To Clone, or not to Clone...

... that is the question. I shoot landscapes, and I've recently been uploading a few shots for the first time to the gallery, and cloning has come up a couple of times in comments and suggestions.

Both times, the suggestions were bang on (thank you bwlchmawr and Hullman), and cloning out the suggested object would definitely have improved the composition of the shot.

But I didn't do it because (rightly or wrongly) I was interested in preserving the integrity of the original. Tbh, I felt a bit guilty trying to improve on what mother nature had very kindly given me.

But it's got me thinking. And I'm interested as to what the consensus is amongst you all re cloning - particularly wrt to landscapes (esp given this year's LPOTY shenanigans) - and specifically as to what you think is typically acceptable re cloning both

a) practically

and dare I say it

b) philosophically.

So, in your opinion,

* What is it ok to change in a landscape photograph? Is it ok to clone out telegraph poles, people, animals, buildings, powerstations etc from images?

* Is there a difference between cloning out man made objects and what's naturally there eg a pylon vs a rock?

* What is it not ok to change?

* Are you happy to remove stuff, but might draw the line at adding stuff from another photo eg Would you swap in a sky from another photo?

* Anyone know what the old school film guys (eg Ansel Adams or equivalent) do/did re this? I know he did a shed load of dodging and burning, but cloning? And if he didn't (maybe because he couldn't), would he have done if he could?

I only bring this up as I've generally always removed dust spots etc, but never removed anything structural (posts, buildings, rocks etc). And I'm interested to know if this is a bit of fundamentalist loony position to take, or an accepted, if somewhat extreme, position. Or frankly if I should just get over myself and clone out whatever I like.

Genuinely interested in responses on this, so please don't hold back.

Thanks very much

IMO we live in world where media is far too false already. Pretty much every celebrity photograph has been cloned and warped ( often with hilarious and anatomically impossible results )

Many news images are fraudulent in that they are set up. Even the Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima was staged. Even worse the pulling down and slapping of Saddams statue following the Iraq Invasions was a complete set up nto involving Iraqi citezens at all who were banned from the area. See here for an expose of the Hilariously bad Evening Standard's cloned front page image of the event.


Then we had the Landscape photo competition in which the winner had heaviiy cloned and manipulated the image and after being 'outed' he was disqulaified and had to giev his £10k winnings back.

See here


There's a thread ion a forum somewhere where he was outed and it was most embarrassing.

So yes my personal take is that I won't clone out or insert anything in an image. But I will do heavy dodging and burning ( the digital equivelant )

My reasons are that I'm a photographer, not a collage cut and paste artist.

I'm a purist when it comes to objects in the image, btu I'm not a purist when it comes to non amputational/grafting types of cosmetic surgery.

IOW I'll apply make up and even a bit of botox but I won't do implants



There are no rules. You should do whatever you want to do to generate your art. the worst thing to do with art is follow some kind of consensus. That's just dumbing down. If you want to clone, then clone. if you don't then don't

We all should probably think about this and set some personal 'standards' for our 'private' photography. Its a different ball-game if you're putting your shots up in the public domain where they will be judged on some external criteria - competitions rules, or if they are news-related then the fidelity to the exact original scene would be more important I think.

As far as private work goes, or for where the public aspect is limited to a photographic context (like on this forum when showing our work for discussion) then I personally do accept that we can remove a limited range of distractions to focus attention onto our subject.

my own rule is kind of like this - if I could have actually picked up the offending item and thrown it out of the scene without upsetting anyone there, or disturbing animals nests etc, then I'm quite OK with cloning it out - this applies mainly to items of rubbish, but maybe also to some natural stuff that has blown away from where it grew etc etc.

Ideally of course I would have wanted to actually remove the items, but often there's not the time to carry out proper 'preparation' of the scene like this, especially if you're moving along with other people.

With fixed items (powerlines etc), I'd do it if it only for private / photographic use and only bother if it was really distracting from the subject (the classic one is the bright coloured item just behind your subjects face in the background, or the lampost sticking up behind their head! But yes, we should try and avoid these mistakes in the first place.

Personally - I have never added something that was not there - and I have never cloned out something that should be there.

Here though it gets subjective. What qualifies as should or should not be there?

Generally to me this would include sensor dust, my feet when shooting ultra wide, a blurred seagull wrecking a perfectly good seascape etc. I have also been known to clone out the odd person who flatly refused to move or was not noticed when composing the shot and the odd inconsiderately parked car or discarded coke can etc.

