The "ethics" of touching up images in photoshop

Lucas Annunziata

I hadn't seen a topic about this, and it is something that I've been thinking about for a while. We work in a realtime medium and yet more often than not when we present our work it is in still images. I'm guessing that all the promotional screenshots for games go through a gauntlet of touchups, or at the very least some levels adjustments.

Personally, I think that doing post editing in photoshop is alright as long as it is minor, like level adjustments, or if the outline isn't working properly in Marmoset you can just add it in. However, it is still an easy way out and disregarding the problem rather than taking the time to fix it where it counts.

So I guess my question to all of you is this:
Do you think it is acceptable to do minor adjustments to presentation shots of realtime rendered assets as long as it could have been done in the engine anyway? Where is the line drawn? Do you do any touch ups yourself?

gsokol

I'll adjust levels and play around with images of high poly models, or something..but I stay away from doing that to final, real-time assets/environments.

R3D

VIGNETTES VIGNETTES EVERYWHERE

other than that, no.

Ark

Personally i find putting Anamorphic lens flares everywhere really helps.

Razgriz

The above two, and then Chromatic Aberration on everything, by like 50 pixels. I don't want anyone seeing my stuff unless they're wearing 3d glasses.

Honestly though, I restrict myself to PS tools that generally have an equal in the post-processing of whatever engine I'm using. I don't see any problem with some general color/level/sharpness adjustments, when quite often the final in-game output would look similar. Now, as far as things like clone-stamping out seams, or basically turning your image into a matte painting - yeah, definitely unethical.

fearian

I've rarely, i.e. next to never, seen people heavily Photoshop their Realtime artwork when it comes to portfolio stuff. So I kind of consider it a non-issue; most people know the rules.

However in the broader world of CG art, photoshop is just one tool of many on the way to making a complete image. When making art for arts sake I don't believe in the sanctity of 'pure 3d', but then again, I've never seen anyone who does.

Tenchi

I little bit of tweaking like colour adjustment can sometimes add that extra needed punch to complete the image. But I agree, painting out artifacts/seams/errors for real time stuff is not right as the person viewing is expecting to see you execute real time work.

PixelMasher

yea, subtle level adjustments and color grading can really help an image, that sometimes in production their either wasnt time to do or someone thought it looked better as the final image. if you think your work looks better for it and you are not really hiding any flaws/sloppyness or whatever I would say go for it and make it shine.

cman2k

Just an FYI: tweaking levels in Photoshop to normalize Gamma is often necessary to get screenshots to look the same as the in-game experience. It is literally a technical necessity to get it to look the same, otherwise it looks different.

https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/How_To_Take_Artistic_Screenshots#Gamma

McGreed

Yeah, sometimes its just common sense to adjust something in Photoshop, instead of re-render an image and waste precious time on that. However as others said, with realtime stuff it wouldn't be smart to fake stuff, as its suppose to be realtime and when you actually have to make stuff like that, you cant just fake it, it actually have to work.

For fully rendered images, using photoshop is just a tool to get an awesome image, or else we had to use paint to make textures and only pixel by pixel, or you are cheating.

JacqueChoi

I know guys that rotoscope photographs onto their sculpts.

You'll see this happen a LOT, particularly on Zbrushcentral.


I can usually pick it out, but a lot of those guys DO have lead jobs at prominent studios. It's usually why I prefer seeing hand-painted folios, and texture flats.

fmnoor

I don't see an issue with using photoshop to tweak images for the final pop, a lot of console games have scene materials or post process passes to achieve similiar results.

Now I have seen some awesome looking zbrush sculpts and turntables from junior / entry level candidates in the past, and when they were asked to do a quick test to show they could do textures / real time character textures, the level of quality drastically dropped. I was kinda surprised to see that.

Noodle!

I don't see any problems with adjusting levels or color grading in photoshop, especially since you do the exact same thing in many game engines with post effects I find it a complete non issue.
If it's an effect that can be achieved in an engine in any way, fuck it, go for it.

