click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney
Okay, lets talk about this 800 pound Gorilla in the room. It answers to the often misunderstood name of Photoshop.
I bring this up only because there have been SO many misconceptions over the years about Photoshop and what it is actually most often used for. Yes, certainly, Photoshop makes it possible to do cute tricks like swapping Diane Feinstein's head onto the body of Raquel Welch, but that is FAR from all of what Photoshop, or any of the other image processing programs, facilitate.
Photoshop is all about getting the MOST out of an image. But the main idea is to not make it obvious that any corrections have been made, and usually that calls for a bit, or a whole lot of restraint.
So, on the image above--aside from a slight boost in color-saturation, what you see is fairly accurate to the scene that was in front of me. Most of the work in Photoshop had to do with straightening the horizontal and vertical lines--corrections that are normally only possible with one of those huge "view cameras". Oh you know, the big old-fashioned camera with the accordion-like bellows and a multitude of swings, slides and tilts.
An oldie but goodie--my 4x5 view-camera with 210mm Schneider Symmar.
click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney
On the other hand, this oversaturated iteration of the image might look kind of cool at first--perhaps a throwback to the 1960's--but I assure you that I was just "having fun", taking Photoshop to its limits with reckless abandon. I should probably be ashamed of myself, but sometimes I just can't resist.
"Photographing Marin County"
