It seems to me that jpeg settings in modern cameras and facilities in post processing programs encourage photographers to manipulate their photos so as to achieve a totally unrealistic result. Sometimes it reminds me of the worst of Technicolor, other times it just looks fake. A good example is the first photo in this article on European national parks. If the place really looks like this, I dont want to visit it!
Has the use of technology gone too far?
David
no 5 and 2 are worst
They have been through a marketing department. Been like that for a long time...
Looks like overcooked HDR to me. Like you, I have never understood the appeal.
In this case, probably so, but I referred to them simply because they illustrate a trend that I actually encounter more frequently on internet photographic fora.
David
Yes, there is something fake about this picture that is not apparent at first glance. But it is not the worst I have seen. The blue sky in one of the other shots in the article is more disturbing. The pictures I really hate are those cartoonish pictures with garish colours, that always accompany pictures of the Cinque Terre in lifestyle articles.
I read the article, and I would love to get to see the park in France with the prehistoric rock carvings.
The Guardian used to be very strong on picture editing once. In fact most publications had capable picture editors once. Today nobody seems to care about picture quality.
It is not technology that has gone too far, but the lack of culture and taste that has evaporated. The pictures were probably chosen by some youthful unpaid intern , brought up on Instagram.
HDR is a wonderful tool that I use extensively for architectural shots in old monuments, which have a huge dynamic range. But it is very difficult sometimes to get natural results.
Yeah I get your point. And I agree there are those that overdo it - have been guilty myself.
But, for me, the whole point of using it is to get natural results.
I watched the 2017 solar eclipse through good binoculars while my camera was snapping away. This is a single-image:
But that's not at all what it looked like to my eyes through the binoculars. This (a 4-stop HDR) is:
So the whole point there was to make it look the way it looked to my eyes, rather than making it look unnatural.