Hey folks--
May I suggest, just for a while, [particularly for those participating in the coffee table book] NOT posting all these great photos? Keep your secrets to yourself (visually at least) so the book will be a welcome mystery...get it? Keep up the great work in getting the photos, however!! Just don't share them yet!!
As for the verb "photoshoping". I kind of dislike that word as it is used to describe, usually in pejorative terms, the manipulation of photos.
Let me tell you this: Many of the great photos taken in the days of silver halide (that's B&W photography)had extensive retouching done with dodging, burning, etc. That's in the darkroom. Then, after the fact, there was also a lot of airbrushing done, hand coloring, etc. Unretouched photos almost don't exist. Anything printed at all has been retouched in the sense that the density range and tonality have been altered from one medium (silver halide paper; color transparency, etc.) to another (ink on paper) because it is a technical requirement; the density range of transparencies is far greater than ink on paper and the tonal range must be collapsed in order to print. You also have to color correct nearly everything to print properly. Now I'm not talking about removing Uncle Ned and replacing him with Aunt Tilly, but retouching is a continuum and it isn't all bad.
The second thing I dislike about the verb photoshoping is the fact that this kind of digital manipulation was NOT invented by Adobe. Long before Adobe evolved out of Xerox PARC, "photoshoping" was being done on and by Scitex equipment, which evolved out of digital imaging work done for the Israeli Defense Forces. In another life I worked for that company which actually invented this stuff! Let's just call it what it really is, and what it has always been called--retouching. Doesn't matter how you do it (with Photoshop, a clone software, or the old-fashioned way) it's still retouching!
OK, I'm better now.
