Over the past few years, digital photography has literally exploded in popularity. It’s by far supassed where film photography was in the previous decade which has ben languishing for years. However, a quick trip through Flickr, Facebook, and the blogsphere reveals many stylistic difference between online photos and print photos from film.
What I’ve noticed is that many pictures are adjusted so that contrast and saturation is set very high, almost to “unrealistic” levels. I’ve wondered why this is so prevelant as in film photography, the developers at your local photo lab always strived to give you the most “natural” colors. However, with so many do-it-yourself photography via digital imaging, images online skew towards very saturated and high contrast photos.
Equipment may play a large part in this. Most people are editting photos on laptop computers which are almost always equipped with 6-bit or low-contrast LCD screens. To make the pictures “look right” on those screens, they have skewed many of the adjustments so that they look less natural on a full, bright CRT or 8-bit desktop LCD monitor. Professionals adjust their monitors and calibrate their photo software so that what they see onscreen is replicated correctly in print media, but the DIY person probably doesn’t do that.
This is so prevelant now that I think that the online photo “style” is now widely seen online and almost expected. Even the photos I showcase on the nav bar of my blog are skewed to match the style of photography mostly found these days, even though I have a calibrated, 8-bit LCD.
After 100 years of getting “natural” colors through advanced development in the labs of Kodak and Fuji, the digital world has turned this upside down and sided more with unnatural tones and contrasty highlights in online media. Photography is art, there is no “right” way to do it. It’s good to see so many people enjoying the hobby of photography.
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