None of which makes me right or wrong, this is simply what I choose to do. The reality is, in an ideal world I would never need to clone anything - frankly I spend as little time as possible doing any pp work. I am never happier than on those rare occasions when I download an image and look at it and think - no work needed!

Carl

It purely depends on the intent.

If you are producing a record photograph and it is intended as such, then it should be made to accurately show things as they are.

If you are producing a creative image then you do whatever creativity demands.

If you are making honmest images with honest intent, then that's all fine.

In my professional work there is quite a big demand from clients in product photography to cut and paste and retouch, especially as I'm sometimes working with items that are prototypes, production samples or thing that have gotten a bit dog-eared.

In my personal work I never crop, but try to get it right in camera, this stems from my background shooting motion picture film where it simply isn't an option. I do dodge and burn and adjust levels and contrast but nothing that I wouldn't have done in a darkroom.

But each to his own.

But also it comes down to how different people view the function and scope of photography. There are many (and Photoshop has tradionally provided the most fuel to their views) who regard the 'recording' aspect of photography as most sacrosanct. They would apply this in any context - 'if it was there for real then it must be there in the photo'.

I think we saw a different aspect of this type of expectation in the 'Photo Processing Shootout', where a lot of the debate was concerning the particular colour balance and portrayal of specific colour tones that were perceived to be 'there' at the time.

I should add, I think this is significant - in relation to the 'Photo Processing Shootout', it was only following the photographer's claim that the particular colours were present in strength that the view of this as 'correct' gained prominence. Prior to this it was accepted that the alternative colour tones were 'more real, better etc etc'.

Likewise, if I had cloned out an object and beautifully blended the background so you would never know, but then later revealed that I had done so, only then would people clamour for its return.

As an 'enthusiast' photographer (as opposed to a professional) I am dead against cloning.
I fully agree with Smeggypants on this one that the the scene should be remembered 'as it was' and 'warts n all' if that be the case.
Like wise I agree with him that a bit of 'touching up' is quite OK since we don't always get the exposure 'perfect'. Hence my recent attempts at enhancing the dull sky in my shot taken near Grasmere on a dull day.

As regards 'extraneous' inclusions I do my best to position my 'point of view' when composing a shot so as to minimise unwanted items but that is not always possible.
However, I am prepared to get wet feet as required for the shot of the Thames flood in today's gallery posting !

There is greater satisfaction from getting the Compostion right than from manipulating an image later !
But that is just my personal opinion !!!

Peter

I have been using elements 11 free trial for a couple of days, and it has a mode called photomerge exsposure.
Where it wil; merge up to 10 shots to get a correctly exsposed shot, works quite well if you blow the sky out.
I dont noramaly clone anything, but to be honest i dont know how to do it.
Cheers
Dave

I remember my mother-in-law not being in the picture. LOL

We start modifying what's there as soon as we press the shutter to take the photograph. Sensors, raw or jpeg, lenses, angles of view, depth of field, saturation, sharpness, contrast, filters and composition all change reallity. The in-camera jpeg engine does a lot of processing automatically.

It used to be said that slides used to be pure photography. Even with slides we could choose different makes and types to distort the truth. Underexposing also increased the colour saturation. .

To answer the OPs question to clone or not:-

My stance on this is it depends on what the end purpose of the photo is.
If it is meant to be a true record, then don't do much to it.
If it is Natural History, then keep it pure.
If it is open pictorial, then there are no rules other than the picture is derived from photographic images with the copyright held by the author.

Have a look at an Open Exhibition of photos. These represent the cream of amateur photography. In the open sections, many of the acceptances will be photoshop manipulated.

I mainly produce pictures, not records.

What's to add after that? If someone's really having a crisis of conscious then apropos it should be clear how to proceed with the presentation of the particular image.

I don't add things to a photo, but I do occasionally clone out a man made object if it proved impossible to get the photo without it in the first place, and it detracts from the image I want.

I've never replaced a sky, and don't dodge or burn either.

Occasionally I will play with an image and try different effects on it but it is then clearly manipulated, and is usually done just for the fun of playing with an image which is probably not that good in the first place.
My son's Christmas present is a heavily manipulated photo of his Land Rover. It was a boring photo to start with but playing with it has made it something special imho.

Indeed, but from the light hitting the eye, through the lens, fluid, rods, optical nerve and neurons, the image is modified before its gets to be an image we are concious of viewing.

In fact the brain can even clone things out through negative hallucination. I've experienced it several times when I've lost something and genuinely not seen it the first time I looked in a particular place.