Vendors and Photoshopping.

DD

"Rambo"
Hey everyone,

Thought I'd throw an example of how easy it is to photoshop something.

I was taking a pic of one of my acros just a little while ago, and ended up with a photo that looks nothing like the coral does in real life, and I didn't even try that hard to fake it.

I'm using a canon xsi with a tamron 180mm lens, and a benbo macro tripod with ballhead.

First the true to life color image:



Now the "photoshopped" image:



Keep in mind, I didn't even go crazy with the color adjustments. Give me a black background, the right angle and color light, photoshop, and an hour, and I can make that look really crazy.

Just wanted to throw this out there for all of us who buy corals online, to only find they don't look anywhere near the same.

Personally I think it's bad business to "shop" your corals to make them sell. I won't buy from certain vendors because of this.

I ended up with the second pic on my first attempt at white balancing in post production. I looked at the coral after I saved the pic, and was like dang, that's not even close. The first shot is pretty much identical.

One additional thing to keep in mind is that even if a vendor, or hobbyist has a pic that looks crazy, it may not have any photoshopping done to it. Macro lenses magnify the subject ridiculously and you'll often times see things that you never saw with just your eye.
 

tinman

Well-known member
woah awesome .. how the **** did you get that much pe

my millis get close to it and i pat myself on the back saying good //

Thanks Tin,

It's not a milli lol! It's some sort of smooth skin acro. No clue on the exact name.
 

DD

"Rambo"
woah awesome .. how the **** did you get that much pe

my millis get close to it and i pat myself on the back saying good //
It's 4 or 5" away from the mp10. LOTS of flow! It's also directly in the center of my IT2040 so it's getting pretty good light.
 

richiet

Member
I agree photoshopping to sell corals is a shame and should be frowned upon. However keep in mind that if you see something nice and the photographer uses a macro lens it's not always photoshop.

For example. This pic is from my tank under kessil lighting. This coral looks exactly like this when under actinics. I used no photoshop and no post processing.

Sometimes vendors corals do look as good as they advertise. Just saying.

 

DD

"Rambo"
I agree photoshopping to sell corals is a shame and should be frowned upon. However keep in mind that if you see something nice and the photographer uses a macro lens it's not always photoshop.

For example. This pic is from my tank under kessil lighting. This coral looks exactly like this when under actinics. I used no photoshop and no post processing.

Sometimes vendors corals do look as good as they advertise. Just saying.

I completely agree. Especially regarding the use of macro lenses.

I can tell which vendors get crazy with photoshop tricks. There are a few giveaways when they're not really good at it. When they are good at it, it becomes so much more difficult to tell, and that's where having google helps tremendously.

I wanted to show newbies and others who don't have as much experience purchasing corals to research what they're buying first, before getting ripped off by someone. I can name vendors, but I'd rather not lol.

Now take your jawbreaker for instance, everyone knows how colorful those are, not really any point in photoshopping them because they're already colorful enough. But take a shroom that has something unique about it, but the color is meh. That's a situation where one of the shady vendors would start toying with targeted adjustments, as well as masking.

I mean, my second image, if I were new to online purchasing and saw that, I would totally buy a frag for $80, $100, more. But then I get it and it doesn't have hot pink polyps, just regular pink. That's when I'd get pissed.
 

Volcano1

Member
I've bought some recently from a big name sponser. Several came in not even close. Wish I had the info to know who photoshops.
 

fishpoop

New member
I agree photoshopping to sell corals is a shame and should be frowned upon. However keep in mind that if you see something nice and the photographer uses a macro lens it's not always photoshop.

For example. This pic is from my tank under kessil lighting. This coral looks exactly like this when under actinics. I used no photoshop and no post processing.

Sometimes vendors corals do look as good as they advertise. Just saying.

your pic may not be Photoshopped but offering photos of super saturated and heavy actinic images is also a decieving trait of many online vendors in an effort to increase the "wow" factor and therefore, the price tag.

just sayin'
 

richiet

Member
your pic may not be Photoshopped but offering photos of super saturated and heavy actinic images is also a decieving trait of many online vendors in an effort to increase the "wow" factor and therefore, the price tag.

just sayin'
Lol. I wasn't disagreeing with this first post. Just saying that not all pictures that look saturated and photoshopped actually are.

My pic isn't saturated. Full actinics are on but that's it. If you haven't seen a jawbreaker in pure blue then you are missing out.
 

Reefwise

Premium Sponsor
John, your acro looks like a horrida but it's hard to identify via a photo.

The rule of thumb I usually use when identifying if a picture is photoshopped or not is by looking if the live rock or plug are true to color. If the frag plug or rock is blue something typically is up.
 

DD

"Rambo"
John, your acro looks like a horrida but it's hard to identify via a photo.

The rule of thumb I usually use when identifying if a picture is photoshopped or not is by looking if the live rock or plug are true to color. If the frag plug or rock is blue something typically is up.
Backgrounds and rocks can be masked from adjustments very easily. That's why I differentiated between ones that aren't good with Photoshop from those that are.

Someone skilled would know how to target specific colors and also keep areas in the background masked to avoid skewing the colors.

This is what makes it difficult when shopping online. I have a good eye for what is true to what is skewed, but that experience ends when they've advanced passed the point of increasing saturation globally within the image.
 
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