This photo was also taken handheld while it was super dark in the alley. I almost deleted the photo because it was that bad but I wondered if I can do something with it if I do some artificial editing. And I think the result is not too bad. It’s not a high-quality image, that’s sure. But also here I like the scene a lot and really tried to restore the image. You probably agree with me that the quality of the photo is bad but that it definitely looks better than the original RAW file…
Diary of Dennis 
I love it… I like how you’ve lit the image.
Thanks. I think it would be so much better if I wouldn’t be a tripod-hater 😀 I have a tripod but I barely use it because I don’t like to carry it with me. 😀
I am the same… I hate carrying around tripods xx
I think a lot of people don’t like that. A tripod makes us immobile. For me the whole idea about photography is to take the shot at the moment I like something and I don’t want to stand there, plan the shot and set up the tripod or getting it out of the tripod bag and things like that. 😀
Anyway, trying to get results handheld is fun too. And at the end, photoghaphy is also about experimenting. 🙂
Very true… By the time you set it all up.. The scene changes.. I too like off the cuff shooting.
Exactly 🙂
Love the second image. I’ve never seen the team “artificial editing”, What is it? How is this different from “editing”?
The second image is the unedited version… it was too dark. The first one is lit up via editing.
It might be that “artificial editing” is not a real term. I just started using it like that a while ago. Mostly in cases when I edited the images to the point that they look “artful”, “artificial”. I mean, when they don’t look sharp and realistic but almost like painted, or like from some 2d computer games or book covers. I mean, when I’ve deliberately done exaggerated editing with the images. I even created a tag for it on my blog. You can see 13 examples here: https://diaryofdennis.com/tag/artificial/
A heavy example would be this photo… it’s absolutely doesn’t look real anymore but I liked the style I tried out…
A moderate example would be this one…
So, yeah, I personally use the term when I crossed the line and the editing looks exaggerated.
I sometimes do it out of pure fun but in most cases rather when the original image is that bad, that going full nuts with image editing will make it look better than the original low-quality image. Pushing colors, using heavy blur, going crazy with the levels or filters can hide issues of bad photos… but at some point, it will look “artificial”, which can be interesting.
I even had cases where I went full “painted look” but combined several images into one… just for the fun of it: https://diaryofdennis.com/2016/12/28/photo-manipulation-the-green-mountain-land/
I like it when I come up with something that looks like it could be a background image of a 2d adventure game or something like that.
I sometimes also call it surreal editing…. the most recent example was when I shot a photo of a black cat and converted the whole image to black and white but did selective coloring to the eyes (I gave the cat green eyes, very unrealistic but cool)…
So, on my blog, I sometimes refer to exaggerated editing as “surreal”, “artsy”, “artificial” and other terms 😀 Usually, when the edited image doesn’t have much in common anymore with how it came out of the camera.