Photoshopping of images in magazines. Should it be done? If so, what is permissible?

[54Strat]

People look for different things and as everyone knows pleasing the masses is impossible.

 

Right now I have a temporary oval of track on a laminate floor that I thoroughly enjoy. If I photographed it and posted it here no one would be interested to see it and I wouldn't be surprised. I wouldn't want to see it either. However when I'm of a mind, I'll get down to track level and my imagination fills in the gaps, it fills in the scenery, the backdrop, the smoke, the noise, the passengers and the drivers.

 

Isn't this what creative photography is best at, realising our imagination? I'm sure the clutter that surrounds all of our layouts remains invisible to the owners but not to onlookers and photography is an opportunity to try to show what the layout appears to look like from the perspective of the owner's imagination.

 

So I'm all for it, after all isn't it just an extension of what we try communicate what we enjoy about the hobby? When I see kettles rattling past or diesels straining, I'm surely not the only one who imagines smoke and clag? It's just nice to see it realised.

 

Paul

[corneliuslundie]

This is a question rather than a statement. I notice that many people's televisions have the saturation turned up very high. This is most obvious when football matches are shown, as the grass is an impossibly bright green, My eyes tell me that the real world is much more muted.

 

But has constant exposure to television fooled us into expecting high saturation in photos? So when we see a naturalistic photo (and possibly a model railway, which is a way is a picture rather than real life), do we therefore feel that it is lacking in life, dull, flat?

 

Any thoughts?

[BlackRat]

the 2 pc's are just being nosy and should know better and i used the traffic cop as the DRS security guy!

just to detract more the soco officers have 'politzei' on the back of their boiler suits too

Nosey plod? Can't believe that, normally they would be stomping all over the scene lol

 

I see the German contingent are over on an IPA exchange, we recently had a contingent from Poland and Germany itself a few years ago so alls well

[BlackRat]

So the  first picture is of your layout, and the  shopped one is a picture with your layout somewhere in it..... fair enough

But it's still the same layout and nothing has changed except a bit of added sky.

 

It's still the same layout, we know that and the added sky makes for a much better picture.

[coachmann]

The way layouts are photographed has changed a over the years from looking down, as a viewer would, to rail level pictures. I remember the impact of Mr. Norris's 7mm scale layout back in the 1960s because it was shot at rail level. After my eldest son loaned me his tiny digital camera in 2000, my ideas on model railway photography took a complete turnaround. Despite its low pixel count, the camera delivered pretty good images, but best of all the lens was at the base of the body and it could take rail level shots. Not only that, but the depth of field the tiny chip delivered even at a modest aperture was a real eye-opener. Needless to say I was an early digital convert.

 

It must have been around 2000 that David Jenkinson sent me a pile of photos of his layout, which were for his new book 'Historical Railway Modelling'. They were fine but shooting at rail level also showed a great deal of his railway room, which to me was a distraction. So I scanned a couple of his postcards and dropped a sky on to the layout before sending back print outs. I presume Barry Lane had similar ideas seeing as many of the pictures in the book of David's final layout had skies PS'd on them. It is simply the way things have gone. 

 

Evolution has a habit of running away with itself and I suspect we are in for a period of 'design-driven' smokey-steamy layout pictures with word-baloons all over them until things settle down. Personally I would prefer to see overall views of a layout plus close ups with extended backdrops to fill the frame. Fully photoshopped 'corrected' smoke and steam shots should be reserved for the odd eye-opener page, but thats only my opinion.

[MarkSG]

As far as photos in magazines are concerned, I like to see them processed as little as possible. Obviously, cropping is perfectly OK, as is adjusting brightness and colour levels to compensate for the ambient lighting, I also think that blanking out off-model backgrounds (eg, the bookcases in the examples at the start of the topic) is OK as well. But I'm less happy with anything which alters the appearance of the model itself (other than deliberate, and obvious, post-processing such as monochrome or old slide effects used deliberately for artistic purposes).

 

I think that the primary purpose of photos used to illustrate magazine articles about layouts (as opposed to photos used to illustrate articles about photography!) is to show the model itself and demonstrate the skill of the modeller to the readers. Sometimes, that includes showing some of the flaws as well as the good points.

 

Here are a couple of images which illustrate what I mean. One of them is a classic photo of a classic model, the other is an amateur photo of a current layout on the exhibition circuit. Neither of them have been photoshopped in any way:

 

 

 

The first is, for those who don't recognise it, part of J H Ahern's classic "Madder Valley". By contemporary standards, some of the modelling is certainly crude - the way that the buildings aren't bedded in to the ground is something that we'd never accept now, for example. But it was revolutionary by the standards of the time, and even the flaws in the modelling are essential to an understanding of it.

