Why are "real" pictures better?

[Sigurd]

A quick glance at deviantart.com revealed that the people, who put up images there often spend >50 hours on editing/making an image in Photoshop.

[Analyst]

[ QUOTE ]


But that's repetition. Imitation. Technical process. Original ideas are still just as hard, in my opinion. At its heart, I don't think digital artwork is different in concept from film. Yes, it's different in execution. But the process from "idea" to "finish" is always tough, regardless of medium. And when the respect of one medium does catch up, I think any price differential you see may flatten. Perhaps it will become like comparing oil paintings to sculpture.

[/ QUOTE ]

We have a winner. From the viewer's perspective, the issue should not be the medium, but the content. It is just as hard to take a *great* picture digitally as it is with film. The real advantages digital has is that you can take a lot more shots and that you can get an idea of the results in real time, when you have a chance to make adjustments.

As an aside, virtually 100% of digital photos are processed to some extent, whether in-camera (if you shoot JPEGs, they *are* processed, guaranteed) or after the fact, even if it's only adjusting the white balance, a little sharpening or the like. I assume, however, that the question refers to more involved post-processing.

[Analyst]

[ QUOTE ]
It's the same reason recordings on vinyl sound better.

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IYO - this is far from universal.

[Paluka]

One of my favorite artists is Maggie Taylor and she does nothing but use photoshop to alter photographs in interesting ways. She is married to Jerry Ulesman (I may have spelled that wrong) who is very famous for altering photographs in traditional non-digital ways. I think they are both awesome, but clearly the fact that Ulesman does amazing stuff without photoshop somehow impresses me more, possibly because I know zero about photography.