The morals/ehics of photoshop etc, and how can we all be saved from damnation?

[robsteve]

I thoight there were already some safeguards built into the camera or some flag in the metadata that flags any changes to the files. I think of was part of the D300 manual I skipped.

Terry:

I think that feature is for Forensic and other uses where the photos are used as evidence in court. In the old days, they could always produce the original negatives if they had to. With this feature, they can now produce the original file and prove it wasn't modified.

 

[nei1]

Hi Lisa,its my fault for writing like a goldfish,but I do realise that all this went on before,the more famous case of the fairys in the garden believed by Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle,my point is that now there would be "real" fairys in the garden unless there is something telling you that it is a manipulated photograph.Neither am I refering to that it is easier to manipulate an image,Im referring to experts who can create any reality,and I mean reality,they choose and the only way we mere mortals will know that it is not reality is if someone has the decency to tell us.Now decency in this day and age of monopolies and corporate advertising controlling what telivision we watch and what slant a news item will take,is a rare thing.All Im saying is that in the near future we will need that decency and it might not be there.As for Quixotic you might be right but it would be nice to have the choice of whether or not you want to live in a world of dreams.no? all the best Neil.
Hope this doesnt sound as if Im on a high horse(donkey),if it does please knock me off!

 

[LJL]

Neil,
While understanding your comments and the question/method you suggest about "grading" an image's "reality index", or something akin, who would make this call or assign the index scale? The photographer is the one that "knows" what they shot. From that point on, that amount of manipulation and type of manipulation may be out of his/her control, so who would be responsible for marking the image's degree of change?

Your comments about decency and accuracy are respected. The question will still be who is responsible for alerting folks of manipulations? ...the ad/marketing folks that did the manipulations to promote their product? ....the political folks that are pushing their own agenda when they retouched an image? You can see where this is going....

Not saying that what you are asking about is not important, valid, or considerate, as I agree with you about being misled by image manipulation. Aside from the "locked" forensic image capture also being made available, it seems like the viewer will always be at the mercy of the person submitting/displaying the image, and must "trust" them within the context of that image's use. Make sense?

LJ

P.S. There was some discussion a while back about having some sort of "bread crumb" trail of edits tag along with images, embedded in the metadata somehow, but there seem to be ways to circumvent that process also right now, so we are back to that "locked" original being needed for comparison, or something.

 

[cam]

Hope this doesnt sound as if Im on a high horse(donkey),if it does please knock me off!

it actually does a bit but it's obviously important to you so how can anybody honestly knock it? and it's generated interesting answers.

i still stand by the fact that i think the image is everything. how one may or may not have gotten it is irrelevant to me. i like what i like because i like it. period.

 

[nei1]

All good points LJ,there would have to be a lock somewhere,possibly as I sugested put in by the photographer to prevent any manipulation other than by the programs he allows to be used or parts of programs(photoshop but just white balance and curves,this photograph could be given a toxicity level of "0",a photographer who allows any thing to be done,on advice from the ad, agency,to his photograph well that image would be given a "10". this number would be locked to this image and would always have to be printed with it.You see Im not suggesting that there is any thing wrong with manipulating an image,just that people should know to what extent its been done.Ive no idea how the lock could be protected from hackers but I think its important enough to be tried.

 

[Lisa]

Hi Lisa,its my fault for writing like a goldfish,but I do realise that all this went on before,the more famous case of the fairys in the garden believed by Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle,my point is that now there would be "real" fairys in the garden unless there is something telling you that it is a manipulated photograph.Neither am I refering to that it is easier to manipulate an image,Im referring to experts who can create any reality,and I mean reality,they choose and the only way we mere mortals will know that it is not reality is if someone has the decency to tell us.Now decency in this day and age of monopolies and corporate advertising controlling what telivision we watch and what slant a news item will take,is a rare thing.All Im saying is that in the near future we will need that decency and it might not be there.As for Quixotic you might be right but it would be nice to have the choice of whether or not you want to live in a world of dreams.no? all the best Neil.
Hope this doesnt sound as if Im on a high horse(donkey),if it does please knock me off!

Regarding your last statement: Not at all! You have started an interesting discussion. I would just argue at this point that if you were to try to either ensure something like "reality" in photography, or assign a "reality number" to digital images, you really need to do the same for film images too. (Another example: Infrared film portrays one aspect of reality, but it's certainly not one that people can see. Is that "real" or not?)

On that subject, I agree with previous posters here that, if you want to go that route, it's difficult to even figure out who should be implementing the plan on a photo-by-photo basis, much less trust them to be unbiased. Or even to figure out a rational, even vaguely objective measurement system. An interesting concept, but impractical.

And I still don't see any need for it. For photojournalism, they must already be doing their best to echo reality (and have editors to check up on them).
For Art, who cares? To echo what cam said above, I like what I like, and don't care how it was modified.

On the other hand, there was a discussion on another photography forum where someone were objecting to a photo book about Antarctica. It was trying to communicate the message of an environment at extreme risk, and all the photos had a slightly odd (allegedly artificial) contrast that gave them a particularly ominous feel. The discussion revolved around whether it was unethical for the photographer to make subtle manipulations to the contrast to push the book's (possibly overstated) message. Perhaps a measurement of the photos' "reality factor" would come in handy in this case, but how would you rate the reality level of subtle contrast manipulations??? It's impossible to determine the "real" contrast of the image, as the human eye is so adaptable and variable.

Sorry for the semi-random ramblings...

