Debate: should astrophotographers edit their photos or leave them raw?

I was at a star party out near Cherry Springs State Park last weekend and this guy next to me was showing off his Milky Way shots on his laptop. They were heavily edited with crazy colors and contrast. Another guy walks over and says that's not real astronomy, it's just digital art now. They got into it for like 10 minutes. So what's your take? Do edits help show things our eyes can't see, or does it cross a line into fake? I'm leaning toward some editing being okay but I'm not sure where the line is.

3 comments

3 Comments

tara_jones9428d ago

Oh man, that sounds like a classic star party debate! I had a similar thing happen at a local astronomy club meetup. I shot the Orion Nebula and did some basic stretching to bring out the dust lanes, and this purist guy said I was "faking it." But the thing is, our cameras capture way more data than our eyes can see. I found a middle ground where I just adjust levels and curves to make the natural colors pop but I don't add artificial colors or fabricate details. That way it still looks like what's actually there, just brighter and clearer. For me the line is when you start inserting stuff that doesn't exist in the original data.

kim69327d ago

Gotta push back on this one. The second you stretch a histogram or boost saturation you're literally not showing what's actually there since our eyes would never see the nebula that way no matter how long we looked. Once you process data to look different than your own eyeball view its already a digital illustration not a true photograph.

lilykelly22d ago

Whoa, that's a deep cut. I had a similar argument at a local diner once with a guy who insisted that any photo taken with a phone camera is "not real" because phones automatically process the image. Like, okay buddy, your argument falls apart when you realize every single digital camera does math to the image before you even see it. But I gotta say, @kim693, your point about the histogram is interesting because I think the real issue is that we're all just arguing about what "photograph" means anymore. I remember my old film photography professor used to say that even burning and dodging in a darkroom was "creating a new reality," and he was a total purist about it. So maybe the line is just personal preference at the end of the day.