@ennuipoet
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I’m not familiar enough with what tone mapping is doing under the hood to really know whether it should be allowed under current rules or not,
From Wikipedia: Forms of tone mapping long precede digital photography. The manipulation of film and development process to render high contrast scenes, especially those shot in bright sunlight, on printing paper with a relatively low dynamic range, is effectively a form of tone mapping, although it is not usually called that. Local adjustment of tonality in film processing is primarily done via dodging and burning, and is particularly advocated by and associated with Ansel Adams, as described in his book The Print; see also his Zone System.
The normal process of exposure compensation, brightening shadows and altering contrast applied globally to digital images as part of a professional or serious amateur workflow is also a form of tone mapping.
What does that break down to? Well, if we say “no tonemapping” then we should leave all shots as shot, no tweaking in post. I don’t know about you guys, but I tweak almost EVERY shot in post for saturation and contrast. These adjustments are usually very minimal and are aimed toward what I consider my “artistic style”, I like a vibrant constrasty image.
This image is tonemapped in Photomatix Pro:
to “pop” the reflection in the water. I used it for Reflections 2. It was a single exposure and I did the tonemapping long before the contest so I felt I was within the spirit and the letter of rules. The original shot was little flat because of the time of day it was shot, the enhancements were minimal but really made the shot.
To tell the truth, there is no easy answer to this question. I personally feel that judicious use of software enhancement is exactly the same as judicious use of advanced darkroom techniques. It also purely a personal opinion that many photographers are so anti-software enhancement because anyone can do it without years of training in the darkroom. I know the technique I learned year ago barely brush the edges of dodging, burning, stacking and other methods for accomplishing what I can do in PShop and Photomatix is a matter of minutes. (I feel much the same about the new “in camera” HDR, it takes all the time I’ve spent learning the software and renders it moot.) The idea is to take a good photograph and make it a great photograph. No amount of technical wizardry can take a crappy photograph and make it a good one.
I’m enjoying the give and take here; I’d like to see more people participate.
FWIW, I think you’re right. The method you use is a digital analog (HA!) of a accepted darkroom process. I would say it is fair to use in Farktography.
In re: the color shift: Cameras are notorious liars to begin with, and a camera as demonstrably imperfect as a digital camera lies even harder. I was trying to recover the remembered color of the dawn hour where the sun was just reaching the mountaintop, and the dark sky beyond provided an extraordinary contrast. The meter in the camera bollixed up the exposure for fair, so it was up to me to try and recreate what I saw and felt.
Of course, I make the same argument about HDR. The best correction of this shot:
is just to dark, the sky is dropped off and the shadows deeper than they really were, also the color of the stone in the sunrise was shades redder than the captured.
So, using a HDR I am closer to the tonal range of the actual conditions. Looking back at this shot, I should actually cool the temperature of the shot down but with the sun hitting the building just over the horizon, this was as close to the actual scene as I could make it. And I couldn’t do without the software.
