Photo improvement or cheating?

I feel that there has not being enough said about photography, so I will start with the moral question.

To bugger about with the image or not. This picture looks pure, but is anything but. First, its 3 photos in 1, joined using Photoshop. Why, well the subject was too big to get in 1 picture, it was 3 or nothing. Second, the lens used bent all the upright poles towards the centre, so this was also corrected in Photoshop. Third, the colour and exposure were altered to improve the look. Lastly around 10 people were removed from off the main square to improve the look and sense of space, all in all about an hours work. Is this wrong?

All the things could have been dealt with differently, for example a perspective control lens would have kept the poles upright, but at quite a cost, or I could have had the square cleared of people, again at a cost or after expanding a lot of effort. I think that good photos should not just be available to people with money for expensive equipment or lots of resources, but to anyone who wants to express their art and as long as the changes are used purely to enhance an image instead of misrepresenting something, what harm is it doing?

This picture is from the trip to Cardiff, and like all the images on the site can be clicked on to view full size, this one is quite large.




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Comments

Pat said…
Hello! You wrote to me today complimenting me on my blog (http://yankee-in-belgrade.blogspot.com/) and now I've checked out yours! Love what I see, and I'll be back!

"Bibi"
March 27, 2008 at 8:06 PM
Pat said…
Me again. I fully agree that it's okay to enhance an image as long as you don't totally misrepresent the image or fabricate a new one. I've Photoshopped out many a telephone cable and a wrinkle here and there...
March 27, 2008 at 8:08 PM
Suburbia said…
Another great photo. What you can't alter is the artists ability to really see a good image. Lots of people can bugger about with an image but quite a lot can bugger it up!
March 27, 2008 at 10:13 PM
Charlie Blockhead said…
Congratulations!!! You have been nominated for a 2007 Best Of Blog Award!! Especially designed to bring attention to lower profile bloggers, The BoB’s as we like to call them are currently taking nominations in over 20 different categories. To find out more about how your site has a chance to become one of this year’s Best Of’s and how to nominate other bloggers, visit us at www.thebestofblogs.com. Remember voting begins April 14th so make sure you pass the word to your friends, family, and faithful followers.

Sincerely,
Bill Beck
Project Mgr.
The Best Of Blog Awards
Email:Bloggerbeck@aol.com
March 28, 2008 at 12:51 AM
V said…
hey! i believe that photographic enhancements are fair. Because there is a new picture you create using those s/w tools and you have done it for the purpose of making the picture more memorable ..and if you are giving birth to you imagination so i believe its fair enough... until and unless it hurts anybody.
March 28, 2008 at 11:37 AM
BeppeRdam said…
Interesting subject. I've asked myself PURE photography is better that postprocessing. I don't like much postprocessing just because it is time consuming but I believe that's part of photography and it is nothing wrog with it. Furthermore I don't belive "pure" photograpy even exists.
Anyway many compliments for your blogs and pictures, really interesting and nice so I've added a link to your page on my blog.
April 2, 2008 at 9:26 AM
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