Ok, so you have a new genre...Photo Manipulation!
I am amazed how many  'manipulations'  get posted in the relevent genres and not in that genre when they clearly should be!
Tell you the truth, its beyond me.
Clearly, there should be guidelines on what is a Manip or not!

That seems like that can get touchy though. How much post work is concidered Manip? What about changing BCI, or curves? How about HDR, are those concidered manip? Or if someone uses the clone brush to remove some minor distractions in a photo.

I am not opposed to guidelines on it, I just think it would be opening a can of worms...lol.
But I do think you are right that there are some that are clearly (to me) manips that are not being posted in that genre.

Look forward to see others thoughts.
-Bruce

If you see any postings that you believe are listed under the incorrect genres, please bring them to the attention of one of the moderators or coordinators. 

Between catching TOS Violations, breaking up fights, and checking the galleries; there are still some which will slip through the cracks. 

Many of us do our duties here for free, we try to hold down real lives as well as hold together the Renderosity Site. Any assistance from the rest of the family is always appreciated.

We all know that any digital image needs postwork, be it Raw or jpg (curves, levels, sat etc)...removing the odd dust bunny etc...afaic, is acceptable...BUT, when it enters outside that 'envelope' and gets beyond the 'norm'...then it should be in Manip imo.

I was surprised to read that cryptojoe has to spend time,

breaking up fights

Oh My, 'fights' ... here on renderosity ... I'm shocked ... almost beyond words. 

--
Martin

Okay, first of all an explanation where I am "coming from", so to speak: I started as a photomaniper when I created illustrations for my Star Trek fan-fic. You know, putting one actor's head on another actor's body and stuff like that. Then, after quite a while of doing this, I discovered photography as something I like doing. And from where I sit the difference looks pretty simple to define: If you change an image to something it never was you are doing a photomanip. Combining elements of two or more different pictures is a prime example of that. But if you use postwork techniques to bring out what you consider important in an image - or enhance an aspect of the image you saw but the camera did not capture quite like your eye did it - it is not a manip. However much an image is changed I would not consider it a photomanip, as long as the goal of the artist is to present/enhance some aspect of a single image taken that he/she saw when the original photo was made, even if that involves some radical changes of focus, lighting, or colors. But that's just me. :-)

I won't try to define anything. If you think you can: feel free to do so. But before I believe you you have to tell me the difference in taste between an orange and a tangerine.

Well I think that you can only give examples. It's one of those things everyone knows without ever being able to express it in words without applying force to simplify it.
 Where does the beach end, and where does the ocean begin? Where is the exact border between, say, the US and Canada? Is this grain of sand US or Canadian property?

I find that if you add a tree or put in a different sky, change eye colour of a person, or the colour of a car you are manipulating. When you get rid of a person who was standing there and you wish he wasn't, or of a Coke bottle you couldn't hide when you were at the spot, it's not.

There is and will always be a twilight zone, a chaos element. That's life. And I love that.

Okay.

Two images. 

This was taken by Doug, our former Moderator...

Two images. 

This was taken by Doug, our former Moderator...

Postwork or Manipulation?

Here's a brief explanation..

The new Genre was created to help members keep image that were more heavily process in the Photo gallery.

It would be impossible to create a strict set of rules for this IMHO...

As far as genres go, we generally allow the members to choose what they want.

If the staff see's something that seems out of place. We discuss it and make a decision from there.

Manipulation is my like beauty its in the eye of the beholder. You have those people who consider themselves "purists" which would mean ANYTHING done to the photo other than sizing/cropping would be a manipulation. To me a photo becomes a manipulation once it steps outside the relm of reality.

Quote - To me a photo becomes a manipulation once it steps outside the relm of reality.

This sounds pretty good to me too.

I know it when I see it..  LOL.  I am not good at defining vague differences but blatant ones are easy to spot.  I offer no definition to this.

Thanks for posting Doug's shot.  This is beautiful and neither says manipulation to me. Are you pulling our legs? : )   I do hope Doug is fine.  thanks.      TomDart.

The only problem with Doug's postworked shot is that he forgot to remove the reflections of the cloned out buildings from the water....

Cheeezzz..such attentive eyes you have.   Name the ways these two pictures are different...one of those and I fell down on the job.  No, not manipulation in the sense of genre.

Yup, Doug does some mighty fine work and I sure miss him.

A manipulated landscape is still a landscape... a manipulated portrait is still a portrait... a manipulated macro is still a macro, etc... but it would only be nice and fair to state that there were manipulations in the image (so that the viewers don't get mislead)...
Only when the manipulation becomes the actual main subject of the image, then I feel it could or should go into the Manipulation category.
Without getting into the discussion about what manipulation is... it's a thin line sometimes... ;o)

"Let the use of the word teach you it's meaning"

"Politicians use lies to conceal the truth, artists use lies to tell the truth"

Two apt quotes from different source (dont know where they came from originally tbh).  I'm a fan of the "Final picture" being the objective, the manner in which you get there is up to you and also i beleive it is up to the photographer to tell whether it was done or not. You may feel deceived if you discover your favourite photo is a manip (my mother doesnt like one of my photos now that she knows the crop was used to take out a distracing element of the shot), but is not ignorance bliss?

