Photo edits - more fake in a fake world?

I don`t think it`s wrong to edit photos. I`ve always seen it as art and art doesn`t always have to depict reality. But I can see your point, I guess pointing out that the photos are edited would solve the problem of deceiving people. It also depends on how much editing is done.

 

Editing photo's is fine. [like Lillith said]
But to edit photos to decieve someone is just not right. [ In other words if you have a crappy faceup/crack in face/horrrible mod, dont edit it out fer the sake of jipping(sp?) someone! thats just cruel.]

Editing is a helpful tool fer people who have issues with lighting and sharpness. Not everyone has Super gorgeous lighting at every second of the day. Editing is also like a photo 'enhancer'. Whats wrong with a little eye candy? ;P

 

Editing photos for art's sake or to use as a part of a gallery or photostory is fine. It's all part of the creative process & can help set a mood or enhance a scene.

However, editing "For Sale" pics, beyond perhaps a little light & color correction, is definitely wrong. The buyer needs to be able to see exactly what they're getting, not some idealized image. I'm always leary of those artsy, dark, mysterious shots when I'm buying. I want to see clear, full frontal & profile shots without editing.

 

Who told you that the editing of photos appearing in magazines and on covers is viewed with "abhor"? And who views it like this? I could make an educated guess but I'll stop before I insult someone.

My boyfriend and I both work in the magazine industry, though myself as only an intern at this point, and it is not something that is viewed with any sort of contempt. Quite the opposite, it is expected and without photo editing publishing photos of interiors and gourmet dishes would be near impossible. I can not begin to tell you all the retouching work I've had to do in order to make million dollar homes look presentable and hundred dollar meals look edible.

The same goes for models. And it isn't a model's beauty and “perfection” that makes them desirable for photographers, no, it is their ability to pose and work in front of a camera.

To be honest, it is difficult to take a "perfect" photo. Is true that with programs like Photoshop, photo editing became more commonplace. However, before the days of digital editing, dark room edits and touch ups by hand were common place and just as “artificial” as their newer, digital cousins.

Editing a photo of a doll is akin to an illustrator or an artist rendering the world they see around them in their own style in order to allow the viewer a glimpse inside their reality. You are able to show your doll the way you want others to see it, the way you see it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with retouching a photo, whether you're just changing the levels or if you're going in and airbrushing out entire areas of space in order to clear up a background.

I do think that many over use the filters and tools in Photoshop but that is only because they are still learning, and I'd rather see an over edited photo than a poorly taken photo with no attempt to improve it digitally.




Edit: And of course I agree that editing a sales photo to hide damage and flaws is not acceptable, but I also think it is nice of a seller to include edited photos of a doll posing in order to show what they are capable of looking like. Accessories and clothing photos in the marketplace are often lightly edited to show their true colors, and thus I see no problem with doing the same for a doll as well.

 

The only time I have a problem with editing is when it obscures so much of the photo that you can't tell what the hell is going on, or when it's used to hide damages in a sale/auction.

If someone is against editing doll photos because it makes them have this 'fake' quality, I advise you to step back and look at your dolls. Fake little people. Fake personalities, that never belonged to this doll or human when they came into exsistance, fake little clothes made to mimick the ones we can wear, fake faces painted on - the term 'face-up' comes from the very human term 'make-up'. Isn't make-up used to conceal flaws and enhance genetic beauty?

When taking offense to 'fake-ness' in photos of dolls, it would be wise to consider the rest of the dolls. Taking offense or not liking photoshopped dolls seems a bit silly. Some of the best pictures were, almost guaranteed, photoshopped. From adjusting levels to get the colors right and watermarking it, to adding text and oversaturation.

 

I don't see a problem with editing gallery photos--it's just part of the artistic process.

The exception to that would be sale photos where you want to keep the doll as true to life as possible for the sake of honesty. Even then, depending on the quality of the photo and lighting, it might be necessary to do a little tweaking to see the doll better. So I suppose for sales it all comes down to making the picture clearer to give a more accurate impression of the doll (ok) vs making the doll look better than it really is by hiding flaws and the like (not ok).

 

Well, I do know quite a few people have been disappointed by Dream of Doll because the official photos on their webpage are so completely shopped that often, the doll you recieve looks unlike the doll you saw on their webpage.

I know I thought Yen had more of a MNF Shiwoo esque smirk from the webpage photos and that Twinkey's wing was a much lighter yellow than it actually is. And Shall looks completely different in person than she does on the webpage...

 

The reason people complain about the women being photoshopped has to with the fact that THE MESSAGE with this picture is sold as truth. 'One will become much more beautiful after using this moisture, see, the pictures prove it!!' 'You look terribly sexy while wearing this underwear, 'cause this heavilly editted lady is also purty.' These pictures show you what you have to look like to bé someone in this world. And no-one can get there, because you can't be edited in reallife. (unless you have a fortune)
But we're talking about dolls here. And pictures of them. I don't think dolls feel offended that they're more beautiful in a picture than they are in real life. I don't think they feel the need to go to a plastic surgeon because the beautiful pictures tell you to.

Movies are edited and adjusted all the time. No place in the world is as green as they want you to believe Hobbiton is. Yet, I don't hear complaints. Because everyone knows it is done to enhance the mood of the movie and people think it's beautiful (or.. to green).
I think the pictures you see here in the gallery and in photo-stories should be viewed in the same way as we see a movie. Editing might enhance the mood.

