Is photoshopping pictures bad (in write ups?)?

C

Chuckmotor

New member
For all of those (including me!) who think they should save money on MFs by purchasing NicSand, allow me to warn you... first of all, I noticed several prominent scratches in my windshield the first time I used them. It looks awful with the sun beaming down on the scratches. (It also linted MUCH worse than a bath towel, but that's another story...) So I thought, ok, it wasn't the towel's fault; I probably picked up some debris or something. So after washing that towel a few times, picking out little pieces of things, and cleaning it thoroughly, I did a CD test. I rubbed the towel on the CD for about 10 seconds, back and forth. Much to my chagrin, little scratches were plainly visible in the right light. Maybe the scratches were already there? Maybe I chose a part of the towel that wasn't completely clean? So I found the cleanest part of the MF NicSand towel, examined the CD and took note of the scratches already there. This time, I did circular motions with the cleanest part of the MF, going around the hole in the middle of the CD. I also lightened up on the pressure. Ten seconds later, what do you know? More scratches, this time in circular pattern around the hole of the CD... Old towel, I thought... I did use it once, after all!! So I got the same NicSand, brand new. Long story short, I did the same test and got the same results. And the scratches were not minute. They were pretty obvious.

Do yourself a favor; do your car a favor; do your windows a favor. Get a REAL MICROFIBER TOWEL! Pay $10, pay $15, pay whatever, but personally, I will never spend $5 on another NicSand again!!





And for no reason at all, I just wanted to see the frong jump-------->:bounce
 
I cannot see how a MF NICSAND or not scratched the windshield. Was this the outside or the inside?



It must have been some particle the towel picked up.



Strange.



Use the Nicsands for your tires or inside your wheel wells.
 
Guess My Name, the outside of the window was scratched the most. That scratch most likely was from a particle. But the lint and minute scratches is not worth the $5 for a NicSand. But I probably will use it for tires or something. Can't waste $5!



Hey iforcev8, the NicSand may not be enough for the Vanilla Ice CD. Try some sandpaper on that CD.
 
I posted the first product review for Nicsand microfiber towels quite a while back on the old forum. I was not pleased one bit with those towels. I can go on and on why I would not recommend them. I'm not sure who first coined this well over a year or two ago, but he said, "I don't feel comfortable using a towel that has the words "Nic" and "Sand" in its own title. Funny but true. Laters
 
used some the other day on some furniture. same logo/title. i wonder if their microfiber and sandpaper manufacturing equipment is in the facility.
 
At my pep boys there is a whole Nic Sand section of body work materials like sand paper, PC pads & bonnets, and other stuff.
 
No more Nicsands for me, mine linted like crazy, and have regulated to house work and rim duty. They are truely inferior to Yosteves. I bought a few of those and they are worth every penny.
 
The TL is one sweet ride. Arcticwhite, since I don't remember who first coined that humorous pharase, I'll go with you on this one. Thanks.
 
For as long as I had access to a photo editor (first Corel's Paint Shop Pro and lately Photoshop CS3 and CS4) I have used them to 'process' my photo's.

This is because a lens of a digital camera only see's data, the camera itself does the processing (think of the old days with film and a dark room). The old adage "great photo's are made and destroyed in the dark room" can still hold true today. When you post pictures straight from your camera you are relying on the camera's programming to do the best to determine what the picture should look like.

However if you shoot your pictures in RAW (data only images) it gives you the power to develop the photo's yourself, which allows you to fine tune things such as white balance, exposure settings, and color sat.

If we take three different DSLR's for example, one from Cannon, one from Nikon, and one from Panasonic, and take photographs of the same car at the same time in the same light, we will end up with three very different looking sets of photographs (at least in detail) depending on the quality of the sensors and the programming installed into the device to read the data.

Obviously altering photographs to misrepresent your work is fraudulent, and I am not suggesting that, but taking control of the processing is just another form of artistic interpretation. I understand this is a touchy subject, and the risk for image manipulation is always there, but I cannot see what is wrong with people (including myself) who will manually process photo's in order to get the most accurate look.

I always welcome a healthy and respectful discussion so I would love to hear other points of view on the subject.
 
I think you hit it when you said to misrepresent your work Todd :D

Top end detailers such as yourself and others need to better articulate what your eyes see, not what the camera sees. Sometimes you need to change teh balance or exposure to show the defects easier in posts and that does not constitute fraud in any way - those hard to capture "if you were here you would have seen it).

Just my 2 cents.
 
I also agree that there is nothing wrong with using PhotoShop to enhance the picture, lighting, color, etc. As long as you don't misuse it. Do not try to disguise the work in any way. That is misleading and will come back to bite you in the but.

Truth in advertising!!!
 
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