Is photo manipulation in the media more common than we think?

[Philosoraptor]

There is a big fuss going on about a photographer who added some smoke to ME war zone photos. Having some experience in the printing industry, I know how easy it is to alter photos, add and remove parts, and generally brighten and alter images, and the changes are practically unseen by the viewer.

But isn't it more prevalent than most folks think? Its ALWAYS done with advertising photos, and its been done since the beginning of published photography.

Did the story about the photographer adding some smoke to the sky amount to manipulating the story? He also apparently added airborne missiles in another photo. Is this a serious breech of the public's trust, or much ado about photoshop?

Stalin did it. Hitler too. Life magazine supposedly did it unknowingly with a photo of Lee Harvey Oswald and it wasn't noticed for years.

What if a photo was enhanced, for sharpness and color, is that tampering with the truth too? I remember the toppling of the Saddam statue photos, that event was staged, they bussed people in and made it look like it was a huge mob by cropping the frame in close. This is a glaring example of presenting an image out of context.

Images mean things, as do words, but either can be easily manipulated by the unscrupulous publisher.

[ck4829]

1. Here's a photo from a 'pro-USA protest'

[Don Claybrook]

2. I haven't kept up with this one closely, but I've used Photoshop

The thing with Photoshop is that you can do serious image maniupulation, or you can add "digital darkroom" effects, things that would have been done in the old-style darkroom in order to get a good print.

For that matter, all low-end digital cameras automatically do this when converting from their proprietary RAW format to a jpeg or some other format. They pick a certain amount of saturation, sharpness, and contrast, and adjust the picture automatically.

Again, I haven't looked closely, but it looked to me like the smoke before/after photos showed a difference in saturation.....a simple slider control to make the image "pop" more. Did the guy add other stuff? I don't know, maybe someone who is more up to date on this can tell me.

On the jet firing missiles thing, I saw an image in these pages yesterday but didn't read the story. If he made missiles firing out of whole cloth, then he has told a lie with his photograph. This smoke picture, barring anyone pointing out added elements, it's no big deal. Along those lines, I've never edited a photo for use in a black and white newspaper photo. The "after" image of the smoke is not a very good image, it's way too saturated to my eye. Do they do this for b&w newspapers? Just curious about that side-note.

[Philosoraptor]

5. Here's the story and pics--Reuters has withdrawn them

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/4100907.html

Looks like he used the clone tool at least in the upper left hand corner, I see parts replicated forming a pattern, he added more smoke. But he did add missiles firing from jets in one photo.

[tocqueville]

3. I think that the biggest manipulations don't use Photoshop

shown on TV worldwide



not shown on TV (or only a couple of years later)


conclusion : the Iraqis didn't give a fuck about Saddam's statue

[Philosoraptor]

4. THIS photo we had to see, but no flag draped coffins or crippled G.I.'s

Or images of dead children and mothers.

[Tracer]

6. I use Photoshop every day...

... and there is never a photo that I don't have to do something to -- whether to lighten it to pick up detail, to erase that telephone pole growing out of someone's head, to adjust the color so people's faces aren't green etc.

And I imagine that, if I do this, then every photo editor for every newspaper and magazine in the country does it also.

But I'm not attempting to sway public opinion. I'm just attempting to make my client's lousy photos look decent.

[Philosoraptor]

7. Me too, sometimes experts can't even tell.

Its really so simple and millions of experts abound. I love photoshop.

But photo manipulation ain't new, Reuters however oughta know better.

[gatorboy]

9. That's what struck me about the Lebanon photo.

I couldn't grasp the idea that some editor at Reuters couldn't catch how heavily clone that image was....

[tocqueville]

10. imagine what the guys working for Dubya has to put up with...

"to make their client's lousy photos look decent" and many times they don't succeed...

[gatorboy]

8. There was an article about this in a photo journalism magazine

It's been a few years though so I'll have to see if I can dig it up. Basically it does go on alot more than you'd realize. Many photographers do it for different reasons.

In the magazine article, for example, they critiqued a shot taken during a protest. Before sending the image to press, the photographer Photoshopped several items of debris (litter that was scattered in the street) from the shot. I think he felt that it helped balance the image out better. It wasn't a political statement but rather an artistic one, I suppose. Most of the time, that's basically as far as the editing on photos go. It's an interesting topic though. You could even question whether a changing of color tone on a photo is also appropriate. It may not sound like alot but a subtle change of color can completely change the tone of a shot...

Photoshop takes up a brunt of my work and I have requests several times a month to edit certain features in images. From adding extra clothing to an individual, to erasing people completely out of an image. I want to add that this work is done strictly on an advertisement level and not for any news articles. I was asked at, at one time, to take an individual out of a shot for a chamber of commerce photo that was to be published in the business section of our paper. Our head editor told us absolutely not. If it was for a paying ad it was one thing, but the policy for our paper is no heavy editing on photos considered "news"

[soothsayer]

11. Ever since that civil war dude dragged the bodies around to make

better photos (piled up to look like more carnage, right?)?

Don't forget, the photog missed the iwo jima flag raising and have to have them stage it again