The Photoshop Dilemma

Adobe's softwart program, Photohop 7.0, (although highly lucrative for it's inventors) has been highly destructive to the art and beauty of photography. With many "do it yourself"ers out there, the invention of Photoshop is one more step in the process of film photography extinction. One article in Popular Photographing and Imaging (May 2007) focuses primarily on new tricks of the trade involving Photoshop and the wonders it can do to make your home, candid portraits look professional. This article written by Debbie Grossman guides the reader through many different tools to copy and paste items and people into and out of the picture. It also explains how to take a home snap shot and quickly delete the background and replace it with a "studio like" backdrop. The question at the end of the article, indirectly states the obvious -why pay money for professional portraits when all the resources you need are at home? Access to such software programs are beginning to deteriorate the profession of film photography artists all over the world. Along with the fall of this profession is the appreciation of the craftmanship that true photography exibits. As I have earlier stated, when you buy professional portraits you are not paying for the picture, but the ability to create artwork. If that artwork can be reproduced for a fraction of the cost, then where does the need for photography artwork come from?