ETHICAL DAYLILY IMAGE EDITING #1: If you ever took a college level ethics course, or overheard a conversation of daylily folk discussing image editing, then you know opinions are all over the place when it comes to "ethics in editing." I hope through a series of discussions relating to various forms of editing daylily images that a consensus may appear relating to the various types of editing that can be achieved using software programs such as Adobe Photoshop.

To start this first topic of discussion, I ask that you view this image at full size if possible. The image displays a side-by-side comparison of removing certain artifacts from the background of a daylily picture. Objects that were edited/removed from the picture were brown foliage, a dead scape, two daylily markers, and some foliage "imperfections." I also adjusted the shadowing of the picture to to show greater depth of field in the foliage to make the background more visible.

I personally feel that the type of editing displayed in this example is acceptable for the purpose of marketing a daylily for websites, internet auctions, catalogs, and the AHS Daylily Journal, etc. Remember, this a discussion for the sharing of opinions and ideas. You don't have to agree with me, or others, on any or all aspects that are being discussed. However, let's bring out the best in ourselves to provide an educational, inspiring, and comfortable atmosphere as we delve in to the world of Ethical Daylily Image Editing.

I love what you did Bobby! You simply enhanced it without damaging the integrity of the picture. I've been using
'Windows Live Photo Gallery' to touch up my Hostas and such. It came with my computer and it is simple to use.

Dot, let's keep the discussion solely on the topic featured at the moment which is the removal of artifacts from the background of the daylily bloom. We will touch on other areas of editing/enhancement in the coming weeks. I want to keep the discussion focused on each specific type of edit as we proceed. I feel that the "enhancement" demonstrated in this photo is appropriate for hybridizers to do.

Thank you Susan.

Removing anything from the background is good with me. You have messed with the color tho in your picture and Im not big on those bright green leaves, they always signal someone has been messing with the picture and it makes me leery.

Thanks, Bobby for reworking this topic. It is an important one. I saw your post to the Robin, and wondered if you would come back here to update us.

Pam - it's way to easy to separate the background (foliage) from the subject (daylily) to rely on looking at the foliage to see if a photo has been altered. I sometimes color correct the foliage only - and the flower will then look more like it does in real life. I have a Nikon point and shoot that makes glaring bright green foliage, where my Canon Digital SLR makes all the foliage to orange-yellow.

I agree, Bobby - the corrections you are showing should be perfectly acceptable. I've had times when I edited rust off foliage of a neighboring plant because they were so closely planted that it would appear to be on the plant whose flower I was taking the picture of. (hope that made sense! LOL) Or a neighboring plant will suffer leaf streak and make the photo look awful.

I dont think anything is wrong with the pictures either, just saying that if I saw the picture with bright green leaves, knowing leaves are not bright green like that, I would automatically think that the green in the eye was greener in the picture than it was in person as well. Thats not to say that is how it really is, but what I would think seeing it.

As far as rust, etc., I have gone full seasons without taking pictures because of rust. Its heartbreaking, but my fault for not keeping up with it. I cant say ive ever thought about editing it out, good idea, but if someone is selling me a daylily, I might just want to know its growing amongst rust. Ill have to think on that one.

I think the edits are perfectly acceptable, since it didn't change the bloom in any way. I do get distracted by the things that you removed, such as plant marker in the photo, and I feel it's okay to edit them out.

Right now I just take photos for my own use to know what I have and what it looks like and then I do post them here in the data base and definitely wouldn't be editing them because there are wayyyyy to many to do. But since I may have a website one day then this will be good to know how to do so I can edit out those hybridizing tags or plant markers and such.

those edits would be agreeable to me as well.

Pam, we did get some color shift from the shadow adjustment across the entire image. However, that really is an easy tonal fix to correct or adjust if necessary. That will be a future topic in this image editing series.

Without the original image to compare the foliage color too, you might not be aware that there was a shift. I know when I look at my garden I see foliage of all different shades of green.

Of course, removing the garden markers before taking a picture would save on some editing. You could also cut all the brown foliage with scissors before taking the picture, too. But, etiquette dictates you can't do that in other people's gardens.

Pam, also the foliage may actually appear too dark in the original image because that part of photo is underexposed. The picture was taken with an old point and shoot camera that I purchased for $20 off Craig's List in the spring.

Bobby, I agree with you about the color of the foliage. I've got lots of foliage that isn't the same color, even on the same plant. I really would never know if someone edited the green a bit. It's the flower color that worries me more than anything. I'm not sure that I can imagine anyone saying that they really like a daylily, but the foliage isn't the right color of green for them.

I'm looking forward to your continued series on this!

I am listening too, this topic is also on the FB Daylily page.

Teresa

Natalie said:I think the edits are perfectly acceptable, since it didn't change the bloom in any way. I do get distracted by the things that you removed, such as plant marker in the photo, and I feel it's okay to edit them out.

So many of my photos were full of distracting elements this past
season. I take the photos for seedling identification to view during the winter
as a method for culling. I had too many photos to take the time to edit
distracting features, but this is such a great idea for a winter project.

From the comments on this forum, Facebook, and my own website; nearly everyone seems pretty content with the edits featured in this first example. Next week I will explore a couple of types of petal cleaning. Don't jump ahead of me though because there are so many different situations to encounter with petal cleansing, and we are going to start with the most benign forms next week.

I am also going to maintain a "journal" of the various edits on my website. The first week's topic can be seen at http://daylily.net/nc_ethics/e... Once we get further into things, then I will add a sub-menu on the site main menu. However, I do have a simple link to the 1st ethics page near the bottom of my homepage.

Bobby

Ok, Thank You! Where are you on Facebook? WooHoo, petal cleaning.

Petal Cleaning, well I look forward to that. You are talking about flowers that people are selling, not just home pictures??

virginiarose said:Ok, Thank You! Where are you on Facebook? WooHoo, petal cleaning.

On facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/Daylil...