Is it real or Photoshopped?

Richard

Fascinating collection of the history of photo manipulation dating back from long before computers and Photoshop to the present: http://www.fourandsix.com/photo-tampering-history/

It was interesting to read the reactions of the publishers involved, which ranged from firing the photographers and editors to saying it's just business as usual. It made me realize that photojournalism standards are not as clear-cut as I believed. Let the viewer beware.

ian408

The fact is that many images in fashion (and like) magazines receive some form of manipulation. I guess I expect it in publications that are meant to entertain. Not so in publications whose intent is more knowledge based (like news and science).

I know school pictures were often retouched although mostly to remove blemishes.

lifeinfocus

Search on News "Photoshop Fashion Photos"
Search on online News "Photoshop Fashion Photos" and you will find a number of articles about the concern of edited fashion photos.

As an example:
"Scientists Scrutinize Digital Retouching<header> </header> In popular fashion and beauty magazines, photographs of celebrities and models constantly retouched with Photoshop to make lips look fuller and hips smaller— but readers, feminists, and scientists are eager to reverse the trend. Computer scientists at Dartmouth are proposing a software tool that will measure how drastically photos are altered. The research is being published this week and intends to address concerns about how airbrushing can contribute to body-image anxiety and eating disorders, particularly among young women. Lesley Jane Seymour, editor in chief of More magazine, says readers have developed a keen eye for Photoshopped images and would prefer celebrities to look “real.”

To remove blemishes and a few wrinkles if a person requests it seems fine with me, but I think some fashion photos may go to far.

What do others think?

Phil

RSL

Ever since the advent of digital photography I've been ROTFL at juried photo contests that wouldn't accept digital photographs because "they could be modified." I guess the people who presided over these contests never wondered how Trotsky managed to disappear from early Bolshevik group pictures.

lensmole

Photographers are working with a two dimensional plane and trying to make it look three dimensional by manipulating light, changeing camera angles ect, so photography in a sense isn't real, we are simply creating images .

We start manipulating the process from the onset to achieve our vision, but where does one draw the line ? That's up to the individual, it depends on what is in the minds eye, our imagination,and the reason why we created the image and for what purpose.

Just don't buy a lens that makes your wife look fat .

torags

lensmole wrote: »

Just don't buy a lens that makes your wife look fat .

or wrinkled ... ....

Moving Pictures

What I find interesting, as photoshopping/manipulation goes, is an almost unexpected push towards the extreme of "if it got tweaked at all, it's fake." Now, most of my pics are for print, and therefore, my standards are dramatically different than if I were shooting a wedding (which, thankfully, I haven't had to do in ages.) Anyhoo, almost every pic is going to have some adjustment done to the mid-range levels/curves due to the need to pre-press for dot gain.

I don't think that's "photoshopping." Yet I recall working on one particularly muddy image a reporter gave me, and I played with the dodge tool and art history brushes to bring out a slightly dark face. I figure that if I coulda done it back in the darkroom days (I could and did), it's OK.

But there have certainly been some pretty high-profile chop jobs pushed out on the wires, lemme tellya.