"Editing" versus "correcting/retouching"

[Jon]

The twain are not the same.

So why do so many people that REALLY ought to know better say "I'll edit one of your images" when that is conceptually impossible?

Discuss.

[Mr. Pickles]

Discuss what? It is the English language. Lots of odd stuff in it. technically, to change it involves an edit. They may correct it, but it is a subjective art, so it is never correct. Retouching only works if one already touched it, right?

When someone asks you "Can I borrow a piece of paper?", do you really expect it back? How about a tissue?

I edit my images. Some of them look better. Some worse.

[D.Rodgers]

Editing :
The process of preparing language, images, or sound for presentation through correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications. A person who edits, especially professionally or as a hobby, is called an editor.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editing

Retouching:
The correction or deliberate manipulation of color, tone or detail in an original work of art, photograph or other original which needs correction.
www.gtscompanies.com/printp_z.html

They seem like good use of the English language to me.
Is there a betting way of getting the point across?

[brian.austin]

What Dave said...

[Jon]

I guess I'm just thinking more traditionally.

To me, editing is culling the bad shots out of the roll, card, batch, what have you, leaving the good stuff.

Retouching/correcting is a separate process of optimizing each individual image for its intended use.

I guess I'll just have to get used to it.

I will concede, however, that one can edit an image by my own definition above, by getting rid of the bad elements of that individual image.

:shrug:

[jfrancho]

It sounds like you aspire to write your own dictionary

I'm poking, but actually, I hate the term "correcting." Too many "correct" what they think is wrong, but is actually subjective. And yet many others make conclusions about what is subjective, but are flat wrong. Next time you are in the "executive lounge" I recommend taking a dictionary with you and looking up the word semantics.

[keepright]

Originally Posted by Mr. Pickles

Discuss what? It is the English language. Lots of odd stuff in it.

"We are tied down to a language that makes up in obscurity what it lacks in style."
- Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

Editing is a process of removal, correcting implies I (or the subject) made a mistake, and "retouching" suggests that the subject is ugly.

I usually say "develop" or "process," just like film.

Discuss.

[jfrancho]

I actually call the folder with the working files (usually tiffs or psds) "dev" as in development, as in a state of creation through effort.

[peterst6906]

Originally Posted by jfrancho

I'm poking, but actually, I hate the term "correcting."

Me too, and I prefer the term "adjustment" especially in relation to "tonal adjustment" rather than "color correction", but also in relation to other adjustments in the image as well.

Regards,

Peter

[jfrancho]

Peter, do you also hate red pens? I always hated it when some teacher pompously marked up my work with their dreaded red pen. I still hate them to this day

[peterst6906]

Originally Posted by jfrancho

Peter, do you also hate red pens? I always hated it when some teacher pompously marked up my work with their dreaded red pen. I still hate them to this day

Not the same level of loathing, as long as the red marks are only on other peoples work........ a red mark on your work is never a good sign and when I was marking undergrad papers and reports during my PhD, I used to avoid using red pen to make corrections.

[MrB]

Originally Posted by Jon

I guess I'm just thinking more traditionally.

To me, editing is culling the bad shots out of the roll, card, batch, what have you, leaving the good stuff.

Retouching/correcting is a separate process of optimizing each individual image for its intended use.

I guess I'll just have to get used to it.

I will concede, however, that one can edit an image by my own definition above, by getting rid of the bad elements of that individual image.

:shrug:

There are newspaper editors who cull out the "good stuff". It really is subjective, isn't it? What one person might throw away, another might keep.