Just food for thought...

Quote:

*"... i beleive it is up to the photographer to tell whether it was done or not. You may feel deceived if you discover your favourite photo is a manip  ..."

*Then as life copies art...it could be said that it is one thing to marry a person and find out later she had her breast augmented (manipulated) and the husband didn't find out until way after their marriage. 

Ten years ago in Utah, a man filed for divorce on the grounds of his wife had allot of plastic augmentation performed many years before they met. Being a good Mormon, his bride converted to the LDS faith, and they were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple. 

He discovered her deceit after several years and thousands of dollars were spent at some of the most prestigious fertility clinics in the country. Because of privacy laws protecting women from their husbands inquiries between themselves and her doctors, it wasn't until after five years of treatments, and eight years of marriage, that a doctor slipped up and told the husband his wife used to be a he; that is she was a surgical transvestite! 

The Mormon faith, like Catholics, have a dim view of divorce, except of course, in a case like this.

I really do not care who does what to their image...just be nice in the relevent genre as I mentioned prior.

With genre such as Abstract, Alternative, Illustration, Surrealism and even Weird...along with Manipulation there should be a reasonably accurate place to put  altered  images.  Which genre is up to the photographer and the personal concept of manipulation definition.
(I am not including reasonable photo editing in the "altered" bunch...the results of either tell the tale in the render regardles of how much work went on behind the scenes.)

I know this is gonna sound wishy-washy and vague, but the hard thing to swallow in the applications of artistic photography is that it is an amalgamation of multiple disciplines.

When someone paints in oils, no one can ask, "well, was it REALLY oils, or a combo of something else?" For something like that it's just a matter of subject (Landscape, Still-Life, etc.), and they used oils for the medium.

With photography... It just takes off, really... It doesn't stop with the camera - talking even film use, there's over and under development, there's different types of contrasty papers to give you entirely different results - and even THOSE can be over and under developed.

Now we have the "digital darkroom" which blurs the line even more - SO much capabilities within a few clicks of the mouse. Some folks just do a Levels/Curves/Hue-Sat adjustment and call it a day (if they even do THAT). Some will do an extra (insert adjustment here) to the sky to bring out the clouds, maybe one for the shadow areas - is this correction, or manipulation...? Kinda like dodging and burning - many considered it manipulation, but it was a standard procedure for most printers using a difficult negative.

When you start adding/removing elements is when it gets muddy. A little here, a little there and some people (myself included) just take that as correction and blemish removal - on the flip side, others consider that blatant manipulation and scream that they feel deceived.

When it gets to be enough, like TomDart says above, "I know it when I see it.." And for the most part (yes, there are always exceptions), those that do extensive (meaning adding/removing/swapping elements) work to their images will put it in the Manipulation gallery (I just give up and put it in the 2D gallery - no one can really argue it when it goes in there).
-Lew ;-)

Here is a definition from Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary:

Quote - Main Entry: ma·nip·u·la·tion Pronunciation: m&-"nip-y&-'lA-sh&n Function: noun 1 : the act, process, or an instance of manipulating especially a body part by manual examination and treatment; especially : adjustment of faulty structural relationships by manual means (as in the reduction of fractures or dislocations or the breaking down of adhesions) 2 : the condition of being manipulated -vulnerability to psychological manipulation —M. W. Straight. , © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc.

If someone puts makeup/face-paint on their face then it's not manipulating it's just enhancing. Now say someone uses drugs, gets a transplant or implant then it's called manipulation. just my 2¢. (read my sig. before replying. thx:)

Yeah the lack of a definition  is because it is next to impossible to define one... Feel free to offer one up that is acceptable to the rank and file!!

I don't think photo manipulation is either "right" or "wrong". It only crosses the line if you claim an image to be unmanipulated when it is not. The only reason I shy away from it in my own photography is because the image always loses a lot of emotion (for me) and becomes, well, commercial. That's not to say that all altered images lack emotion--sometimes they have more. It's just how I feel about my own work. 

Geert offers up  his view that it is less acceptable when " manipulation becomes the actual main subject of the image" That has been one way we use to exclude some works.. Adding or removing something from an image is no worse than doing so when taking the shot as we ask someone to move this way or that, or step out of the shot.. 

With the digital darkroom, there is now more powerful ways than ever before, darkroom boffins have always manipulated images... Truth and reality are more my own guidelines, and for many it is up to them to define their own..