First off, I really like this picture. This fellow, as I was waiting for a picture to happen, landed on nearby rock and began to sing. I eased around a nearby bush and started taking pictures. There was nothing that I could do to get rid of that plant that seems to be growing out of his back, but I really didn’t want to anyway. I had a number of variations of this shot. One of them even had the plant seeming to sprout from the top of his head.
Mind you, these ‘defects’ can be easily ‘corrected’ using the clone stamp tool in PS; however, I like the natural look. Nature is perfect, not in the sense that we have come to expect, but perfect just as it is. No clone tools are needed. 
I have, from time to time, used the clone tool to remove the “hand of man”, such as telephone wires, other times I have left the wires in because I felt that they added to the overall aesthetic of the photo. It’s probably one of the least used tools in my arsenal. I do my best to move around to avoid them, if possible. In other words, I want what’s in the camera to be what’s on the paper or the screen. Of course, we make choices as to what to show.
Each time that I think of using the clone stamp, I think of the Dove Real Beauty campaign where they show the difference between the woman who comes into the studio and the transformed unreal beauty that comes out at the end after airbrushing, Photoshop manipulation, make up, hair, etc. Nothing about her is real anymore. Her photo is simply someone’s idea of what perfect beauty is. Unattainable proportions. Unblemished, pore-free skin.
I feel the same way about nature. There is a lot of beauty there and it doesn’t need my clone tool to help it. Where I do use the tool is in restoring old photos. Invaluable.
Finally, that is not to say that the use of this tool is wrong. Overall, I don’t use this tool much at all. I think that it can lead to sloppiness out in the field, “I’ll just remove that later with the clone tool”, and a bit of dishonesty, or failure to recognize the beauty that is already there … just as it is.
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14 Responses to “To clone or not”
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I’m not using the clone tool a lot to actually remove objects out from the picture. I have made it from time to time, but always felt that I have to declare what I have done. There you have it, I feel dishonest too. It’s like replacing the sky with another. I have never understood why you do that, if you’re not in the advertising or magazine world.
Anyway, for cleaning up a otherwise evenly coloured area from lens/sensor dust or what ever could have found its way into the picture, I’m really happy with this tool.
@Ove: Great point about removing sensor dust spots. Even though the dust is part of nature, it’s not what I was shooting for.
For me it’s no big deal as long as there’s honesty about it. Landscape painters don’t paint scenes exactly as they view them, should they? It’s about creating your art…whatever that might be.
With photos I don’t see the need to have to have disclaimers on every photos “altered” unless your using them commercially/legally to represent something they’re not. Personally, if asked, I’m happy to disclose any manipulations I did to better depict my vision for a particular scene.
Also, it wasn’t nature that put that plant seeming to grow out of the birds back, it was the limited 2-D nature of photography and you the photographer with the positioning of the camera–so if you wanted to fix it I don’t think nature would mind or if you don’t that’s okay too.
I don’t use the clone tool or the healing brush all that often in my day to day personal photography. I will use it for assignments though when warranted. Often it is expected that the images will be “clean” and free of distractions. A lot of my work is not in a controlled studio so those tools do come in handy to remove distractions that cannot otherwise be avoided. For example I recently shot an orchestra and got some truly beautiful photos of the soloists. Some of the angles presented a problem with a large red Exit sign glowing in the background. It had to go for many of those shots, not all, but many of them. I did leave the stage lights however as they lent context to the scene.
Generally speaking I also prefer a somewhat organic approach, leaving in the scene what was there when I took the shot.
I think this one is definitely a gem. A high quality wildlife shot showing the true environment of this beautiful bird. The DoF makes him just leap off the screen. I love when that happens!
As you said Paul, nature is perfect as is. It doesn’t need any help from us. And as the ancients taught, if you want to follow Tao, first understand the perfection of heaven and earth.
I enjoy your weaving of the Tao into your photography and commentaries.
For myself, I just follow a simple guideline: if the image is better (to my eye) with a fix, I make the fix. For me that could mean anything (color, sepia, crop, etc.), although rarely does it mean cloning. If I was a reporter, that would be different. But since I’m trying to (on my best days) evoke an emotion out of a viewer, I don’t see anything inherently wrong with ‘touching up.’ Now, there are lines drawn for me, surely. Those artificial images on magazine covers cross the line. Those composite shots where “the fog wasn’t there when we shot it but doesn’t it look better with the fog?’ sort of images aren’t photography to me.
This question is kind of like dramatic dialogue. Dialogue in drama (tTV, film, theater) isn’t the way people talk. It’s intentionally artificial to heighten, well, the drama.
If I take a shot of a Sedona sky, and by changing the contrast it evokes more of the feeling of the scene when I shot it, I’m ok with that.
I have this shot of Bell Rock where right smack dab in the middle of the frame, on the ground, is a white plastic grocery store bag the wind had taken and blown onto the grass. Now, I could easily clone it out (in fact, the first people I showed the image to mentioned “well, thank goodness for the clone tool.” However, leaving it, the shot becomes a statement about man’s spoilage of nature. Cropping it out, the shot becomes about Bell Rock as seen against a dark, stormy sky.
