: >One of my colleagues has just enrolled 8 police officers in his new : >Photoshop course - my first hought was.. why? : : This is a fairly ridiculous way to discuss things. ? : Forensic photography is a tiny and very specialized field. And, in the US at least, digital cameras have become accepted and standard issue. so it's not specialised any more any cop can take pictures - then photoshop the results? I'm more than fine with police officers getting specialised training in making images, I'm even OK with detectives being up on Photoshop so they can spot manipulation, but I'm a bit iffy about the police department being so openly tolerant of police legitimately able to modify images. Sure there will be guidelines, but as with most situations that involve bureaucracy multiple breaches will occur before rectification occurs. As part : of that, many police departments no longer employ photographers but give a digital camera to officers who go to crime scenes. OK, got it. Just like in Tokyo where the police use their telephones to photograph scenes then email the shots back to headquaters.. except at least in this instance theres no photoshopping of the poor quality images by the officer who took them. : How many forensic photographers are on this list? How many photographers : (millions) are forensic photographers (I would guess the number to be : extremely low.) me too, so they and I can be discounted as irrelevant for their statistical insignificance. : Most people here are interested in photography as communication, whether : that's personal or commercial, not in using it as evidence at a crime : scene. That's why the example is absurd. scientific photographers - you have been told. Geologists, ophthalmologists, medicos, insurance assessors, dentists, dermatologists, aerial photographers etc.. you are the minority and your experience, knowledge, concerns and your * contributions * don't matter. Forgive me or not, the rising anger I feel at being found irrelevant. My contributions to this list in tech matters in the past seem to be valued when folks needed advise on process, but now the digi cams allow people to shoot erroneously, making small adjustments until they find themselves getting the shot 'right' OR grab what you can and PS it later - the scientific and technical elements are deemed not worthy. I guess I'm torn between caring and not caring - not caring would allow me to continue making a *lot* of money doing data recovery. Not caring would allow me to have the only images of many events when the 'other guy' has accidentally deleted the shots he thought irrelevant ...remember the Lewinksi (sp?)/ Clinton photo? Not caring allows me to charge regularly to clean peoples PC's of viruses, crap spyware they deliberately installed etc. Not caring would have me sitting back processing images 400 times faster than PS and NOT telling others why or how I manage to beat the socks off their efforts. Caring is when I post info about stuff like the info about new Toshiba LiIon battery technology in the pipeline that offers a 80% recharge cycle in under a minute. Caring is also when I post info on the risks of ambiguous CD/DVD dyes (with references) NOT just an opinion based on guesswork. Caring is when I stick my nose in and advise - like the post about RAID arrays.. where some thought any old RAID was good for image archiving. Caring is where I post foreseeable instances where things have the potential to go wrong. I am a tech. I do not know if my images are good or not, I don't review because I feel others are better at it than I, I only offer what I can and learn what I can from others as I read the many and varied posts here. maybe I'm redundant in the eyes of some. But believe me - the look of delight I see in the eyes of the many who dismiss me initially, but call me when things go wrong and I manage to undo their mistakes is something that makes me feel quite valuable. k
