Photo Manipulation

by Nick Olayao
Banner Image by Nick Olayao

In my own point of view, photo manipulation is, at a minimum, an integral part of digital photography.

As soon as you set your capture format to jpeg for example, place a filter over your lens, decide on developing time, set a white balance, you are already altering or manipulating the photograph in some way.

However, this is only the creative way of using your camera, and photo manipulation is still a long process ahead.

During post production, some may consider dodging, cropping, blurring, levels adjustments, color enhancements, etc. as photo manipulation, but for me, these can be best described as "Photo Enhancement".

As long as the procedure is applied globally on the image, you are just enhancing the original photograph.

Photo manipulation is when you apply processes on an image and the effect is so extensive that it can be clearly distinguishable from the unaltered photograph. This is normally done thru the use of graphical imaging software like Adobe Photoshop.

Photo manipulation can consist of more than one image (layers), blended together in a way that exceeds digital darkroom techniques - in other words, photo manipulation no longer focuses on merely enhancing any given photo, but on creating something that is entirely new.

Now that we are living in the age of new technology where everything is laid out on the palm of our hands, why not start to enjoy and learn something new from it? Your manipulated work may not be acceptable to some photo contests, but there are other contests that are open to this kind of craft.

Editor's Note: This article kicks off the "Photo Manipulation Series" of our blog. Watch out for Mr. Olayao's contribution , "Teknik ni Nik", coming very soon! Those who wish to contribute to this series, please send your contribution to me via email.