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Rant warning: Why do folks still so heavily use tone mapping?

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
In my opinion, heavy-handed tone mapping is ugly -- I mean F U G L Y! Understand a light UNNOTICEABLE touch of it, but why do so many continue to use it so heavily???

I hate it. Just sayin...

/rant
 

Bob

Administrator
Staff member
Good point...
ok here is an example

from wikipedia under the creative commons 2.0 attribution license by Pedro Szekely
 

jsf

Active member
I think it is partly an aesthetic choice to make a dramatic tonal value image, for that matter color so saturated that it is almost garish. Personally I think some images cry out for this kind of treatment and some don't. Some images need a subtle touch to bring out the power of the image. Bringing out the power is the point of whatever we do to process the capture (film or digital) of our vision. So it starts with the idea through the eye using the camera to whatever process we choose to make the final image.

I did a PR thing last night. So this is one of the images that I needed. He is a major sponsor to our local arts council. I am on the Board. Bounce flash at 6400 ISO. To me this is what a print ought to look like for this subject matter.

I am into largely subtle prints lately. Dramatic in some senses but more subtle in terms of various commands,DSCF0451 as Smart Object-RMH 16X20.jpg
 

Bugleone

Well-known member
They do it to make what are usually mediocre shots more impactful......

....As has been said;....."nobody ever lost money by underestimating human taste"

But we have to be kind here; the whole world is clicking a camera so how else can the ordinary uncommited, talentless and uninterested punter compete with real photographers?
 

Knorp

Well-known member
They do it to make what are usually mediocre shots more impactful......

....As has been said;....."nobody ever lost money by underestimating human taste"

But we have to be kind here; the whole world is clicking a camera so how else can the ordinary uncommited, talentless and uninterested punter compete with real photographers?
So true, but I can't compete either ... :p
 

turtle

New member
As others have said, because some people have 'special' taste :p

I struggle to like most colour photography one encounters today, which very often seems to be of the 'super saturated, CGI tones' landscape variety. I find the real world and what things really look like far more interesting, but each to his own.
 

jsf

Active member
I think it is partly an aesthetic choice to make a dramatic tonal value image, for that matter color so saturated that it is almost garish. Personally I think some images cry out for this kind of treatment and some don't. Some images need a subtle touch to bring out the power of the image. Bringing out the power is the point of whatever we do to process the capture (film or digital) of our vision. So it starts with the idea through the eye using the camera to whatever process we choose to make the final image.

I did a PR thing last night. So this is one of the images that I needed. He is a major sponsor to our local arts council. I am on the Board. Bounce flash at 6400 ISO. To me this is what a print ought to look like for this subject matter.

I am into largely subtle prints lately. Dramatic in some senses but more subtle in terms of various commands,View attachment 122436
So the question here is this what you might call excessive tone mapping?
 

pegelli

Well-known member
Some people like it, some people make it, some people buy it.

And some people don't like it (incl. me), but I see no need to criticize someone else's taste

There's many things I don't like, but for me life is too short to start a thread about them in a public forum. ;)
 
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V

Vivek

Guest
It is good to see posts from Jack and Bob. A sign that the admins are still around! :chug:
 

seb

Member
I do oversaturate pictures, tonemap or use HDR to push, but most time I don't. It depends on the picture and intention. And the "I know it, when I see it" is a good moment to stop processing any further. :)

I'm very open here, but an oeuvre of all the same processing is boring to me. No matters if it is oversaturated-hdr-landscape, romantic-mood-portraits, perfect-whitebalanced-daylive-documentation or black-and-white-anything(-like-ansel-adams). Some may be master in their style, but why should anything be (as an example) black-and-white?

Here is one I processed and printed a few days ago. It's November, rainy and cold. So I wanted to create something colorful and warm just for a few weeks to hang it up in my flat.
It's a good example for this thread, I think. :thumbs: :ROTFL:


Violet
 
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Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
To me, this comes in the same category as all extreme tools that are useful to some, but used as compensation for lacking photography skills by others. Other tools that work the same way are extreme telephoto lenses, extreme WA lenses, extremely shallow DOF, pixel peeping of 36 MP images that will never be published other places than on the internet... and so on.

Around 40 years ago, when standard of living increased rapidly in Norway, and people moved from 80 square meter to 160 or 200 square meter apartments or houses, they suddenly had a lot of wall space that needed covering. I used to know a guy who solved that problem and became rich at the same time. He took an overnight mail order course in acrylic painting and started buying canvas in huge rolls (we called him the roll painter). Without any previous painting experience, he perfected himself on 10-12 motives of which the most important were "Moose at sunset" and "Crying child". Any given day, he would paint only one motive, one colour at the time on all canvases simultaneously.

It took a while for me to understand how anybody on earth would hang his paintings on the wall, but I then realised that most people have little or no quality requirements when it comes to art. They just want something colourful to hang on the wall, something that they recognise and that doesn't have a subtle, deeper meaning. Tone mapping and heavy saturation solves that easily. Any photo will do as long as it's taken at a popular, recognisable location, preferably one where the buyer has been or would like to go.
 
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