Check the photos that have succes, check the DDs and you will see a huge ammount of really edited shot. You see pictures with a huge ammount of global editing (lot of contrast added, colours changed...not speaking of split toning) and even (and this is more controvertial) a lot of local editing (huge dodge and burn brush work, peaces of different shots put together).
You can also see many HDR shots and lately one of the artists was asked if his DD was edited. The answer was "no, only HDR". Just check the editing option an HDR plug-in and you will see that the editing options is realy HUGE!

The problem is that many of these succesfull pictures must be really less appealing originaly and appart from the composition (if it wasn't cropped ... personnaly I don't accept at all cropping...) there was no art when the shot was made. Submitting so much edited pictures is pushing everybody to edit there shot if they wanna have success. And having succes becomes lot of technical skill sometimes.

Of course, you can answer to me that the editing is part of the art that can be achieved (and after all, editing exists also in the silver world) but in the case, why not submit these picture in the darkroom category. Some people are afraid to do so, because people may think that the post-work did it all.

When you look at (proffetional) contoporary art world, photo-manipulation are often treated just like normal photography, the editing being part of the artist's work. So if deviantART thinks so, why not just delete the darkroom category?

To people : please pay less attention to the eye flattening side (pictures as punchy as ads...) of what you see and maybe pay more attention to the composition and the concept of the shot. I'me seeing right now picture on the first page who appart the editing has bad composition and absolutely no concept... they still have succes. Don't get me wrong, many of what you usually see selected is great and often just incredible (in my opinion).



What do you people think? should we pay less attention to the fact that a shot is edited or not and so consider the whole artistic side (photographing and editing and so delete the digital darkroom category) as a whole or should we make an ethic barrier and divide photography from photo-manipulation?


PS: I'me expressing just my opinion and don't wan't other people to think like me but just know what you think to understand and why not enlighten me. I'me not judging others also, just opening debate.

PSII: excuse my english.