is at least a crop of reality). A natural history image or a travel used in certain contexts (including certain competitions) will need to be no more than lightly processed in specified permitted ways. But even these images, if used in more informal contexts may perhaps be more heavily edited... you get to the sort of question "when is an image of nature not a natural history image"... and conversely, if we are too free with the term "travel image" then almost any image taken outdoors and many taken indoors could be classed as such and therefore inviolable; surely this is not what we want. It's always down to how it is applied and in what context. Without context there are no rules and therefore there can be no cheating.

[@myaphipps7260]

I shoot for the,"Crop". Sometimes I will shoot a bit wider than necessary. Just so I can crop to get the shot I want. High megapixels help

[@Bullebongen]

Having grown up north of the artic circle I can say for sure that very intense northern lights that actually looks like the pictures are quite frequent. Frequent enough that I even disliked them as a kid because I wanted to see the stars. Once half the sky was covered in a burning red northern light and that is one of the spookiest things I have ever seen. So give it another go, one can see some pretty damn amazing northern lights if one is lucky.

[@lazy5692]

I think there is a difference between an image and a photograph. Do what you want with an image. Be creative but it is a manipulated image of something that does/didn't exist. A photograph is something the eye saw. You can "adjust" a photo (brightness- color correction etc) but only to make it as close as possible to what the eye saw.

[@manilamartin1001]

When I heard you don't notice power lines, try that here in Philippines. I definitely remove things like power lines, extra humans, and even wall outlets in wedding pictures.

[@RobtJMooreII]

Not only are you two the most handsomest couple in this videos-of-photography niche, you are also the most endearing, given the ways you interact.

[@Olivyay]

I agree with Chelsea even if it's difficult for me to write a definitive rule on what I find OK or not. To add other examples: I would not consider it cheating either to take a photo of the same house where one of the blinds is shut and then photoshop the blind shut on another window, because the house is an object and having lights on in a room or the blinds shut or not does not change its identity or expression. I would consider it cheating to change the color of the blinds, or to add a blind to a window that does not have one in reality, or to add a window, or to add the car if it wasn't there.

[@scottplumer3668]

As primarily a film shooter, I try to only edit only to the point of what I could do in the darkroom. I don't want to misrepresent my photography. So, for example, if I take a picture at night, I won't add, say, the Milky Way to the sky. I see it a lot with places I recognize, and since I know which direction the Milky Way is, I can tell it's been added in post. THAT kind of stuff is cheating to me. But I don't think there's any hard and fast line. For my senior picture when I was in high school, they airbrushed out my zits, so I appreciate some editing.

[@chriscole9678]

Unless it’s photojournalism or scientific photography, it is up to the photographer to either present the image they want to present, or present the image their customer wants. How can it be anything else? Maybe we could all agree to present our raw files as well as the finished image but if you’ve got a bracketed multi-image panorama, you could be using 20 or more raw files to make one which seems extreme! We live and die on our reputations and eventually that will determine who works this issue honourably and who doesn’t

[@BubbaBearsFriend]

Yep, as with all things in the real world, it depends. Photography as art, it's part of the process to do whatever the artist thinks is necessary. But then the question is when does it stop being a photograph and just "art" because it's been edited so much such that the original photograph is not recognizable in the final product? Photography as photojournalism, documenting history or wildlife, then that level of "after the fact" editing is not OK. But is cropping (by zooming) or changing the angle at which a photo is taken to eliminate objects before capturing the image okay for photojournalism? Or using an aperture setting with more or less depth of view to blur or sharpen the background more? What about blurring the background or cropping after the fact? If the end product is identical, does it matter if it is done after the fact?

[@mikebartow9415]

I draw the line at, “if it cannot physically happen” then it is “art.” I saw a wonderful picture of the solar eclipse this past April of it positioned beside an iconic building where I live. Knowing the layout of the area and the position of the eclipse in the sky I thought this photo was physically impossible. It was a beautiful scene but not possible without composite manipulation. So it is like finding a hair in a bale of hay. If you don’t see the hair, it’s not present.

[@sergiochantayon7819]

Maybe it depends on the expectations resulting from seeing the image. If It is a context of high art, then unreal exaggeration can be expected; if it is a purchase, then accuracy is desirable. The discussion is hard because perceptions and expectations can be very very different depending on personal experiences or culture. The context [as well stressed in the video] should determIne the constraints and requirements of the message.

[@Dan_Maas]

Not trying to be negative and all of that, but another problem is that lights were added only to one window on the same floor🤣And there should have been all windows lit up since the house geometry doesn't look as big to allow more rooms, it looks like one or maybe two big rooms so at least two windows on floor 1 should have been "painted". But yeah, it is sometimes better to leave everything as is. SOOC shooting approaches are not as bad as everyone seems to think. Given the prices of modern cameras people should demand high image processing quality so people won't have to rely on editing that much. I would also love to hear your opinions on modern noise reduction in photos, especially on mobile cameras. It always leads to details loss or "watercolors" and is technically "cheating" too since even human eye has "imperfections" when it comes to image perception

[@WesternAustraliaNowAndThen]

To my mind, minor adjustments to get a photo close to what you saw in real life isn't cheating but anything more is.

[@jasonschaeffer3677]

That creates a problem because everyone's definition of minor is going to be different.

[@davidlewis5929]

I was removed from a darkroom photo editing contest in HS, in the days prior to digital, because "we do not believe you took both of the combined images." I was a little upset about this because this was a darkroom contest, they didn't clearly state that you had to take all the images used but mostly because I combined 4 images not 2 and I didn't take any of them.

[@sarahneedham]

My rule is, I will crop, adjust levels, adjust colours and white balance, darken/lighten part of a photo and clone. I just would not add anything that was not there in the first place. Each to their own though 😁. Oh and I also think cloning yourself is kinda better than using AI as it shows some skill at least.

[@GenX_in_the_wild]

Fake

[@uhligsu]

Excellent discussion. I really enjoyed it.

[@twagn]

Don't get carried away with filters...especially in Lightroom. btw, your hair Chelsea looks great

[@epp]

When editing turns to compositing, and you are adding things that aren't there. Then it's not a photograph, rather it is Digital Art.

[@Bladeclaw00100]

We have to remember that all photographs that are captured with a camera are rendered into pixels or printed into dots. It's all a 2D Illusion to begin with. If you look at it up close the illusion disappears and reappears when you back up. A camera is simply a tool that acquires data which is represented as an image to be perceived as a subject. When you're looking at a photo it's not really there. The person in the photos is not a real person, its simply bunch of dots that creates the illusion of a person. Essentially, all pictures, and images are illusions our mind creates. So, all imagery is not real to begin with. Here is a simple example. Use a fisheye lens on your camera and take pictures of a person up close. The image is manipulated to appear a certain way right from the start before the light even enters the camera. Furthermore, when we are editing on the computer, we are essentially, manipulating the pixels to change into something different. Weather it is luminance, chrominance, select pixel changes, cropping's, or any pixel manipulation, including pixel aspect ratios, color profile changes, or compression. If there are any editing changes done to the file after image acquisition, it is different than the original captured image. The grey area is the human judgement of how different the changes are compared to the original counterpart in terms on the content and context. If there is authentic photography, there needs to be very specific rules laid out for the methods used in the workflow. Even though it's still an illusion, at least there will be some consistency with what you see and present in your rendered image. But remember all camera images are already illusions to begin with.