This award winner was hard to beat. I mean, who can even challenge green substrate!

Related posts:

1. Caption’d It: September 21 2009
2. Caption’d It: October 5 2009
3. Back To The Future: The PFE

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I had dinner with my extended family last night and like all good family dinners, I left feeling angry.  All that familial frustration has to go somewhere, and today it looks like it’s going towards people who post doctored photos.

I’m not the only one calling people out on false photos.  In some of these pictures, the coral doesn’t even look real.  One reason I keep my coral under 14,000K metal halides is that I prefer the colour; to me it’s more realistic.  I’m going with 10,000K lighting the next time I buy bulbs which is less blue and should give me more realistic colours.  I want to see what my coral looks like.  I don’t want a pastel approximation.

Some of the stores near me run 20,000K halides with super actinic T5 supplements.  Some stores run 8 bulb T5s with 6 actinic bulbs.  It’s next to impossible to see what the coral’s going to look like in my tank.

Which brings us to this picture.  It was posted on a local aquarium board as part of a shipment by our friends at The Bad Vendor.  I’ve created a new award and I propose that it’s called The Purple Finger.  The Purple Finger would be awarded to the most obviously doctored photo of coral.

Here’s the first winner:

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continuing…

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So after so much thought, after posting on misrepresentation of coral colors using Photoshop, we have come together to introduce what we call the PFE Award or better known as the Purple Finger of Excellence Award.

This award will only go towards those people who are desperately trying to sell frags or corals in total purple hue. What we mean by that is everything in the photo is purple or blue except the pastel colors of the coral. In fact, if you look closely, even their hand/fingers are radiating in that purple color.

We must end deception with PhotoShop! Lets start a revolution (small, I know)! Please use the above logo freely to expose those who try to blast you with eye piercing blues and purples! Show them that you can notice their deception by posting that logo in their threads/emails!

Related posts:

1. The Purple Finger
2. PFE?
3. Photoshopping Corals 101

Now, you would have to be very naive if you have never considered the notion of your favorite retailers (online or local) editing their images to sell corals or just lure you in. In fact, we have one once popular local reef store that does it so blatantly, it is eye piercing and laughable. Some like our local store, fool around the levels in PhotoShop to get that enhanced color look. Their excuse would be to ‘touch up the white balance’, which is miles away from the truth. The hues and saturation, among level balancing, are cranked beyond repair. Still don’t know what I am talking about? Lets talk basic editing:

Here is a photo of a beautiful Acropora sarmentosa that I have in my system.

Here is one with the levels (white and black) are enhanced where the white areas are getting erased (become blanks or screen).

Here is one with the hue and saturation fiddled to create a fake color look. Interesting isn’t it?

And this one made the famous PFE award. It is where you white balance is so off, that blue color is over-driving the entire image. Or, someone adjusted the blues in the picture to beautify the coral.

There are a lot of things to consider when looking at a coral photo. Look at the background color, if it is all too uniform, there is a chance that its been modified. As well, look at the white areas and black areas. Too white, or too dark and something may be off. Raise your red flag. Also, certain corals have a specific look under regular light. Use that as your gauge when you scan the websites for corals. The reason why the PFE even exists is due to the ability of retailers to con a lot of people with the help of the blue light (or PhotoShop). Its the sneakiest trick in the book, and will sell a lot of corals. The most recent notorious batch of corals to be edited this way are the echinophyllia, or chalice corals. Just look around the web, and you will see what I mean.

So before you drop 200$ for a small 1/2″ frag, ask yourself (or the retailer) if you can imagine that coral under 10K or flash lights. It can be the difference between your major disappointment, or bliss! Until next time!

Related posts:

1. Photoshopping Corals 201
2. The Art of Never Giving Up On Corals
3. LFS That Lie

Well, that didn’t take too long. We must blab a lot then. Thank God some of it is actually meaningful, otherwise our ISP would have shut us down quickly!

So for this post, we won’t gloat. We won’t take cheap shots at anyone, well maybe at ourselves. We won’t Caption’d It, nor Coral Trend it. What we will do is take a long walk, we mean search through our winded posts, and reminisce on what were the good, the bad, and the PFE.

TOP 10 POSTS

1. The PFE Award – it rivals the Oscar for popularity!
2. Crooked LFS – it was so bad, it needed to be told in three parts.
3. Beating Bryopsis – do you know how to beat the worst algae?
4. Interview With Rommel Lumauig (Ultimate Frags) – uber frags, in text!
5. Pricing Frustrations – is this a blind auction or a place of business?
6. Magic Acrylic Cleaner – THE tool for your acrylic needs.
7. The Red Line – marketing strategies of LFSs.
8. Acan Land – want to buy some water for your acans?
9. Hubert Chan (Clownfish Man) – the man has gills for crying out loud!
10. 12 Days of Christmas – our funny take on the most famous coral.. uh we mean carol.

Lets not forget numerous past and present fragd.it features: the Bi-Weekly Species Profiles (retired), Coral Trends, Caption’d It, Friday Night Cinema. Coming in this new year are many new features, such as ‘Ask the Fragd.it Crew’, ‘Blacklisted Products’, and a few that we may not yet reveal.

We also have to thank our contributing bloggers Constatine and Gregg, who added spice to a already spicy dish. And we can’t leave our loyal readers and friends.

Much thanks, or props as Jeff puts it, goes to Jeff atMarineDepot, the boys at ReefBuilders, Danilo, Eric M at glassbox, Stony, Hubert, many many loyal AP readers (too many to name, unless you want me to name real names), Rev at R2R, boys at InternationalReefers, Eddie Hanson, numerous followers on Twitter, friends on FaceBook, MichiganReefers, Reef Central, CanReef, Aquarium Pros, and many amazing Reefing Forums. A final thanks goes out to not just reefers in North America, but around the globe. We know that you read, and we are flattered. You make this blog more enjoyable to produce and make us push the boundaries with new ideas.

We would also welcome our new readers, or as Vlad would like to call them mini fragditphiles. Our blog is free and it will fill you up. Kind of like a  healthy dose of reefing! So stay tuned for our next post and thank you for reading!

Related posts:

1. Super Temporary Hiatus
2. MACNA Aftermath: McCollochi Clown and Friends, part 2
3. Money Vs Morals

This award will only go towards those people who are desperately trying to sell frags or corals in total purple hue. What we mean by that is everything in the photo is purple or blue except the pastel colors of the coral. In fact, if you look closely, even their hand/fingers are radiating in that purple color.

We must end deception with PhotoShop! Lets start a revolution (small, I know)! Please use the above logo freely to expose those who try to blast you with eye piercing blues and purples! Show them that you can notice their deception by posting that logo in their threads/emails!

(If you don’t know how to do it, right click on the image and click on copy link location. Then paste the link location into an image that you are trying to post. If you still don’t have any idea, just email us at info@fragd.it and we can help.)

Related posts:

1. Back To The Future: The PFE
2. Photoshopping Corals 101
3. New Coral!