Is It “Cheating” To Edit Photos?

[Slocke]

This is my thought:

Just ranting about fake photos

Anybody else sick and tired of overly edited photos that people post on social media and then when called out vehemently defend that the photo isn't edited like this pic. I don't claim to have an awesome looking reef tank but when you edit your photos like this, post them on social media and...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Reefer Matt]

For sales/WYSIWYG I say editing is probably a no no. But everything else. . . meh it’s probably fine.

There’d be a lot of blue photos in that case, but I know what you mean.

 

[paragrouper]

I would agree with many that some of the manipulation done by vendors is less than helpful. I do like the photo presentation @Tidal Gardens uses on Their web page that depicts their corals under different lighting conditions. I find it a helpful tool

Example

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I would agree with many that some of the manipulation done by vendors is less than helpful. I do like the photo presentation @Tidal Gardens uses on Their web page that depicts their corals under different lighting conditions. I find it a helpful tool

Example

I think that is good business practice too. It gives you an idea of how a specific coral might look under different light intensities.

 

[IntrinsicReef]

While we are on the topic. I have some totally real corals for sale. Price: If you have to ask, you can't afford it

 

[TehBrainz]

I would agree with many that some of the manipulation done by vendors is less than helpful. I do like the photo presentation @Tidal Gardens uses on Their web page that depicts their corals under different lighting conditions. I find it a helpful tool

Example

Tidal Gardens has a great video series on how different T5 bulbs and mixtures of bulbs can affect the corals appearance. This is SUPER helpful and gave me a lot of respect for them

 

[elysics]

The only problem I see with the edit process ( in sales) is you can end up with a picture of a coral that doesn't look like the picture posted when you look at it with your eye.

I recently bought a large chunk of raw opal ( etsy) that looked nothing like the picture posted.
When I confronted the seller, he said all you have to do is use my phone camera with a flash setting to see the same rock as was in the picture.

That is an issue with "not editing" just as much, if not more.

There are no unedited/unfiltered pictures. The process of using a camera is editing/filtering in itself because it doesn't replicate reality and doesn't work the same way an eye would. Even worse if you use a modern smartphone that puts a bunch of ai filters on it without asking you.

You can edit the resulting pictures again to get them closer to reality or further away, but "unedited" is not the gold standard by any means.

 

[MoshJosh]

There’d be a lot of blue photos in that case, but I know what you mean.

Maybe one of those orange lens filters would be a good compromise in that case (maybe with a disclaimer haha)

 

[Tidal Gardens]

Thank you for the kind words @paragrouper. We try our best to give the best representation of the corals we care for. However, our highly advanced cameras can pick up details that our eyes cannot see. But as far as color is concerned, Becka is pretty good at making them look as close to what we see in our tanks with our own eyes.

 

[rhitee93]

There are no unedited/unfiltered pictures. The process of using a camera is editing/filtering in itself because it doesn't replicate reality and doesn't work the same way an eye would. Even worse if you use a modern smartphone that puts a bunch of ai filters on it without asking you.

Spot on.

It might be worth explaining this a bit if it helps people understand why pictures rarely capture a scene the way they see it.

Human vision has enormous dynamic range. We can almost simultaneously see different areas in a scene that have very different lighting characteristics. However, and camera cannot.

For example, if you look at your tank, you can see the bright spots and the shadows equally well. You see that some areas are brighter than others, but your eyes allow you to see the details in the bright and dark areas at the same time (within limits).

No camera can do this. It has to adjust the exposure of the image to fit one area of the scene. This leaves every other part of the scene either over or underexposed which causes the detail to be lost either to being washed out, or too dark.

Some of the modern phone cameras go so far as to take several images of the scene at one time with different levels of exposure, and then interleave them so that the final picture is only the best parts of each of the initial images.

 

[IntrinsicReef]

Spot on.

It might be worth explaining this a bit if it helps people understand why pictures rarely capture a scene the way they see it.

Human vision has enormous dynamic range. We can almost simultaneously see different areas in a scene that have very different lighting characteristics. However, and camera cannot.

For example, if you look at your tank, you can see the bright spots and the shadows equally well. You see that some areas are brighter than others, but your eyes allow you to see the details in the bright and dark areas at the same time (within limits).

No camera can do this. It has to adjust the exposure of the image to fit one area of the scene. This leaves every other part of the scene either over or underexposed which causes the detail to be lost either to being washed out, or too dark.