Lisa

 

[TRSmith]

I read a statistic once that left a deep impression on me. It stated that one issue of the New York Times Sunday edition contained more information than a person born in the 18th century would have encountered in their entire lifetime. How much of the information in that newspaper is the "truth"?

How many billions of images, articles, videos, etc., etc. are this century's people exposed to each day? A lot methinks. Are those various media truthful, unbiased, unaltered? Who can say? And is there really an expectation on the part of most adults that the stuff they see IS honest and perfect? I don't know, I think most folks are pretty skeptical of almost everything.

While truth and ethics in photography on behalf of the hordes of future "viewers" is admirable, I think that ship sailed a looooooong time ago.

Besides, it's ALL an illusion. Which, personally, I kind of like.

 

[LJL]

While truth and ethics in photography on behalf of the hordes of future "viewers" is admirable, I think that ship sailed a looooooong time ago.

Besides, it's ALL an illusion. Which, personally, I kind of like.

Tim,
This brought to mind one of the bigger, but relatively harmless illusions passed off to the public. That National Geographic cover shot of the pyramids. We all saw and thought it impressive, but most never suspected that NG carefully removed space to tighten the perspective so that it fit the cover format.

And now, with this new Liquid Sizer tool that is being marketed by OnOne software, things really get scary.....you can actually remove reality in such a way that it is almost not detectable. Makes the work the former KGB guys did to expunge folks from images look rather tame

I agree with Lisa also....seems like a noble cause, but would be near impossible to implement and enforce. With that being the case, your other points about how much stuff folks are exposed to today sort of means we are becoming our own "filters" and our skepticism goes up. That in turn makes really skilled captures and true efforts for original presentation harder to appreciate, since in the back of our heads we may be thinking "good Photoshop work" before "great photographic capture". Cynicism is not always a good thing

LJ

 

[Lisa]

That in turn makes really skilled captures and true efforts for original presentation harder to appreciate, since in the back of our heads we may be thinking "good Photoshop work" before "great photographic capture". Cynicism is not always a good thing

LJ

Actually, I never think *either* "good Photoshop work" or "great photographic capture". I either think, "My, that's an artistic photo where the photographer really managed to communicate the mood", or "What were they thinking?" I guess I look for different things in photos...

I guess that's why I don't care whether they've been manipulated.

Lisa

 

[LJL]

Well, if the image I am viewing really captures my interest and appreciation, I just naturally wonder how it was done. If it is truly timing, composition, light, subject, etc., I try to learn from it. If it seems manipulated, I also try to learn from it, as some post work has made things works of art, in my mind. So, my comments were really more related to Neil's original questions about authenticity and reality, as well as Tim's comments about not caring whether it was manipulated or not.

Maybe I am still a "primitive" in some respects, but I did this for years and years looking at paintings in museums all over the world, trying to understand what it was that made the art more captivating to me, so it is hard for me to separate the same sort of appreciative analysis to photography, since I am now trying to create some of that magic with my own work.

LJ

 

[nei1]

Lisa youre point about the Antartica photos is a good one as in this case the oppressive nature of the images would have a more significant effect than normal because of the books subject.There could therefore be no zero rating even for the most basic manipulation.
As for not caring whether a photo has been changed or not is not my point,Im looking to inform the general public,not image concious photographers,if reality has been twisted or not.

 

[nei1]

TRSmith,imagine the anarchist in your world of illusion;now theres a special kind of madness.regards Neil.

 

[johnastovall]

Photography had never had any link to reality. It appears to have the characteristic of "indexablity" in Semontics but when you look at the process it doesn't.

I high suggest any one interested in this issue get and read (several times) Photography Theory edited by James Elkins.

Nice little review.

 

[Maggie O]

All photographs are lies.

A photograph is not the thing photographed, but something new.

It is easier to lie with a camera than with a darkroom (or Photoshop).

That is all. Carry on.

 

[Jack]

All photographs are lies.

Hi Maggie:

I would probably agree if you edited it to read, "Photographs can be lies."

For example, when I see your images showing the expressions on the face of the young lady cooking with you in the kitchen, I don't see much in the way of lies

Cheers,

 

[Maggie O]

Hi Maggie:

I would probably agree if you edited it to read, "Photographs can be lies."

For example, when I see your images showing the expressions on the face of the young lady cooking with you in the kitchen, I don't see much in the way of lies

Cheers,

Well, the colors aren't exactly as they appeared in life. There's one lie.

 

[Jack]

Well, the colors aren't exactly as they appeared in life. There's one lie.

:ROTFL:

Okay

 

[cam]

well met

All photographs are lies.

A photograph is not the thing photographed, but something new.

It is easier to lie with a camera than with a darkroom (or Photoshop).

That is all. Carry on.

an example of Maggie's point.

 

[nei1]

Cam and Maggie o ,I agree with you both,what im not sure of is if your comments are directed at me or not,if they are then Im sorry for not having explained things better because youve not understood what Im talking about,but youre posts are probably more interesting anyway.Missunderstandings are part of being human,a normal part of life,its where these missunderstandings are used in a corrupt way,deliberatly,that real harm can be done.

 

[johnastovall]

All photographs are lies.

A photograph is not the thing photographed, but something new.

It is easier to lie with a camera than with a darkroom (or Photoshop).

That is all. Carry on.

“Photography is about finding out what can happen in the frame. When you put four edges around some facts, you change those facts.”

Garry Winogrand