Artificially Enhanced???

I want to enter a contest that is to promote tourisim in a neighboring county. The contest is for out of county photogs only. The county will pay $1000.00 for pro and amerture catagories but the rules state the photo can not be artificially enhanced. One of my photos has been PSed quiet a bit and is a selective color shot. The other is right out of camera. What do they mean by artificially enhanced? No PS work at all or just tread lightly so they don't know it? Here are the rules.



I hereby certify that the photo I am about to submit is my original work and has never been copyrighted. I am entering this photo as an honest and true effort of my personal creativity and unique artistic vision, and I understand that it will be published on the Internet as my original work and under my own copyright. I understand that my submission will be reviewed before it is accepted for the contest. If my photo is offensive, artificially enhanced, a studio image, animation/artwork, or of poor image quality, then it may be disqualified.

I dunno, I guess it would mean heavy PSing. They probably wouldn't care about a light B&C Change.

no selective color. selective coloring is artificially enhancing. to me it would be changing the image to portray something different than what was actually shown. Tweaking the colors to get them to what the scene looked like originally wouldn't be artificially enhancing, but selective coloring would be.

Thanks Brent. That helps a lot...

Being a newbie, take it for what it is worth. But to me, it would mean no post processing at all. But then again, you can enhance a photo before you even take it, like sharpening, saturation. Or even putting filters on the camera to get a more desired effect.
I think I would ask the promoters what they mean by, artificially enhanced.

rovowen

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Originally Posted by Greg McCary

Here are the rules....and has never been copyrighted

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Does this strike anyone else as odd? I'm no expert on copyright though...

"Artificially Enhanced" means to me exactly what Brent said. Understand that you can do a lot of enhancement in the camera (choosing sharpness, color saturation, white balance etc) and apply it to a jpeg file so it comes out of the camera that way. Is that any different than making slight and global changes in Photoshop? I don't think so.

Key point being "global" - not making selections and masks, just applying to the entire image...

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Originally Posted by another view

Does this strike anyone else as odd? I'm no expert on copyright though...

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Yup, that struck me as odd too. Isn't the image technically copyrighted the second you take it?

I think that the copyrighted rule is defined as your copyright, unpublished photograph. As far as the artificially enhanced rule I must assume that converting to B&W would be OK or PSing the photo to correct the color balance, contrast, and/or curves or gamma adjustment to would be OK as the photo lab printing does that all the time, example the different grades of B&W photo paper.

Just a guess but I'd think it would be submitting a photo altered to something that doesn't actually exist or not in the imaged way. Don't try to show a beautiful mountain scene behind the courthouse or whatever.
All photos are artificially enhanced just by taking them.
I'd ask the committee to be sure.

Any one of these could be considered "artificially enhanced", depending on the definition.

My best advice is to open Photoshop and go to the Preferences> General section. There you will find the ability to create a "history log" and the ability to attach that log to the image's metadata. That gives whoever is judging the image the ability to see what you've done to it in Photoshop, and determine for themselves wether or not the image has been "artificially enhanced".

- Joe U.

This may be too simple but... Did you ask the organizers what they mean?

I'm also thinking how would they know if you don't go overboard.

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Originally Posted by livin4lax09

no selective color. selective coloring is artificially enhancing. to me it would be changing the image to portray something different than what was actually shown. Tweaking the colors to get them to what the scene looked like originally wouldn't be artificially enhancing, but selective coloring would be.

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Do they accept film images? How about Velvia transparency images? Because as soon as you put a roll of film in your camera you've enhanced colors - especially with Velvia. I think this kind of thing has to be very explicitly defined. It perpetrates the belief that digital images are somehow less "real" than film images. I get very annoyed every time I see someone include the note, "no Photoshop" with an image they post online. Not using Photoshop doesn't make your photo better. It only means that you didn't take full advantage of the tools available. Worse, it means you let camera makers decide how your image looks.

Rant over :rolleyes: :)

I e-mailed the sponsers of the contest and they replied all that you could do in PS was color and contrast adjustments. They didn't mention crops though.
Greg

Ha - very true, John. Isn't shooting a sunrise or sunset with daylight balanced slide film technically a manipulated image? The scene isn't anywhere near a 5000k color temperature... Shooting it on Velvia, 64T tungsten and Astia Fuji transparency films will give you three very different looking images - and plenty of other films out there to choose from.

Chances are, asking the organizers about this is just opening a can of worms. It sounds like you're dealing with a volunteer committee. They probably know very little about digital photography other than the fact that it's very possible to do all kinds of crazy things in Photoshop, like putting Uncle Ernie's face on Mount Rushmore. Explaining the jpeg and film arguements to them won't get you too far...

Along these lines, I just got the new Paddler Magazine on Saturday. Last month's cover had a full moon inside a canyon and the moon was about 20x life size. Obviously it was a double exposure and I didn't think anything more about it, but a letter to the editor pointed that fact out, and they admitted they had no idea. And these are people who regularly buy photography...

