Do the filters you use add to your photography or detract from it even thou you are not willing to admit it?
Let's hear what you think and how you have balanced your use of filters… do you make a crap photo look better with filters or do you take a well done shot that needs little to no work and then tweak from there?
Are you a #filterabuser or a #filteruser ?
Image manipulation has been around as long as photography itself has, changing techniques and tools has always been part of creating images, I see using these tools as just another way to show your creative side. Can it be over used of course but I don't think that detracts from it's use….
Agreed with Don. The Filters are getting a bad rap lately because of the Instagram crowd. That doesn't make them bad. The positives of so many people becoming interested in photography to me is worth the negatives of looking at what I feel are over-processed photos. But art is subjective — never forget art is subjective — and what many of us feel looks too cooked, some feel look amazing.
Personally, I rarely use filters on my DSLR work. Occasionally I will add some texture, but that is not really a filter. With my iPhone shots, I go through phases… sometimes for a few weeks at a time I find a fun filter I like and play with it; others I just use the default camera app (or a b&w one) and don't do any processing. Depends on my mood, I guess.
I agree – my theory is any tool is worth trying at least once…
That said one I think needs to find their tolerance levels and not be intolerant of what others feedback is on their images..
I have found with my work – listening to others has made me a better photographer… balancing the hate-o-meter is important thou with what your vision might or might not be…
I think it detracts from photography
+Jon McLaren How are you sure that what you are looking at is actually something that a filter has been used on?
Just like the camera, lens and artificial lighting are tools, the computer is also a tool. It's just fun to see what you can do with software. sometimes it's for improvement of a not so good shot and sometimes it's to make a good shot great. For some of us that aren't the greatest technicians with the camera the computer helps us realize our vision.
+Brent Burzycki Filters are tools just like everything else – the camera, lens, light modifiers, Photoshop, etc. are all tools. Filters help make you more efficient so when you find an "edit" that you like for a particular image, you do not have to start from scratch every single time you want to use that look again.
As far as professionals go, I do not know many that do not employ presets, filters, or actions of any kind in their workflow – I cannot even think of one, to be honest. It is as necessary a tool as is Photoshop. That is not to say that filters, etc. are used on every shot, all the time – because they are not.
+Chuck Jackson How many pro's will openly admit or disclose their workflow… I know some but others lock it up like fort knox… I do not blame them, but it is interesting how the artistic side of photography is now even more complicated than it was in the past…. now you have to take a great shot and know how to do everything with it…
+Brent Burzycki Hey man! Bambi Cantrell (wedding pro), Scott Jarvie (wedding pro), Colby Brown (landscape & humanitarian pro), Matt Koloskov (pro), etc. Colby and I have openly talked about workflow, for example. Just about anyone I have seen on G+ or otherwise that is "renown" in their area of photography openly talks about Nik Software or some filters in their workfloor. Kubouta offers some nice ones that I've seen folks like Cantrell openly claim they use (i.e. Action Packs). Now they my not tell you exactly which filters they use, but they do give you broad categories (and some even share the exact filters).
So I think the answer is that some people do not mind sharing that information and some do – for every one I mentioned, there are probably two that will not…LOL
It is just interesting to see the swing from people not wanting to talk about how they shoot to now more about how they post process….. It is almost as if post is a more important part of the process than the actual shooting… Thou my pro friends would tell me that I am insane and that taking the photo is much more important….
I say it's a balance now of both, but as we all know with stuff like instagram you can make a pretty technically bad shot look pretty interesting…. Thou just like teriyaki steak… You can make any piece of meat taste good with the right sauce…
+Brent Burzycki I generally think that when all the color gets washed away by filters it detracts from the experience of the original photo. Don't get me wrong sometimes filters can make a great photo fit into things better.
For example: lets say I was hired to make a movie poster.
I might take a shot of a scene from that movie, put the characters on to a seperate layer, apply a filter to the background and tweak the color and light adjustments to change the atmosphere of a picture. I would likely also paint in some things or photo composite textures into things to further change the look of the scene.
Then maybe, apply a filter lightly on the people/characters in the scene to make them match the situation, but not look washed into the background, so that they stick out.
I don't like filters that much because it can make things look instagramish.
Don't get me wrong, instagram was a great idea and creation, and I think it boosts the amount of people trying to take cool photos. That's not a bad thing at all. However generally when I look at those photos they all look alike, using the same filters and same effects, they just don't look professionally done, they often look cheesy.
+Jon McLaren I guess we just need to make sure that Instagram is not the next HDR…. where two cool things are destroyed (HDR and Filters) by a mass uptaking of the styles…
Personally I'm still a huge fan of HDR, and take HDR photos myself fairly often. but just like you said, it's kind of going the way of filters, because, the focus isn't as much on the quality of the image, it's the quality of the filter/overlay/effect, and I don't think an effect should take away or distract from an image, but instead add to that image.