The relationship between digital post-era and photography

Speaking of the relationship between digital post-production and photography, we need to divide photography into two categories from this perspective:

1. For the purpose of recording facts: news photography, battlefield photography and other news documentary categories.

2. Express the creator's thoughts and feelings: artistic photography, creative photography, commercial photography, landscape photography and other artistic expressions.

The first category does not allow digital post-processing, because news should objectively express the real world. It is often seen that newspaper reporters are dismissed for modifying photos with PS, which shows that news photography is still very sensitive to post-processing. As long as it is not a real failure of photo shooting, you can't use the original film directly, and generally you can leave it untreated, or even post-processing is strictly prohibited.

The second category must be post-processed. Contrary to the first category, the second category of photographic works is not the narrator, but the performer.

It can be said that the first kind of photography is like a witness. Everything he said must be true, there is no room for exaggeration, let alone fabrication and deception.

The second kind of photography, like an actor on the stage, exaggerates or even seriously violates the laws of reality, but it does bring people artistic enjoyment that comes from life and is higher than life. On the stage, Peking Opera actors said "people who sent troops to Yunnan". Do you really want to go to Yunnan? Of course not. You just need to turn a small corner on the stage and look up: Yunnan has arrived.

The same is true of artistic photography, which does not need to pursue objective truth. Art photography pursues the creator's thoughts and feelings when creating, so as long as it is "meaningful".

The author is in a bad mood and the sky is gray. Even in the clear sky of Wan Li today, the photos taken are sad and lonely, and vice versa.

But the camera is objective, how can we make the photos reflect the creator's will? This requires the use of post-processing software for artistic processing.

Looking back at history, we can know that photography is an art form separated from painting. No matter what development it has undergone, its essence is still the same as all art forms such as painting. The objective reality is just a reference in front of them, and what really needs to be expressed is the human mind.

In the film era, people did not have such a convenient tool as computer for post-production, but they also used darkroom technology, daubing painting, collage, special shots, multiple exposures and other means to artistically decorate reality. In that era when there were no computer stunts, the photos taken by darkroom technology were incredibly wonderful for ordinary people.

Now that the photos are digitized, we have a computer for post-processing. Although the tools have changed, the essence has not changed.

In addition, due to the digitization of photos and the electronization of cameras, post-processing of photos becomes necessary.

Because the principle of digital camera is different from that of film camera, in order to avoid moire fringe in digital camera, the camera must blur the photos, and digital camera will also produce noise. Therefore, in order to obtain high-quality and large-format artistic photos, post-processing becomes very necessary. The definition of digital photos after post-processing is higher than that of traditional films.

However, a digital camera can record a lot of light information in a photo. Although a lot of light and color information can't be seen directly from photos, it is contained in digital files. A large amount of optical information can be mined and selectively processed by using the later technology. The latitude of digital photos after post-processing is higher than that of traditional films.

And post-processing can make up and correct the defects caused by hardware such as color and lens distortion, and can make photos with perfect parameters such as color, sharpness, tolerance, brightness and contrast.

To sum up, for documentary photography, digital post-processing should be cancelled in principle; For artistic photography, post-processing is necessary. Post processing is not a continuation of photography, but a part of artistic creation. Works without digital post-processing can only be regarded as unfinished works and semi-finished products.

I typed it word by word. I'm exhausted ~ ~ ~ I hope I can help you ~