I do agree that people need to know not to ruin their stuff with stuff like excessive vignetting and chromatic aberration (though from case to case it might look great with a touch of that good ol' chromatic abs).

Ark

Problem with effects like CA, Vignetting and Lens Flares are that they are used a lot of the time when it makes no sense/motivation to use them, thus not only making your work look worse, but also showing you don't have an understanding of what causes these effects.

R3D

Ark wrote: »

Problem with effects like CA, Vignetting and Lens Flares are that they are used a lot of the time when it makes no sense/motivation to use them, thus not only making your work look worse, but also showing you don't have an understanding of what causes these effects.

Everyone knows that Vignette, CA and Lens Flares automatically makes it art.

Stinger88

I did an art test once for a very well known concept art studio. The bulk of their work at the time was doing outsourced "bullshots" (touching up screenshots). Part of the art test was to do a bullshot. It was quite fun to do tbh. I was given an example of a "before and after" of another shot they had done. They had done heaps to the picture. Improved textures, added reflections, improved lighting, added len flares, painted out pixelated edges, added smoke effects, etc, etc. Its common practice in the games industry. There is an art to it but I don't agree with it. Realtime and game images that have been enhanced should state what has been enhanced.

MainManiac

If I ever use photoshop to fix a painting I make note of where I went wrong and try and remember it next time.

megalmn2000

I would retouch the background but not the low poly asset, some people might think it's a kind of "cheating". For the high poly, I don't think there's a problem with that.

MainManiac

Wait, most engines have the same general post effect capabilities as photoshop... now im confused.

Snader

Can you do it in post-effects in an engine, say UDK? Then it's okay because it shows a realistic outcome. (but if you have the chops, you should just do it in-engine)

Or in other words, don't use brushes or shit, but only filters that affect the entire image at once.

Frump

While we're on the topic of overused post fx... I see way too many people colour correcting out shadows and dark areas to have red or blue hues lately. Most are doing it really heavy handedly. I think we're one step away from adding it to the list of cliches with lens flare and chromatic abberation.

maze

I dont see any ethics issue as long as your stuff looks good. In the end you can either screw an image or not in post. Is your eye what counts.

Will Faucher

Frump wrote: »

While we're on the topic of overused post fx... I see way too many people colour correcting out shadows and dark areas to have red or blue hues lately. Most are doing it really heavy handedly. I think we're one step away from adding it to the list of cliches with lens flare and chromatic abberation.

I wouldn't go so far as to calling it clich

Frump

Prophecies wrote: »

I wouldn't go so far as to calling it clich

easterislandnick

Just don't do it as badly as this! This shot was actually sent out for publication! (look to the left of the left of the image)

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2007/08/eanbabullshot.jpg

HAWK12HT

As Dieter Rams says "Good design is honest design" , well that applies to live products in our use but i tend to apply it even before i knew about this quote. I come from high end 3D production background so Photoshop is essential as long as u are playing with Hue, Sat, levels etc for Arch Viz stuff or u can play in Vray with built in frame buffer. Cause in that industry end result has to b either real high res picture for client to show contractors or a commercial.

In games dev i dont see the point of using PS apart from making textures. Cause at the end of the day u can cover up artifacts on ur model in PS, but what will u do when the model go into game engine...

jeremiah_bigley

I kinda play by the rules that if it can be done in a engine now adays... then why not?

There are plenty of print studios that game studios send their characters and assets to for promotional posters that are rendered in Vray and subdivided to coverup that lowpoly look. And they are expecting the audience to take that as realtime. *shrug*

Ace-Angel

I reference my families face ONLY, and only textures taken with my camera.

Lastly, I end to 'crush' my levels in PS for composites, something which I'm a fan of. 10% crushing is good, 30% and Orange-Blue tints a la Micheal Bay is horrible.

seforin

only if your adding lens flare its allowed

Ghostscape

seforin wrote: »

only if your adding lens flare its allowed

There were a ton of really nasty stock photoshop lensflares on the HAWX screenshots

For demoing my work, I don't want to touch anything up. I think it's dishonest.

For selling your game, putting effort into promotional shots is fine.