For people passionate about photography - hobbyist, amateur and professional.

Pixels Shmixels

Has anyone come across editors and or art directors that are caught up in their little pixel free world, looking for a grain / pixel free image. It really annoys me. I did a shoot for an actress and especially shot her with my Nikon d200 at 400 asa because I like the almost filmic irregular grain effect that I get with it. I put the images on my website, along comes an editor of a digital camera magazine and decided he wanted to buy worldwide usage to use the image on the cover of the magazine. (great) but then he asks me if I have a copy of the image that has less grain (I didn't funnily enough because that's the effect I set out to do), so needless to say, he got someone in to get rid of the grain / pixel effect that I shot in the first place.

Now surely he either likes the image or he doesn't. He wanted the shot to be pixel free because its a "digital magazine", my argument was, surely then he should be pointing out that the nikon d200 is a great camera to use if you want an almost film effect. needless to say he didn't get what I was on about. (there's a surprise)

Many moons ago, that would never have happened, the editor would have called up and said Ian I would like to use that image, end of story. There wouldn't have been any question of grain. it would have been a nice shot end of story, even if it had golf balls for grain.

So (near the end of my rant) that means that magazine editors are aiming for an almost HD / grain free world of images, which means that all of our work will eventually look the same.

This is the image in question (the original), they used the image on the cover and it worked really well, even though he ran it through noise ninja, but watch out for pixel medeling editors.

Tags: digital, free, grain, photo, photograph, photography, pixel, pixels

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christina_cole.jpg, 87 KB

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Brown on June 30, 2009 at 3:15pm: Another example of the triumph of technological form over artistic content. I think it's also connected to the tyranny of fabricated perfectionism in which it has to be said fashion photographers in particular have been willing collaborators! It's just that at least air-brushing was a skill in itself that NoiseNinja etc. aren't! :)

Great image by the way: I'm not surprised he wanted to run it!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ian Phillips-McLaren on July 1, 2009 at 5:56pm

I couldn't have put it better myself Stephen.

God! I could have a rant about fabricated perfectionism in photography. I like to call it the barbie effect. I'll save that rant for another day.

Here's a magazine article that quoted me on the barbie effect amongst others, if you fancy a laugh.

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Practical_Photography_Ian_Phillips-McLaren.pdf, 446 KB

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Brown on July 2, 2009 at 3:02pm: Great article! I'd no idea you were such a celebrity! :) It's very refreshing to hear someone successful talk such down-to-earth common sense. I love the "Hollywood star Orlando Bloom just happens to be a friend of Ian’s" - that's serious cool!!!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ian Phillips-McLaren on July 2, 2009 at 4:21pm: Thanks Stephen, I find it quite amusing, it made me laugh. I'll accept the cool bit thanks : ) LOL only joking! my kids think I'm a dork and the least funniest person alive, Ho Hum, I suppose that's par for the coarse.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ian Phillips-McLaren on July 1, 2009 at 9:05pm: Tri-x in id11 - now you speaking my language Edward, I'll bet they loved the shots, I'm itching to get out my old Rollei 2.8 or even my Olympus pen ft. ouch!; ▶ Reply to This

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