The Goal is to Improve. Not Change.

The processing of wildlife images remain a highly debated subject.  Yes or no?  If yes, how much?

Recently I was asked how a specific wildlife photograph could be processed in Photoshop or Lightroom in order to improve it.  Wait!!  Before we all get excited and start arguing the rights and wrongs of processing wildlife images stick with me for just a little while.  You might recall a post I did a while ago called “Should you Manipulate or Alter Your Digital Images”.  You can read the post here but the bottom line was this.  The Photographic Society of South Africa released, with regards to the whole processing debate, the following statement.  (I reckon this is pretty universal?)

Digital manipulation is an accepted part of photography. The original image must have been made by the exhibitor on a recognized camera and all modification of that original must be made by the exhibitor or under his personal directions. For the purpose of telling a true story (not manipulated), images of Nature, Photojournalism and Photo-Travel may not be manipulated.

The following will not be considered as digital manipulation:

• Removal of dust and scratch marks.
• Adjustment of exposure and contrast.
• Adjustment / correction of the color balance.
• Application of color saturation.
• Reduction of digital noise.
• Sharpening of the image.
• Cropping and resizing is permissible.

Right, so now while keeping that in mind back to the question as to how an image can be improved by altering / processing / editing / photoshopping it.  Obviously the idea is to improve and not change the content of the image.  So here goes with the first example I was asked to look at.

This is the original image I received from Quintin.  Great close up shot of an African Scops Owl. Now apart from the square crop I have no idea what digital adjustments has already been made to this image.  I created a copy of the file and made a few basic adjustements in Photoshop CS4.  Here is the resulting image.

No major changes but it pops just a little bit more.  The image content has not changed but has just been and all the adjustments made to the image fall within the boundaries of what is allowed and accepted as a part of the digital photographic process.  Here is another example.  Bar the cropping on this next image the adjustments was almost exactly the same as in the above example.

Again, great spot to actually see this secretive little fellow in the day and decent image.  After more or less the same adjustments as in the previous example, here is a new version of this image.

Same image, same content and still ‘natural’ looking.  With just a little bit more ‘pop’.  In my opinion, processing wildlife images in this manner is completely acceptable.  Actually, it is necessary.  Before I get chastised for that comment, here is what I did to these images.

• Crop – The first image was very slightly cropped.  I did this to remove the branch in the bottom left corner, which was slightly distracting, and also to pull the owl little more to the right of the frame.
• Contrast – The contrast on both images was very slightly increased to create more depth and highlight the textures in the image.
• Dodge & Burn - To pull the eye subtly to the focal area, the owl, I slightly burned (darkened) the outside of the frame and dodged (lightened) the centre.  Our eyes are naturally drawn to lighter areas in a dark images and this helps the viewer to focus on the owl.
• Saturation – The saturation was increased by 7% in the above image and by 11% in the first example.
• Sharpen – I sharpened both images, specifically for web use, using a high pass filter.  This is one of the ‘safer’ ways in which to sharpen your images as it does not, like many other methods, infleucnce the colour in your image.

The adjustments on each image could not have taken more than about two minutes and all falls within the normal photographic process.  It is actually very subtle and if your screen is not properly calibrated you might not even see all the adjustments.  If you look at all these adjustments, except perhaps for the dodging and burning, none of them are considered digital manipulation.  Even dodging and burning could be accepted if we look at it as selective contrast and exposure adjustments –  naturally!  The steps I followed was purely following through the digital photographic process in order to end up with the best possible, natural looking image.

I have no doubt that there are varying, and quite passionate, opinions on this matter but I still believe it is a necessary part of the digital photographic workflow.  Our cameras cannot see what our eyes see and as you control the camera and the resulting images should you not keep this control throughout the entire process.  Why go through the process of chasing your vision and capturing the beauty of nature and then just stop before having the image reach it’s intended look and potential.

To clarify, when you process your wildlife images:

• Keep the adjustments subtle and natural looking
• Don’t remove or add any elements (apart from cropping)
• Be subtle with your adjustments
• If you do apply any adjustments not included in the ‘accepted’ list, be honest about it.
• Be subtle!
• Get the idea!

The way in which I process my wildlife images is obviously very different to the way I process my commercial images where the client determines the kind of look you are aiming for.  Unless I am purposefully trying to create ‘wildlife art’ or black and white images I will always lean towards a conservative approach when processing wildlife images.  But I do process my wildlife images. Do you?  

I look forward to hearing your comments on this one.  Also, if you have any examples you would like us to look at on the blog email them to me and we can discuss from there.

Gerry