 

The second photo is of Bucks Hill, a layout that I saw earlier this year at the Aylesbury exhibition. The photo is mine, and I haven't done anything with it other than crop it slightly. If I was going to do anything with it, I might possibly have rotated it slightly to compensate for the fact that the camera wasn't level. But, other than that, everything you see on that photo is exactly as it was at the exhibition. Even the faint sunlight glow on the backscene is "real", a part of the model (and done by using a light behind a semi-translucent sky). And there's a baseboard join running right through this scene - I bet you can't spot it!

 

A better photoshop artist than me could make nearly any layout look as good as Bucks Hill. But I think that doing so misses the point; a layout article in a magazine should be about the layout, and the photos should give the reader confidence that if they ever see the layout in real life, they won't be disappointed with it.

[Kenton]

My thoughts on the subject of photoshopping images have been pretty well made clear on other topics. But I'll try to be brief here.

 

Firstly I see photography in general and photoshopping as a skill and an art form in its own right and quite separate from modelling and even more remote from modelling where the intention is not to faithfully recreate an exact image of a scene.

 

Image manipulation comes into a variable scale of permissible through to deception, in my mind.

 

At the end of permissible are things like removing the background to plain colour. The background was never part of the model it is simply the environment the model happened to be in, you can move the model, put up screens around it or use image correction to wipe it out - all very acceptable.

 

Faults introduced by the camera or photographer, such as tilt, focus, lens spots, even some lighting are all permissible to retouch as again they have been introduced to the scene. I say "some lighting" because it is a fine line and correction is only permissible if the lighting takes the scene back to reality and does not produce that nasty candy box tint, lit from every direction, that you get in some magazines now.

 

At the other end of that scale are some of the dropped in cloud effects, smoke, people, and simply any object introduced into the scene that was not in the layout. That may make an arty photograph, sure, and can be respected and appreciated as such, But it has no place in the honest presentation of a layout.

[fender]

This is a question rather than a statement. I notice that many people's televisions have the saturation turned up very high. This is most obvious when football matches are shown, as the grass is an impossibly bright green, My eyes tell me that the real world is much more muted.

 

But has constant exposure to television fooled us into expecting high saturation in photos? So when we see a naturalistic photo (and possibly a model railway, which is a way is a picture rather than real life), do we therefore feel that it is lacking in life, dull, flat?

 

Any thoughts?

 

I'm sure there's something to this, and speaking of incorrect television settings, at least we can be glad that the propensity for watching 4:3 broadcast images on the 16:9 setting hasn't also translated into complaints that BRM photos aren't elongated enough!

[Andy Y]

Here are a couple of images which illustrate what I mean. One of them is a classic photo of a classic model, the other is an amateur photo of a current layout on the exhibition circuit. Neither of them have been photoshopped in any way:

 

 gm32-1-w640.jpg

 

 

Yes, the first image has spent a bit of life within photoshop. It's one of my images, a series of 20+ which had various frames used to stack the image, the image has been rotated, cropped and verticals marginally corrected, sharpened and colour adjusted. Here's one of the originals resized.

 

[MarkSG]

 

 

Yes, the first image has spent a bit of life within photoshop. It's one of my images, a series of 20+ which had various frames used to stack the image, the image has been rotated, cropped and verticals marginally corrected, sharpened and colour adjusted. Here's one of the originals resized.

 

IMG0221resize.jpg

 

 

Those, though, are all things which I'd consider acceptable in the context of a photo used to illustrate an article about a model. All of those techniques are intended to correct deficiencies in the photo, not deficiencies in the subject (and I wouldn't even call cropping a "correction" at all, it's an integral part of selecting the image to be displayed). The point I'm making here is that you haven't tried to do anything which gives a misleading impression of Ahern's work, instead, you've  used Photoshop to ensure that the final image is as faithful as possible to the subject. 

 

(My original statement that neither photo had been Photoshopped was probably misleading; even mine has been cropped. But I'm using the term here more in the sense that it's commonly understood as being a means to alter the appearance of the subject of the photo rather than merely making sure that the photo itself is as good as possible).

[big jim]

I had a photograph published in a mag last month, i had no intention of trying to get it published but when my mate saw it he suggested sending it in to mags

 

To my eye it was a pretty good 'amateur' picture but he, in a professional photographer capacity tidied it up for me with photoshop, all he did was straighten it up as it was a bit wonky (which i hadn't noticed) and sharpened it up a touch wich i think is acceptable for photos of real trains

 

i have submitted another one this month that has just been cropped in photoshop by bryan to cut out a OHLE shadow that detracted from the image by drawing your eye to it, other than that no other manipulation has been done again i think that is accaptable

[Peter Kazmierczak]

If we're specifically talking about images in magazines, then we need to bear in mind that:

Magazines need to sell

Magazines need advertising revenue

Magazines need to promote the hobby

If I open a mag and see poorly cropped snaps, under/over exposed images, poor page layout, will I buy it if alongside is another one where thought and effort has been put into the presentation of the contents?