The only problem I see is when you heavilly photoshop pictures of stuff you intend to sell. Because your selling the pictures not the actual product. The rest of the time, we shouldn't think so much and just make beautiful things.

 

I agree with you.

I believe it is wrong if a person edits a picture to cover up a scratch or what not and then goes to sell their doll using this picture. A person should always tell the truth, therefore, people deserve to hear the truth.

Now if you are taking pictures for say a scrapbook or whatever (even your signiture) covering a scratch or fixing a smudge or whatever is absolutly fine. (On dolls this is... I kinda have a problem when people do this with themselves or models. You should be comfortable in your own skin. But lets not have a disscussion on that!) Then again, if your doll doesn't want you to do this, then you shouldn't!

 

Editing gallery photos is definately okay. Because it's just for fun/making lighting and such better but editing sale photos is a no-no. Gallery photos are like your magazines-you want your doll to be absolutely flawless(even if they already are!). Sale photos are like those pictures of celebrities without make up and should always present the truth!

 

I pretty much agree with what has been said here and I have to admit, I also thought of Dream of Doll when I read the first post. ^^; I think that if you're selling something it is your duty to both make the product look good and desirable (duty to yourself/the business) and to give an honest picture of what the product actually looks like (duty to the customer), and this can be hard to balance. Issues like the DoD photoshopping or the intense red Luts wig that turned out to be more of a reddish orange colour in person can be hard to handle- on the one hand it makes the website look more professional and the products more desirable, and on the other it maes the business itself look more shady to those in the know. I know I've seen people complain about how a doll doesn't come with the outfit it was shown in on the sale page or things like that- and I think it's totally fine for a company or individual seller to post pictures of the doll's potential with a nice outfit, nice wig, nice eyes, nice posing, nice photography, etc. But they should also post clearly exactly what you will get. I have to say, after seeing some of the DoD owner photos I've been pretty shocked at how different they look, and it wasn't a pleasant shock. ^^; I have a friend who owns a fullset version of a doll and he's quite good looking. But the regular versions of the standards have often seemed very far off from what the website shows. Especailly Shall. > <

For gallery photos and the like... well, BJDs are already an unrealistic perfection, I don't think it's really the same as airbrushing a photo of a person. The doll, in its un-shopped form, is ALREADY like the airbrushed version of a photo of a real person. ^^;

 

Pretty much all the company pics are edited, so why shouldn't owners edit theirs?

Obviously sale photos should have minimal or no editing. Colour and brightness correction I think is ok, to make the photo more true to the colour IRL, but airbrushing should not happen.

 

I have a big problem with companies editing their photos. The number one problem is when they make it hard for you to actually "see" the doll. The lights are too bright. Angles are bad. Or they just plain have something covering the face at every angle.

It's kinda frustrating. Because you want to wait for owner pics to see if it looks ANYTHING like you THINK it does. And when it's a limited that sells fast....

 

Amen. Took the words from my mouth.

 

I actually won't buy another DOD first hand without seeing owner photos first. Which is sad whenver they have a limited I think I might like... I really wanted Shall with her black and sea green outfit, but I saw a Shall in person and she had a very round face, when I'd expected an angular face from the photos.

 

I've noticed that there is a lot of misconceptions among 'lay people' i.e. those not really into photography, about exactly what goes into post processing and what exactly would be defined as photo manipulation.

No professional photographer will present a client with a raw shot straight out of the camera. The tweaks that are done to get it up to a presentable standard are nothing new either, dodge, burn, adjusting the brightness/contrast and so on have been done for years in film photography only with chemicals as opposed to a computer. But still a lot of people kind of just expect to be able to point a camera and produce stunning images.
Even if you're not 'airbrushing' or going crazy with effects there will still be minor adjustments that need to me made to compensate for the camera itself, removing colour casts is a good example of this.

Where 'fake' is concerned... let's take a look at food photography, it's ALL about cheating, that yummy looking, perfectly cooked sausage? Raw, blasted with a blowtorch to brown it. That pizza with the fantastic stringy, melty cheese? That cheese is probably either glue or photoshoped in. That steaming plate of whatever? A wet tampon behind the plate that's been in the microwave to make it steam. Yumm.


I think it's pretty much accepted if not expected these days that photographs you see of glamor models and so on are retouched and don't represent reality, it sells and that's what matters to magazines.


Now where BJDs are concerned, most of the owner photos you see that are heavily edited are done so in the name of art. If I'm working on a shoot of my dolls I'm not doing it to represent reality but to put across a feeling or a theme or to explore an idea.
For me photography isn't about recording a moment or the world exactly as it is, it's a form of expression. The same way a canvas is to a painter. I don't see how this could be wrong or 'morally objectible' (I have to admit I dislike the way people try to attach 'morals' to everything in these debate threads but that's a rant of its own).

Now if you where selling, as others have said you should indeed strive to represent the item as close to reality as possible, it's just good business. But even that involves photoshopping an image some times. At work we often do shots of packaging and in most cases we will try to colour match as closely as possible, perhaps sharpen an image or distort an image to straighten it out and I don't see how that could possibly be wrong simply based on the fact it isn't straight out of the camera.

 

I think you can edit photos all you want for your own purposes. The photo is important too and most photos nowadays have some kind of digital manipulation. The only problem would be if you were selling a doll and tried to cover up something, add something, or make something look better than it is. Like making a weak faceup look sharper and richer or editing out nicks and smudges. Just tweaking the darkness and saturation might be done innocently, but covering things up is obviously sneaky, of course.