Anyone else here think Photoshop ruins modern photography?

You should have to get a license before they sell it to you.

:eyes:

:rofl:

Photo-op CS2's where it's at, man! :D

It's the dumbing down of photography.

Not that Photoshop isn't an essential and wonderful tool; it's just made the average Dorito-addicted asshole think he's an artist or "creative".

You'll have to answer to the Dorito Corporation for this!

I'd like to add along with that the idea that just because someone has Quark or InDesign, doesn't make them a graphic artist, either. Some of us actually went to college to learn this shit. Sheesh!

you're a musician, either.

As soon as Joe Sixpack could meet the expense of taking his own snapshots, the die was cast. Photoshop is just one of the recent additions to the hobbyist photographer's arsenal. If the artform can't withstand it, then too bad for the artform.

You don't see a lot of small companies ordering 50 or 100 business cards from the local guy with a crank-operated printing press. Technology allowed the individual to produce a superior product from his or her own desktop, so that's how it's done.

Photoshop has allowed more amateurs to do things cheaply that previously only professionals could do at relatively great expense. If these amateurs want to call themselves artists, what's the harm? I know plenty of people who call themselves writers simply because they know how to put words on a page. It's the same thing.

Besides, even PaintShopPro alows the amateur to create masterworks like this:

Here's the original, in case y'all are curious:





As for my own thoughts on this, I think if you're going to decry Photoshop for the dumbing down of photography, you have to decry blogs for the dumbing down of journalism. A case can be made for it, but it's just as true that blogs have put news into the hands of people and given rise to a new era of citizen journalism. Photoshop, then, has given photo manipulation that heretofore was only available to professionals with air brushes to the people. Although it results in a lot more crap, the overall democratization of the process is probably a good thing.

SteppingRazor created the other one through careful application of Photoshop.

It's true. You should see the size of my forearms.

if they result in misinformation — which both often do.

Wait, this is probably Paintshop, huh? I guess that's different than Photoshop. :shrug:

:*





Edited to give credit to GoPSuX, who took an ordinary picture of me and turned it into that.

but that's not the ruination of photography. There are still great photographers and designers out there, because the worlds of art and commerce won't absorb the amateur doodlings of uniformed (even if well-intentioned) Photoshop hobbyists.

that doesn't say much for photography, I guess. It doesn't bother me that some people lacking talent/training have a good time fiddling with pictures on their computer.

It's just a tool, no one's forced to use it and those with talent who DO use it will find interesting and original ways to do so. Those without, won't. It's a bit like saying the only REAL writers write on parchment with quill pens.

wanting to be artist, but really just being craftsmen, and often ending up not being very good at art OR craft.

So now, you have this new crafting tool, photoshop, and huge numbers of people are using it. And indeed, the vast majority of those people ARE not learning the old crafts (which were in many ways more difficult to learn and use effectively).

Sure, 99% of those people suck as artist, and 90% of them suck as craftsmen, but just by sheer numbers of users, photoshop is also revealing some very good artist who might otherwise never have found their artist mojo.

one could also argue that the fact that photography is further cheapened by every new technological breakthrough is more proof that it was never a legitimate art form. To believe that, you'd have to believe that the democratizing influence of technology on art is inherently a bad thing--and that "high" art is "good" art and is, when practiced correctly, exclusive and elitist in the best sense of those words.