“The most perfect technique is that which is not noticed at all.” Pablo Casals
I strive to make my images to not look “photographic.” Heavy handed manipulation just grates on my vision. Manipulating black and white negative when printing used to be incredibly difficult, requiring dexterity, thought and visualization. Then there’s the whole chemistry part of the process to consider. It was very easy to make horrible time-wasting aesthetic mistakes.
Now we can use Lightroom and Photoshop to make exacting changes with far more control than we had in the past. But still, we have some of our photographic brethren who will not be satisfied with subtlety. Cranking up the contrast, vibrance, saturation, sharpness, and clarity just makes my eyes hurt.
When in college, the fellow that lived across the hall was color blind. He had the foresight and good taste to take and “pass inspection” every morning to avoid color clashes in his wardrobe. It might be a good thing to have a trusted photo buddy look at your latest effort to make sure your technique is not noticed at all.
If your friend tells you about the processes you used, you definitely overdid it.
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