Any photograph is made with (hopefully) some conscious thought - we point the camera that way rather than another. So I've no problem with cropping, rotating (I hate verticles not being verticle...), improving the "technical" things like exposure, removing reflections, black spots (like one of my cameras; there's one right in the ruddy centre of the image) or other blemishes. That's all fine.

What is not right is to enhance the model by Photoshopping out (or adding in) items. Making the paintwork look better, straightening bent items, changing the aspect of signals, adding extra bits of scenery.

However the background is different and as others have said above, looking at a layout in the flesh is different from looking at in 2-D. So I've no worry if a PLAIN sky background is added to remove all the household clutter. After all real railways did it when they photographed new items of stock - they also added backgrounds to their internal shots of coaches). I'm more weary if dramatic clouds are added though.

When one of my layouts appeared in a magazine a number of years ago (pre-digital, per-Photoshop, indeed probably pre-historic), I took it outside to photo it in natural light so some of the garden appeared in the background. Nobody seemed bothered by that.

[coachmann]

Dramatic skies do have their place. I produced this for a book from an official black & white photo but I 'pulled' it before publication for reasons of space. The original was shot on a typical Blaenau Ffestiniog rainy day and my knowledge of the location caused me to shoot a sky to suit the conditions....The hardest part was the enamel signs and I gussed the colours in the end.....The ex LNWR station oozed character and I wish it was still like that today!

 

[dibber25]

A magazine is an item - a product - in its own right and therefore has a set of parameters around its production. In these days of full-colour reproduction one of those parameters is top quality photographs of top quality models. From a purely personal point of view I have never intentionally published pictures of models 'warts and all'. Photography is brutal to models and even what appears to be good modelling to the naked eye can be exposed by the camera as less than perfect. As one whose modelling appeared on magazine covers in the 1960s, I have suffered more than my fair share of frayed brickpaper and leaning verticals being shown to 40,000 readers. YES, if I'd had Photoshop available to me, I'd have used it and corrected every one! I can't think of any instance where a magazine has altered the look of a layout to the extent that it would disappoint at a show because 'it looked nothing like' the magazine images. Photoshopped backscenes are pretty obvious, and Photoshopped smoke even more so. You need to look at it also from the magazine editor's viewpoint. Great pictures sell magazines and Editors will do what they believe is necessary to achieve that. 'Warts and all, bookcases, garage walls and the operator's belly don't make for great pictures.

As to saying what's been done, well, have you any idea how many electronic and electro-mechanical processes a picture goes through to get onto the printed page? Some of those processes, between editor's desk and printing press, can radically alter lightness, darkness and even colour balance of a picture. Black and white photographers were not asked to state the exposure, aperture, paper grade, darkroom dodges, and Indian ink drawing that was done on photographs in days of old.  Readers just enjoyed the pictures and the same is true today.

CHRIS LEIGH

[queensquare]

I broadly agree with everything PMP has said above but what is WYSIWYG?

 

Jerry

[big jim]

I broadly agree with everything PMP has said above but what is WYSIWYG?

 

Jerry

 what you see is what you get

[PLD]

Great pictures sell magazines and Editors will do what they believe is necessary to achieve that.

 

But it shouldn't be at the cost of misrepresenting the layouts or misleading your readers... Thats why I suggested yesterday that maybe the cover image should be enhanced to the maximum to draw the reader in and as you put it "Sell the Magazine" while the internal photos contained in the article should be an accurate reflection of the actual modelling.

[Jim Martin]

As I said last time we went round this particular block, photoshopped pictures aren't a problem for me. I want a layout feature to convey a sense of place. If photoshopping helps do that, fine. "Warts and all" photos are fine for articles about dealing with warts, but I want layout photos to show the layout at its best. I find this is particularly true with layouts that don't reflect my own interests. If it's a subject I'm not especially engaged with, I want it to be pure eye candy.

 

Jim

[BRealistic]

It wouldn’t be so bad if the ‘smoke effect’ added to ‘layout photos’ actually looks convincing,  but it rarely does. Looking as fake as it is, to my mind it effectively ruins the authenticity/reality of a model scene. 

 

Yes, I really hate the white and grey puffy stuff!  I find it distracting in the extreme, and if it’s smudged across a Cover photo I have nothing but negative feelings towards the magazine.  Those that desist from indulging this ‘craze’ get my vote.

