Filters for detailing pics - hmmm

[Bates Detailing]

So I have noticed AMAZING pics for detail turnarounds - but many times now a days I see predominately filtered pics and/or amazing camera pics! Sadly we use nothing but the cameras on our phones to take our pics but I am confident to say they are unfiltered. We have maybe .1% of pics of our work posted on the website, but I have spent all week working on the website and uploading pics (which is not viewable right now, but will be soon enough). I have posted on the top of our gallery that no pics have been filtered - has this become an industry standard due to technology advances?!?!?! Id rather show the true work rather than pixel enhanced photos (Im not tech smart so that may be the wrong term lol). Either way, is it not better to post "naked pics" of your work? Or is it better to doctor them up like so many are doing now a days?!?!?!?

[Mike@DedicatedPerfection]

I agree with you. I want to see the naked pictures as well.

While I may have picked up a new DSLR to use for pictures, I believe in using the picture right from the camera without any alterations to the picture to show the true results obtained.

[Setec Astronomy]

Boy some things never change. In a previous life on another forum, we had huge debates about "doctoring" photos, and it ran the gamut from people who were accused of altering their exposure to flatter the car (some of whom claimed it was the camera's autoexposure and they had nothing to do with it) to prestigious detailers who felt it was their prerogative to post-process the photos to present the car "as it appeared" to them when they were working on it (suggesting that the photos in the unaltered state didn't do their work justice).

I'd like to say it's all ego, and who cares, but I guess if you are a pro and a competitor takes your work because his pictures look better than yours, when in reality your work is as good or better, then that's a problem.

[cardaddy]

Anthony, I personally would rather see a cropped 'true' photo than something that's heavily filtered, unsharp masked, etc. The only thing I would say do is work with the histogram and pull the blacks and whites together. That'll give you a truer rendition of actual color range within each shot.

Basically color runs from true black to true white, at a range of 0 to 255. When you look at it on a histogram you'll see a bunch of spikes and valleys and it'll fall off sharply both at the top and the bottom. You just grab the bottom one and move it up to where your 'real' color information starts, and then move the top one down to where it stops. This will compress the actual range of color but make it look much better without adding any 'fake' color to the process.

The only filter that I'd use on a camera is maybe a UV filter and for sure a polarization filter over the lens. That'll cut out wild glare and such.

[lawrenceSA]

What are your thoughts on the following:

Adjusting the brightness
Adding a border

When someone is still learning to use a DSLR in manual mode exposure and white balance may often be off. How does one 'honestly' compensate for their shortcomings in the photography department to better reflect what what they saw, not what the camera saw (based on erroneous user settings)?

Does the aforementioned 'dragging' of the histogram fix this?

A bordered photo IMO just looks more visually pleasing.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[Bunky]

If you alter the histogram, you are changing the image. In Lightroom, you can compress the spectrum by reducing contrast and saturation of decrease highlights and shadows. (LR 4 controls). This is changing the image.

Any jpg generated by a camera is by definition is a processed image where the what was captured by the sensor was adjusted to create a jpg.

The camera decides the processing and one goal is to create nice looking images. Cameras have options like Vivid, etc. that alter this more.

Some cameras have built in shadow recovery where darker areas are lightened and some do the same to preserve losing highlights in bright scenes. This may compress the actual range.

RAW files are least processed but then you can adjust in a RAW editor.

Is using a polarizing filter cheating?

If the camera mis-exposures (meter adjusts light due to a black surface leading to over exposure), is correcting this wrong?

[tuscarora dave]

So I have noticed AMAZING pics for detail turnarounds - but many times now a days I see predominately filtered pics and/or amazing camera pics! Sadly we use nothing but the cameras on our phones to take our pics but I am confident to say they are unfiltered. We have maybe .1% of pics of our work posted on the website, but I have spent all week working on the website and uploading pics (which is not viewable right now, but will be soon enough). I have posted on the top of our gallery that no pics have been filtered - has this become an industry standard due to technology advances?!?!?! Id rather show the true work rather than pixel enhanced photos (Im not tech smart so that may be the wrong term lol). Either way, is it not better to post "naked pics" of your work? Or is it better to doctor them up like so many are doing now a days?!?!?!?

Hi Anthony!! Nice to see you have a minute of free time to post!! We miss you when you're not around.

All I have is a simple point and shoot, the cheapest one with a rechargeable battery. In the right lighting and from the right angle, I can photograph an incoming swirled out mess of a car and it may appear to some as a car that's rolling out of the shop after a true paint correction. You just can't trust what you see in a photograph as far as paint correction and a defect free finish are concerned.

