Proposed Modifications to the Farktography Rules

[Elsinore]

Not entirely to me- cropping is removing elements of a photo that are “bad” or at least, just don’t belong there, too!

I’m not overly wedded to the 8×12 form factor of my CCD, but even if I stuck with 8×12, may I crop? Or may I only post full-frames or full-frames corrected for off-kilter shooting angles?

Also, while this is at the top of people’s thoughts-
Gradients across the whole photo on layers such as brightness/color. Ok or not?

Like with white balance correction, it’s going to apply to every pixel in the image, just obviously some pixels are more affected than others.
(Since I’m starting to play with that a little bit for light correction, I’d love to know whether or not to have that to work with… hoping the answer to this clears rather than muddies the waters)

Thanks!

Both the old and new rules state that cropping is allowed, so have no fear there. The old rules allowed for brightness/contrast adjustments, and the new rules will also allow the gradient correction you mention, so in that regard, you’ll have more freedom. Spot corrections will be allowed, but not more grandiose removals/additions. The only ambiguity in the new rules I see is where to draw the line between spot “corrections” and spot “additions/removals”, though that’s why the inclusion of examples like removing utility poles or lines. Hopefully that demonstrates the spirit and overall direction of the guidelines.

[anneb]

Both the old and new rules state that cropping is allowed, so have no fear there.

Cool- my concern stemmed from the simplification, “just don’t allow removing…” without the full rules context, I was worried that was taking something currently quite clear, and muddying up it a bit.

The old rules allowed for brightness/contrast adjustments, and the new rules will also allow the gradient correction you mention, so in that regard, you’ll have more freedom. Spot corrections will be allowed, but not more grandiose removals/additions. The only ambiguity in the new rules I see is where to draw the line between spot “corrections” and spot “additions/removals”, though that’s why the inclusion of examples like removing utility poles or lines. Hopefully that demonstrates the spirit and overall direction of the guidelines.

The line I find helpful is “if I had just taken my camera out of the box, and it was perfectly clean, would that smudge be there?” For me, that’d cover sensor dandruff, but not lens flare (which is mostly a bonus, IMO, not something to remove)

The “lone hair across the nose of a model” example really falls into gray. (1). Me, I would be more inclined to leave it, unless we were specifically doing a portraiture theme. Still, it’s not always easy to control for, and I can see why people would want that allowed. While I don’t think it’s worth splitting hairs on that specific example, it does tangle things up a bit, and finding the break point between ok and not ok a bit hairier.

Yay about gradients being clearly ok, now- that will cover many instances where you’d want to be doing selective dodging.

[1]Except gray hairs. I have no gray hairs. Not a one. They’re just really, really light brown.

[Elsinore]

Looks like the poll is closed and the ayes have it. Thanks to everyone who commented and/or voted. We’ll submit the changes to Fark and hopefully have them up there soon. We’ll have the website here updated right away.

[Author]

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