i have made the argument before in other threads and now its time for its own. I just dont understand why we can topaz the crap out of a picture and not give some dodge and burn to give the eyes some pop, or smooth out the skin, or selectively desaturate an image without planning the colors only to circumvent a rule anyhow, why cant we clone out out minor imperfections besides dust or hot pixels?
these are edits that we should be able to apply to ALL of our images with the exception of a few special per year
Let just have:
Minimal editing
NORMAL editing
Expert editing
sign below:
The above sounds great to me. Maybe there was a time for basic editing years ago to allow those new to image editing a better chance in challenges. But nowadays anyone who doesn't know how to do simple things like, clone, dodge, burn, selective sharpen, etc. can learn how to do them from free tutorials on the web. There are thousands of these tutorials available that can get anyone up to speed very fast! It really does not make sense to hold back the many because the few can't be bothered to watch a few free tutorials. Especially when people are allowed to Topaz images into oblivion under the present basic rule set anyway!
If Basic must be kicked to the curb and imho there's no reason why this should be so, then allow cropping in Minimal editing and I'll be happy. And yes, there should definitely far more straight from the camera challenges.
Nothing against Advanced and Expert editing, obviously there are PS wizards here who concoct the most fabulous images with those rulesets. But then, some simply see the chance to go hawg wild, usually with stuff like HDR and Topaz, on photos that aren't necessarily that good in the first place, and which only look downright terrible when over-pp'd. Then they wonder why they did so poorly.
Just my humble Canuckistanian .02 cents worth, of course.
"Basically", I like the rule set. No selections, the limited filters, color correction, sharpening, cropping. The addition of sensor dust & hot pixel removal was a most worthwhile enhancement.
I believe this is the more rewarding rule set for photography. I can't do minimal, my cameras won't see color the way I do.
My opinion is to leave the editing rules as they are. There are sufficient opportunities for every preference.
The system works. Don't fix it.
There are a lot of people on this site with point n' shoot cameras, who want to learn how to shoot and to share their images in the challenges, but do not care to go "all out" into the digital editing realm. The basic and minimal rule sets make sure that the site keeps room for them to be a part of the challenges.
It would be too intimidating to the new people here to have to jump directly into advanced and expert editing, and many of them will never go that far into editing their images.
I see no reason to get rid of basic editing. Not only does it keep the newbies from being scared off, but it also pushes the older members to shoot knowing they cannot bail out a poorly shot image with pp.
I think what we have here at DPC is fine the way it is and would vote to leave it this way.
In fact most current challenges ARE advanced and expert editing. There are a few of us who choose not to go beyond basic editing never mind our level of "expertise" and/or equipment. It would be nice to keep a level playing field some of the time.
How is it OK to run Basic through Topaz but not spot edit??? doesn't make sense! Get rid of it.
OK -- I'd be fine with making Basic more basic and getting rid of lots of stuff.
But the big difference between Basic and Advanced -- and where it makes a real difference what quality original you capture -- is the ability (or lack thereof) to edit selectively, adjusting colors through masks, dodging/burning/cloning, etc. But there's still a big difference between that and Minimal.
It is likely we will be reviewing all the rule sets to some degree "soon" -- but around here I'm afraid that may seem glacially slow to most of you ...
I don't understand why it has to take so long. Can't one of the SC volunteer an hour of their time to re-write the rules, then send them around to the rest of the SC for a "yay" or a "nay" vote? If you guys really wanted to, you could probably get the whole thing done in a day. I know you guys all have real lives and stuff, but why the procrastination on this if you know you're going to do it eventually anyway?
Sorry tnun and ShutterPug, but I don't think your arguments hold much water.
Level Playing Field: Simply isn't true. In fact, basic editing makes the playing field even less even in that post processing experts can much more easily get around the confines of Basic, while those of us with less skill are stuck.
Scaring Newbies: Is we named it "Normal" editing instead of "Advanced", I'm sure it wouldn't be as scary.
I'm not really calling you two out, it's just that I see these arguments the most often for keeping Basic, and I think they just don't work.
There is a difference between what you name a rule set and what can be done as far as scaring the newbies! If something said, "Normal Editing", then listed a whole bunch of allowable editing tools that someone wasn't familiar with or possible doesn't even know about...that, to me, would be far more intimidating than "Basic" and "Advanced". At least this way you know what the competition will be doing with regards to allowable edits. If you know you aren't able to/don't want to PS the crap out of a shot...why would you feel inclined to enter a challenge with "Normal" rules that you aren't comfortable with? Just sayin'. With the support on this site for Minimal Editing, not everyone WANTS to learn how to seriously manipulate images in PS just to make the challenge playing field more even, availability of tutorials or not.
Allow spot healing/cloning in basic and leave it alone.
IMHO, when we keep adding more and more allowable editing tools, the quality of the original photographs many take declines. I, for one, came here to learn to be a better photographer, not necessarily to learn how to manipulate the crap out of an average photo. (Edited to add: Not doing a very good job at this, lol!) For the sake of those more along the purest lines, keep Basic and Advanced separated, leaving the four rulesets alone.
