Article on Artists' Desensitization to Color, Photographers' Addiction to…

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• I admire Tom Till's candor. For "seasoned pros" the problem is that it is like an arms race. There is no question that saturated photos are more eye-catching  and therefore sell better in some markets, esp. on the web. There is a pressure to increase saturation, which can be difficult to resist. When is too much for the general population ?  As the success of HDR photographers shows, the limits are quite high.

• +Jeff Sullivan , thanks for sharing. I noticed myself doing exactly this but caught myself early on. I have learned 'less is more' and I don't really want my shots to have a gaudy and over-processed look, unless I aim for that.

  One thing I have noticed that I don't hear a lot about in Photography circles' is difficulty judging colour for correction. I found this first back in the '80s processing colour negs and prints, I would do test strips for filter correction and if I looked at a sample long enough, my eyes began to accept the colour as normal. I think the brain sees what it expects to see, now what is actually there.

  I have the same problem with digital, if I look at an image long enough, colours, look normal, but an hour later they look ridiculously over saturated.

  Nowadays, if colour is important, I include a 18% grey card in the first shot and set the white balance in LR to that and apply it to all pictures shot in that light.

• I wonder if we have reached the point of no return on this. Black-and-white movies used to be mainstream. These days it takes a great artist to make a black-and-white movie that the public would watch. Perhaps we have already reached that point with realistic photography too? Perhaps realistic photography is already an elite art form? And the rest of us have no choice but to overprocess images if we want to get any attention?

• Great article.  Very humble words by Tom Till.  But he really did go over the top saturation-wise on some of his images though they're all composed extremely well.

• Interesting thinking point +Dmitri Plotnikov

• I still get annoyed that digital art is now called "photography"

• Good point +QT Luong, and in his summary points Tom seems to acknowledge that there's some market demand for the more dramatic images, even while he's advising caution:
  "If you like oversaturated colors, it's a free country. Frankly, some of my stock clients and a large portion of the general public like them. Other photographers who may criticize you are never going to pay your bills."
  I've seen both sides too.  Even while I dialed my HDR way back from about 50% of my results a few years ago to being involved in maybe 2-3% of them today, I still see a few sales of old HDR images which I wouldn't think of producing today.

• I find +walter gawronski that if I revisit a photo at least 24 hours after I first edit it, and preferably under different lighting conditions, I'm very pleased that I didn't show that early result to anyone.  The "Replace Photo" function is one of my favorites on sites which offer it.

• It's a great article - very honest and open. The final conclusions are really interesting - because it seems to boil down to taste and perception, and also a difference between what you could term 'the general public' and 'the knowlwdgable set' - note that I use these terms in gross generalisation and with no intention of placing one group 'above' the other. Similar comparaisons can be made of other art forms - jazz fusion music for example, where a 'pro's' opinion  can differ greatly from what most people like - and it can be really personal too... witness some of the 'fluorescent' - for want of a better description - paintings that sell in a lot of art galeries... One of my friends who works on electro-jazz type music was litterally 'raging' on facebook about the number of views 'Gangnam Style' was getting on youtube and how this was definite proof of the decline of civilisation and human intellect in general... could be... and a large part of me would agree... but it is a horribly catchy tune and - I hate to admit it - a pretty funny video... But I digress a little here - so getting back to the point, personally I see the HDR 'over processed' thing as just another tool, another 'way to go' with an image - I got back into digital photos partly through seeing the stuff guys like Trey Ratclif were doing with this - and I wanted to give it a go... now, frankly looking at some of what I do in HDR... I'm not really liking it so much - which is probably just my lack of talent - but I've also found that it's just too 'flashy' and 'gooey-sweet' (sorry about these odd metaphores - I'm not sure how else to describe it) ...and so more and more I find myself reaching for the black and white conversion or processing tools instead. But that's a choice also - just my own personal decision. And I've noticed in posts that it's sometimes the horribly flashy stuff that gets more +'es and positive comments.  I guess my point is - yes by all means listen to people you admire, yes gain inspiration and direction from them, and yes take criticism on board especially from freinds you respect (I find this 'very' hard to do...) but also remember that you should also stand up for what you are trying to do and - I think this is also what Tom Till might be saying - be honest enough with 'yourself' to constantly re-evaluate and question whether you are really getting where you wanted to go - or whether you are getting sucked into a particular 'fad' or 'style' through over exposure.

• +Jeff Sullivan , I have a knack for spotting all the flaws in my images about 3 seconds after I upload them :)