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This has been asked in here before and no doubt will be again.

I'm aware that hdr is accepted and that's not my problem. What I see an increasing amount of images that I feel are falling will outside of this guideline.

"Remember photos should only be edited to improve the final image not totally change it. "

Has byte essentially given up on this guideline do you think? I'm looking for opinions on that question because if they have then this contest is wide open to all manner of things and I might quit being so conventional.

Sheila

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Sheila - I'm pretty new to byte, so I haven't participated in the previous discussions you refer to. My background is 35mm film. Edits considered basic in digital are difficult or impossible in a darkroom. My digital editing skills are almost non-existent. So far I have tried to abide by the stated guidelines, mainly because I don't know enough to do much more.

IMHO, hdr is pushing the limits. But since that has already been accepted by the byte community, I'm not going to second guess it. I have seen some photos that IMO have had significant manipulation. The problem is defining the limits. What is too much?

There is one photo in the current contest that looks like a composite to me. I don't know if it is or not. But I do feel that a composite image is too much manipulation.

I guess I feel that the digital equivalents of traditional darkroom techniques such as cropping, dodging, burning, contrast adjustment, exposure compensation, color adjustment, etc. are all OK. Beyond that things get murky.

Bob

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My background (albeit minimal) is also in darkroom photography. Got my start in a high school course on b&w photography using my dad's old Leica rangefinder. HDR is a long way from that.

I think HDR can be much closer to traditional photography than most digital darkroom stuff. I think of heavy manipulation that "totally changes" an image as the digital artwork that one user has put up frequently lately - said user does it well (better than I could dream of), but I do question if it fits in the guidelines. I believe composite images also are outside the scope. HDR, I think, can be used either way.

Obviously, it can be used to create a more artificial looking scene:
http://www.bytephoto.com/photopost/...php?photo=81717

But, I think it's best used to enhance a scene to make it appear more as the eye captured it:
http://www.bytephoto.com/photopost/...php?photo=81773

Personally, I prefer to use HDR in the latter scenario. I can't stand false-looking HDR images.
I think HDR is best used like a "shadows and highlights" tool - or a contrast mask - recovering detail that had been lost in the highlights or shadows. Sheila, you once before said that you saw HDR returning to normalcy after early pushing of the limits - I think you're right in that assessment. And if that's the case, I don't think I'll have a problem with it fitting the guidelines.

Two ironic things I've noticed of myself lately. One, I spend much less time taking HDR exposure series. Two - I was archive mining, and was actually considering entering an HDR shot for next week!

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Obviously, there is a huge gray area here and always will be. I think that we can only govern this by not commenting/not voting on photos that we believe do not adhere to the guidelines.
--Rick

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