 

There, got it off my chest at last!  

[dibber25]

But it shouldn't be at the cost of misrepresenting the layouts or misleading your readers... Thats why I suggested yesterday that maybe the cover image should be enhanced to the maximum to draw the reader in and as you put it "Sell the Magazine" while the internal photos contained in the article should be an accurate reflection of the actual modelling.

It's not about misleading anybody. It's about making things look their best and producing GREAT PICTURES. The question really is whether it's more about the model or more about the picture. Straightening a telegraph pole, filling a gap under a building, obscuring a baseboard join or blocking out a bookcase don't, in my view, constitute misrepresentation. It's also about photographers and Editors having a pride in their work and wanting to put out the very best images possible. If I'm not allowed to straighten something that's leaning or to touch up some dodgy paintwork, I'll reject the picture rather than publish something that looks lousy. Of course, if one happens to spot the leaning pole and straighten it BEFORE taking the picture - what's the difference?

I would feel that, if the cover photo was given some treatment that was denied to pictures inside the magazine, that isn't misrepresenting the layout, it's misrepresenting the magazine and enticing the buyer under false pretences.

CHRIS LEIGH

[Dunsignalling]

I buy model railway magazines to read about and see pictures of model railways, if I want to see what post-processing can do, I'll buy a photographic or computer mag.

 

I am certainly not interested in seeing someones fantasy of what his models would look like if he was better making them it or they incorporated technology that is not (yet) available.

 

Making the best of a photographic image is one thing, doctoring it to make a layout or model look better than it really is or appear to do something it cannot, is (for me) not acceptable.

 

I have already ceased to even bother checking out the contents of one title because I consider it crosses that line too often.

 

Others may buy it purely because of the pretty pictures (they become meaningless as a source of information), that is their choice just as much as not touching it with a bargepole is mine.

 

After all, there are plenty of magazines to choose from and we all pick the ones that portray things the way we prefer.

 

John

[Dunsignalling]

 I want a layout feature to convey a sense of place. If photoshopping helps do that, fine. "Warts and all" photos are fine for articles about dealing with warts, but I want layout photos to show the layout at its best. 

 

Jim

Isn't the point of our hobby to achieve that through our modelling skills?

 

If not, why not cut to the chase and do the whole thing in the computer - it'll avoid having to deal with all those bothersome sharp knives, hazardous solvents and messy paintbrushes...........

[coachmann]

Isn't the point of our hobby to achieve that through our modelling skills?

 

My thoughts too. In my WB features for RMweb, those closeups of work in progress are often the result of further attention to something the cruel camera has highlighted! I shoot as I go along so the faults often only come to light after downloading all the pictures onto computer later in the day. Then its a case of rejection, correction, reshuffle and re-take!

 

Presentation is all important in my view and so "making things look their best" is taken in that context. Making out a modeller is better than they are by artificially correcting their bad modelling would be bad form. I wonder if that is ever done...?

[robmcg]

My participation in the model railway hobby is primarily buying and photographing RTR models as many here will know.

 

I use the models to create pictures. I add steam and smoke, change details, paint things in and out, and at no time have until now felt the need to justify what I do, because for me, buying model trains and admiring them, and making edited pictures of them, is my participation in the hobby.

 

I doctor images to make models look like the prototypes of the 50s and 60s, to me at least. It brings pleasure to me, and I am sure to at least some others.

 

I admire fine modelling skills, and to be honest I cannot see how my version of the hobby devalues the work of people who make superb models, or even RTR manufacturers.

I do not use photo-editing to falsify a product, which is wrong, and some editing cannot be construed as falsification. But what of the practice of people using photography and photo-editing to make their layout or diorama look better when illustrated? Of course this can be construed as 'false', but if the image is presented as edited, and brings pleasure, it is part of the hobby. If claims are made about the actual model it could be misrepresentation, but that depends on how the photo is used. A stunning and realistic effect? Go for it.

 

That's my tuppence worth.

 

Here is are two of today's edited images of a superb weathered RTR Hornby model. I will feel no shame in removing the wires from the side-shot in due course, or covering them with 'steam'. I greatly enjoy making these pictures, and accept that some will say that they have more to do with photography and painting than modelling.

I respectfully and conditionally disagree, inasmuch as my model railway hobby is re-creating BR steam days using RTR 00 models to create modified digital images, depicting BR steam trains.

 

And no, I would not find it easy to edit and review current models and 'draw the line' at focussing, sharpening, and exposure only. What I would avoid is clear misrepresentation.

 

 

[chaz]

When I read an article about a model, be it a layout, a building or a loco, I would like at least some of the photos to show it as a model. But it won't offend me if there are also manipulated images making it seem as real as possible. It would be good to see both.