To me, anyway, neither shot is wrong. It depends what I’m going for.
Paul, what I love about your blog (besides the consistent beautiful image quality) is your thought-provoking questions. And, lord, your ability to post almost every day. You amaze me.
“the dose makes the poison” – I think this old saying from the medical sector in a sense is true for the clone stamp also. I don’t use it very often, but it can be really valuable.
The clone stamp is probably only one of the most prominent postproduction tools, but image information is always altered on the way from reality to presentation, being it the lens or film or senor transformation to begin with.
I think two cases should be viewed differently: Producing documentation has a much lower level of allowed modifications. Producing Art is different, the raw file is only the collected basis for expressing an idea, and there is a bandwidth of alterations possible. It’s a matter of style then. But I do remember talking with a photographer who is shooting for postcard publishing. When he told me that he is increasing the height of clocktowers or the mountains in the background, I did not feel at ease with this. In the end the expectation of the audience is that a postcard shows more or less unaltered reality, probably taken from an advantageous position, but not postprocessed in such a modifying way.
In your bird shot, in my eyes cloning out of the plant would be acceptable. If you see it as the vision of a bird in natural surroundings (and in this sense it is a wonderful harmonic picture), not this individual bird at exactly this place, I see no harm in removing the distraction. Just my 0.02€
I come down on the side of it’s art and it’s all illusion anyway. We alter reality (or direct the viewer’s eye) with the lens we choose, the angle from which we shoot (what we leave out of the frame), the color balance when we develop (or the film chosen), even the time of day we do the shoot (that may be “reality” for only half an hour that particular day. I wouldn’t think any less of this gorgeous shot if you chose to remove the plant (in my opinion, it only adds to the sense of the bird being part of its environment). I think it would get quite tiresome to have photographers dutifully divulging all the ways that we direct the viewers eye on every picture. Still, if I find myself tempted to do quite a lot of cloning, I know I blew the shot and perhaps I had better consider that particular picture a learning experience.
@Chris: Actually, I see nothing wrong with manipulating a picture in any way that you want. Feel free to add clouds, fog, or whatever; however, as part of my vision, I would say that nature is perfect. I am not above removing a stray cup, paper/plastic bag, or any other piece of debris from within the frame. I’ve become quite adept at checking the edges of my frame for such things. In the case of the bird, I would not have moved in to remove trash, as it would have scared him away. Now, would I have cloned that out, perhaps, or perhaps not. It would be highly dependent on what I wanted to show, as in your example. Now, regarding my daily postings, you just happen to come in at a fertile moment.
I’ve been reading a lot of Tao and listening to a lot of inspirational audio books, so the floodgates are open.
@Markus: I agree wholeheartedly and am not opposed to anyone treating their art in any way. I just happen to see the beauty in what ‘is’. Mind you, I do increase contrast, saturation, dodge and burn to get my message across, but as for actual content, that stays the same.
@Anita: Yes, each photo is our own view of reality. There is no absolute reality. It’s all based on the view through our particular filters. For me, when I see these birds, or dolphins, or plants growing against rocks, it’s pure love for them just as they are, so it’s hard for me to change that. That’s also why I like the Dove campaign because it is truly about self-love and the love for others just as they are.
Nice photo, Paul.
I think we are (if not, almost) past the point where you can believe what you see in a photograph. By that I mean that photo manipulation is so prevalent and easy that these days, most of us believe that a photo was manipulated unless proven otherwise. Even the cameras these days have so many “art” and “film” modes built in that even without post processing the photos can be quite “manipulated”.
I mean this in the general sense of course; a photographer can make a statement that they only do such and such and so and so and believe in the natural beauty of the world, etc. etc. and perhaps most people will take them at their word on that.
To return to my point, basically all this makes the question of whether to clone or not a bit of a moot point. No one will care, or believe it was not manipulated in some way unless you have made an explicit and up front statement about your principles on the matter that is prominently visible to the viewer. Most photographers put that kind of thing in their “artist’s statement” or “about” page or some such.
@Eric: Unfortunately, it seems that it is ‘guilty until proven innocent’. Yet, it’s a personal thing. Sure, people will probably not care that it is cloned or not, but I care.
Nice discussion. I’d have to agree with Erik that it’s mainly a non-issue except for commercial, documentation or legal cases where a photo is used as visual proof or argument.
As Anita said, we use “techniques” (filters, long exposures, double exposures, post processing, lighting aids, moving things prior to shooting, B&W conversion, etc.) to shape reality from before the shutter clicks to the end of digital processing. Is cloning any worst or better?
Everyone has their own individual standards they apply to their photography, which is how it should be!
I agree that it is basically a non-issue. Although the general public perhaps still considers a photograph as a representation of reality (as far off as that may be), I don’t think most people would have an issue if you removed that small piece of grass at the birds back if you thought it made the image stronger. It doesn’t significantly change the habitat or what the image is communicating.
[...] a somewhat related topic, I noticed this morning that Paul Lester had a post on his Blog stating his feelings about post processing, namely the Cloning tool in PS. As is [...]