DxO PhotoLab 4 and Candid Photos

[mwsilvers (Mark - New Jersey, USA)]

@Joanna

There are B&W films that will give you a similar rendering to Mark’s version. With such film and an enlarger in a darkroom, you would obtain a print that looks very much the same.

Had you taken the shot with such a film camera and processed like that, you would undoubtedly call it a photograph. Why would you change your opinion because it was taken on a digital camera, which only takes in colour and is then processed on a computer to emulate that film that is no longer available?

Are you saying that only wet process film and paper qualify as a true photograph?

You, yourself, edited what we see the moment you decide to frame the shot to exclude certain things.

Is your version any less a photograph because you edited it in the camera by so framing it?

Who decides when editing begins?

Just a few questions for discussion

I believe he was referring to my removal of the three larger buildings as well as the other manmade structures in the background, including the buoys.

I removed them because they were visual distractions and their presence added nothing of value to the image. I also removed a sensor spot above the pelican’s wing and some white dots on the other wing that were more subdued and less visible in the original color version.

I think the removal of all those modern structures simplified the focus of the image and made the scene look more natural and idyllic.

Here is the image with those distractions replaced.

Here is the version again with the distractions removed.

Mark