Now put up the halogens and shoot the reflections of them in the paint...now were talking. I too am technologically challenged, not knowing even how to change anything other than the macro setting and flash settings of my camera so I would have no idea if the paint defects in the halogen reflection photos could be filtered out.

I'd say that when your audience is the general public who know nothing about what we really do, filter away.

In the show & shine threads here on a forum fill of discerning detailer trained eyes, it's my opinion that filters and photoshop make you a big phony.

[Setec Astronomy]

I would have no idea if the paint defects in the halogen reflection photos could be filtered out.

I'm not sure he was talking about filtering out defects, I thought he was talking about the application of filters to increase contrast and make the car appear glossier.

I'd say that when your audience is the general public who know nothing about what we really do, filter away.

In the show & shine threads here on a forum fill of discerning detailer trained eyes, it's my opinion that filters and photoshop make you a big phony.

Yes, but that's if you operate on the assumption that the Show n' Shine forum is for other detailers. I ran into this heavily on another forum, where pro detailers use the "show your work" forum as a marketing tool. Because most of the fellow members on any forum won't be competitors because of geographics, what those posters want is dirty befores, shiny afters, and a bunch of other (pro) detailers patting them on the back. They then steer potential customers to the forum(s) and tell them "you can see my work on these forums populated with other professional detailers" and the potential customer sees a shiny completed car and accolades from everyone about how this detailer is the greatest!

I made the mistake of asking questions etc. until I got bawled out enough times to see what was really going on, maybe that is why I don't spend much time looking at "show your work", because it turns into a bunch of BS instead of a learning experience (the OP's didn't want any questions or comments in the thread, only "you're the greatest!"). It gets so bad sometimes that the OP won't even tell people what products they used...anyway, you get the idea. It was really bad on another forum I used to spend time on, it doesn't seem as bad here, but I don't look at that many Show n' Shines...you seen one shiny car, you seen 'em all, lol.

[TopThatDetail]

The only pictures I filter are ones of myself so I can be a 6-10 instead of a 3-10 on the good looking scale

[cardaddy]

What are your thoughts on the following:

Adjusting the brightness
Adding a border

When someone is still learning to use a DSLR in manual mode exposure and white balance may often be off. How does one 'honestly' compensate for their shortcomings in the photography department to better reflect what what they saw, not what the camera saw (based on erroneous user settings)?

Does the aforementioned 'dragging' of the histogram fix this?

A bordered photo IMO just looks more visually pleasing.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

If you alter the histogram, you are changing the image. In Lightroom, you can compress the spectrum by reducing contrast and saturation of decrease highlights and shadows. (LR 4 controls). This is changing the image.

Any jpg generated by a camera is by definition is a processed image where the what was captured by the sensor was adjusted to create a jpg.

The camera decides the processing and one goal is to create nice looking images. Cameras have options like Vivid, etc. that alter this more.

Some cameras have built in shadow recovery where darker areas are lightened and some do the same to preserve losing highlights in bright scenes. This may compress the actual range.

RAW files are least processed but then you can adjust in a RAW editor.

Is using a polarizing filter cheating?

If the camera mis-exposures (meter adjusts light due to a black surface leading to over exposure), is correcting this wrong?

To that effect...

IMHO, adjusting the histogram is just a glorified way of adjusting the brightness and contrast. Notice I didn't say anything about adjusting the mid-point.

You can take two photos of the exact same subject, 10 minutes apart, from a tripod mounted camera, and you'll have two vastly different histograms. (Much more so if it's early or late in the day.) Bottom line is there is information both above and below 'true white and black' that'll show up (was captured by the camera) that just doesn't need to be there.

Is it compressing the original data? Or, is it clipping off the unused space, then stretching what is there into the available range? (Really doesn't matter, po'-tate-toe, po'-tat-toe.)

Just as hardly ANYONE knows to use a flash during the day (especially without direct light on the subject) for fill is something that you normally don't see people doing.

A few months back my son was going to prom (he actually graduated last year, but his girl at the time is still in school) and we went to the park to take photos. Of course there were a bazillion kids and parents there. Yet (other than the ONLY professional photographer that was there) I was the only one with not just interchangeable lenses, but with a huge honking flash. Working in the shadows without one is imho, just wasting your time. And of course of all the photos her dad took, the ones that got printed.... well those were the ones that I took!

As raw files was mentioned earlier, YES that is by and large the only way to go. Having a file format that saves without compression, is at 300dpi versus 72dpi will make or break a shot. Not to mention never losing your original file data, no matter how many changes are made.