I love this question. I'll answer it rhetorically.
Did Edward Weston "cheat" when he lovingly positioned lights around his
green peppers?
Did Eugene Smith "cheat" when he burned down distracting background detail
or used "hard" paper?
Did Annie Leibovitz "cheat" when she went out of her way to make her
subjects comfortable during a shoot so they'd look at ease?
Did Henri Cartier Bresson "cheat" when he waited patiently instead of firing
randomly?
Did Anael Adams "cheat" when he used a red filter for the Half Dome pictures
or bleached the tops of the gravestones for "Moonrise Over Hernandez,
California"?
No.
So, why do we scold ourselves over using the unsharp mask? No, the guilt
comes in when everyone looks at your work and goes, "Hey, you kinda _leaned_
on the sharpening tool there, didn't ya?"
I sharpen to make my scans look more like a tranparency held up to a light
box.
Atone not, therefore. Thou art guiltless. Go forth and do great work using
every tool that helps convey your thoughts.
Joni Mitchell said it best, for me anyway. To inspire another piano player
she implored him to use all the tools at his command- all of the parts of a
piano in particular:
"Condemned to wires and hammers
Strike every chord that you feel
That broken trees
And elephant ivories conceal"
(c) Joni Mitchell
"Judgement Of The Moon And Stars (Ludwig's Tune)"
www.jonimitchell.com/lyrics
Jim L'Hommedieu
Dan asked for opinions:
A lot of people here say they use 'unsharp mask' almost by default, so I
guess that's okay -- what about playing with the levels to improve contrast
if I messed the exposure up? (trickier: what about playing with the levels
to improve contrast if _the sun was behind a cloud_?)
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