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Originally Posted by Greg McCary

They didn't mention crops though

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You can crop a neg... Actually with neg film almost every print you see has a bit of a crop to it if you look closely. 5x7's and 8x10's have a fair amount missing on the edges - full frame with 35mm would be 5x7.5 and 8x12.

I don't think the sponsers will ever know if I do small PS corrections, Cloning out beer cans, gum wrappers, bird crap or maybe a power line. As long as I keep it within reason. I think they intend to post the pictures on their local site to promote tourism and as Frog wrote. Don't stick a mountain where it don't belong.
They except all types of pictures PJ, in any form, even camera phone pictures.

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Originally Posted by another view

Along these lines, I just got the new Paddler Magazine on Saturday. Last month's cover had a full moon inside a canyon and the moon was about 20x life size. Obviously it was a double exposure and I didn't think anything more about it, but a letter to the editor pointed that fact out, and they admitted they had no idea. And these are people who regularly buy photography...

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I dunno, I've seen huge moons on TV behind the Arizona football stadium during night games. I'm sure the moon isn't that large in real life, but I'm also sure they're not double-exposing the moon into the shot. So what I imagine is that it's some function of a very long lens, somehow.

edit: I googled the phenomenon and came up with this:
http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00058A

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Originally Posted by Greg McCary

I don't think the sponsers will ever know if I do small PS corrections, Cloning out beer cans, gum wrappers, bird crap or maybe a power line. As long as I keep it within reason. I think they intend to post the pictures on their local site to promote tourism and as Frog wrote. Don't stick a mountain where it don't belong.
They except all types of pictures PJ, in any form, even camera phone pictures.

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I'm not sure what has been requested of your images but it's not unusual in the magazine world these days, especially in photojournalist circles, for photo editors to request the RAW file along with a jpg. This way they see exactly what was shot and just how much the images was tweaked to get the final product. Glamour and fashion and commercial photography is totally different though—crazy PSing going on there usually.

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Originally Posted by Greg McCary

I don't think the sponsers will ever know if I do small PS corrections, Cloning out beer cans, gum wrappers, bird crap or maybe a power line.

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To me, that is altered, or "artificially enhanced"...

Opus, I looked for the shot on their website but of course it's not there. The moon was so large that it would have to been shot with a 3-500mm lens. The rest of the shot was done with a mid-range lens, probably 35-50mm. It looks so artificial that it really didn't need a disclaimer - to me, anyway. It wasn't trying to be real.

There is a formula for figuring out how big the moon will appear in your shot, based on the focal length of your lens. Can't remember exactly how that works, but of course the longer the lens, the larger it will be (size of the moon is constant, and your distance from it won't vary too much).

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Originally Posted by Photo-John

Do they accept film images? How about Velvia transparency images? Because as soon as you put a roll of film in your camera you've enhanced colors - especially with Velvia. I think this kind of thing has to be very explicitly defined. It perpetrates the belief that digital images are somehow less "real" than film images. I get very annoyed every time I see someone include the note, "no Photoshop" with an image they post online. Not using Photoshop doesn't make your photo better. It only means that you didn't take full advantage of the tools available. Worse, it means you let camera makers decide how your image looks.

Rant over :rolleyes: :)

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john, i wasn't really talking about boosting the saturation or enhancing the colors as much as I was talking about tweaking the colors, aka turning a grey sky into a nice orange and red sunset. If the colors are there, then boosting/enhancing them is no problem, because this is commonly done with film. I guess "enhance" is the wrong word choice for me, I should have said "alter."

Your last point would be part of the eternal film vs. digital argument, "it only means that you didnt take full advantage of the tools available." I agree, and there is not one of my images that doesnt see photoshop time, but as possibly evidenced here by the judges, many people still hold the belief that photoshop means faking something.

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Originally Posted by Greg McCary

I don't think the sponsers will ever know if I do small PS corrections, Cloning out beer cans, gum wrappers, bird crap or maybe a power line. As long as I keep it within reason. I think they intend to post the pictures on their local site to promote tourism and as Frog wrote. Don't stick a mountain where it don't belong.
They except all types of pictures PJ, in any form, even camera phone pictures.

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ever heard of Allan Detrich? may want to check him out... http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/.../toledo01.html

the clone stamp move is a risky one. Allan was fired for doctoring images, sometimes doing something as minor as removing a stray leg from a sign. There is certainly no black and white area in this discussion/debate over doctoring images, but it seems there is also a very very thin line for this type of stuff, especially in the photojournalistic world. And I would expect in contests as well.

Very interesting Brent. The picture that I wanted to enter into the contest is "In a Window, version 2" that is posted in PC. I feel the image has meaning an is not just a tourist snap shot. The town it was taken in was left to die years ago by industry. A state bicycle trail has since been put in the town and has brought some tourism to the town. You can tell in the small downtown area they are trying hard to become an Artsy/Touristy town. Even without the selective coloring the picture has been PSed quiet a bit. So I guess I will have to try something else.