Some of the modern phone cameras go so far as to take several images of the scene at one time with different levels of exposure, and then interleave them so that the final picture is only the best parts of each of the initial images.

My sister, who is a great photographer, taught me a trick. Squint at your subject, and the highlights and shadows will be more pronounced. This will give you a bit of a preview of how your camera is going to capture it.

 

[vetteguy53081]

 

[smitten with ocean life]

What’s up Reefers! Like many of you, I like to take photos of my tank inhabitants. I think we can all agree that there are abuses in sales posts in the realm of editing sometimes. However, if done correctly, I think that post editing adds art and clarity to a photo. But there may be those that disagree. What do you think? Are camera lenses better or worse than our eyes?

Here’s a photo before and after editing. This was taken with an iPhone 15 Pro Max. An Orphek lens was used for color temp correction and magnification.

Original

Cropped and edited

stunning!! i LOVE it!!

 

[ryanjohn1]

I wish the photos actually looked like what my eyes see in the tank. Pics always looks like tank is full of windex. But standing in front of it not really at all. So I try the blue blocking lens and they seem the muddy everything up. So you end up having to edit them so they appear closer to what I see. But. Coral glam shots are a real thing. I personally really like the instagram coral guys out there. Most are just like us. If you actually message them they can be just as helpful as this site. Take for instance Tusi. He used to have a pretty big presence here years ago but now he is almost exclusively on insta. Also I’ve met him and bought coral from him. lol I can’t say the same for most of you. Lol

 

[Reefer Matt]

I wish the photos actually looked like what my eyes see in the tank. Pics always looks like tank is full of windex. But standing in front of it not really at all. So I try the blue blocking lens and they seem the muddy everything up. So you end up having to edit them so they appear closer to what I see. But. Coral glam shots are a real thing. I personally really like the instagram coral guys out there. Most are just like us. If you actually message them they can be just as helpful as this site. Take for instance Tusi. He used to have a pretty big presence here years ago but now he is almost exclusively on insta. Also I’ve met him and bought coral from him. lol I can’t say the same for most of you. Lol

Try adjusting the color temperature in your photos in editing. Yeah, social media is basically all marketing now. They are called “Brand Ambassadors”. I’m actually thinking about quitting youtube because of that trend. But like you said, there’s some cool Reefers out there with awesome tanks amongst the hype.

 

[Outlaw Corals]

For sales or trades photo edits and saturation is a big no way for me, but just for posting pictures of your Corals online there is nothing wrong with

 

[ryanjohn1]

Try adjusting the color temperature in your photos in editing. Yeah, social media is basically all marketing now. They are called “Brand Ambassadors”. I’m actually thinking about quitting youtube because of that trend. But like you said, there’s some cool Reefers out there with awesome tanks amongst the hype.

Don’t get me wrong. I have 100% caught them in some nonsense schnanagans and called them out on it. But the real ones just sorta polish the edges if you no want I mean. But I don’t blame some of them. If someone wants to give me free gear for nothing but a kind word and I was gonna use it anyway. Don’t see much harm in that.

 

[elysics]

The sad part is, those super vibrant neon rainbow LPS and 5 colour Acros with iridescent shimmer, or unicolour corals that just glow way more than their brethren do actually exist, if you pay a visit to high end coral vendors or farmers you'll see them.

In online shops it's harder to distinguish between those and the fakers playing fast and lose with the editing sliders. Especially to beginners. But even the real ones will need photo editing to bring across their beauty.

Paying attention to the colour of a frag plug or the white grids is usually a good indicator, if it overly pinkish or red or other weird colours someone is probably exaggerating. Not always though

 

[ryanjohn1]

The sad part is, those super vibrant neon rainbow LPS and 5 colour Acros with iridescent shimmer, or unicolour corals that just glow way more than their brethren do actually exist, if you pay a visit to high end coral vendors or farmers you'll see them.

In online shops it's harder to distinguish between those and the fakers playing fast and lose with the editing sliders. Especially to beginners. But even the real ones will need photo editing to bring across their beauty.

Homewrecker nuf said.

 

[Reefer Matt]

Don’t get me wrong. I have 100% caught them in some nonsense schnanagans and called them out on it. But the real ones just sorta polish the edges if you no want I mean. But I don’t blame some of them. If someone wants to give me free gear for nothing but a kind word and I was gonna use it anyway. Don’t see much harm in that.

Yeah, I get that too. I just can’t do that myself. I wanted to share my reefing and try to make it easier for Reefers via videos, but I’m starting to see the environment of marketing that is attached with all of it.