5 ms·

When you say "digital edits are seriously banned," I think that's overreaching. I'm a former newspaper editor, and "digital edits" in the form of adjusting lev

by jawns 13y ago

When you say "digital edits are seriously banned," I think that's overreaching. I'm a former newspaper editor, and "digital edits" in the form of adjusting levels, color correction, etc., are performed on every single photo. What's not allowed, as you allude to, is retouching a photo. So does introducing blur after the photo was taken count as retouching, or does it fall into the same category as color correction? It's an interesting question. On the one hand, it has the potential to obscure elements of the picture, which seems like retouching, but on the other hand, you could just as easily achieve the same effect with a DSLR and there would be no outcry.

grecy 13y ago
> I think that's overreaching. I'm a former newspaper editor, and "digital edits" in the form of adjusting levels, color correction, etc., are performed on every single photo. Yep, sorry. I was a bit rushed when I wrote my comment. I should have said "digital edits beyond basic color correction".
- sneak 13y ago
  ...and cropping.
  - grecy 13y ago
    Which is massively interesting, as I can walk forward effectively cropping the scene to remove (let's say) a car from the very bottom corner. I could use software to crop the image to remove the car, but if I use the clone tool to get rid of it, that's a big no-no.
    - stan_rogers 13y ago
      The difference, in the PJ ethics sense of things, is that while the car is gone in both cases, cropping is a "lie of omission" while cloning is a "lie of commission". It's the difference between not mentioning the years 2001 through 2003 on your CV at all on the one hand and claiming you were the CEO of a now-defunct foreign company (when you were actually incarcerated) during that period on the other. (That's a bit hyperbolic, of course, but such exaggerations are differences of degree, not kind.) All journalism, no matter how "fair and balanced" you wish to paint it, is editorial and bias, but there is a big difference between editorial and fabrication. (And you don't have to zoom or "zoom with your feet" normally; cropping in post/printing is ordinarily allowed, though the editor/publisher will want to see the full frame as well. The shot you intend is not necessarily possible with the lens you have mounted - think of all of the PJ that has been done with wide primes over the years, as often as not so that "f/8 and be there" is all you need to think about. As long as the full frame is not showing your crop to be a blatant lie, like turning a dozen people in an otherwise empty city square into a massive popular demonstration, the publication will usually run with the image you intended rather than the one you captured.)
darkmighty 13y ago
Yea I think it's ok to edit as long as it doesn't produce significant logical inconsistencies from the original (A=>B) - e.g. two missiles are turned into three; or it seemed to be late afternoon which can be made to seem nighttime from color balance (when that's significant). Procedures like blurring shouldn't be able to cause those because like you mentioned the could have been done in situ with a camera, and they usually just lower the amount of information in the picture. That itself can change the interpretation of the scene (B=/>A), but to some extent this is inevitable -- and so acceptable if not overdone.
- georgemcbay 13y ago
  There are certainly some cases where the line is a bit blurry. Consider this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2544662/Pulitzer-Prize-winning-photographer-fired-admitting-doctored-Syrian-war-rebel-picture-photoshopping-camera-original-image.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2544662/Pulitzer-Pri... The edit doesn't really introduce any "logical inconsistencies", it just acts to "remove" the photographer from the scene (by way of removing his other camera), and yet it was ultimately a fire-able-offense.
  - marshray 13y ago
    The photographer, Narciso Contreras had manipulated a photo of a Syrian rebel by using a common Photoshop technique called 'cloning' in order to remove a fellow reporter's camera out of the picture, before sending it to an AP photo desk. He removed another photographer's camera, essentially exaggerating his own ability to get pictures that other photographers cannot.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    It seems to me that photojournalists in general ought to be disclosing any digital editing (especially if it is near the boundary), and it ought to be an editorial decision on the part of the publication on using the photos. The only thing that ever ought to be a firing offense (in this area!) for a photojournalist is undisclosed edits which interfere with ability to make informed editorial decisions. On the other hand, while I agree that firing might be an extreme response, the edit in question does seriously effect the implied context of the picture. On the third hand, it does so in a way which photojournalist often seek to do through composition, so as you say, the ethics are a bit blurry -- which gets back to why I think disclosure and editorial decisions on whether and how to use photos is more important than blanket policies on edits (digital or otherwise).
marshray 13y ago
Blurring seems almost a form of cropping; in both processes image information is removed rather than added. But blurring could be more powerful and subtle since it's less constrained by the need to maintain a rectangular shape. Removing image information can certainly be an editorial choice. Take the all-too common picture of someone being beaten in a street brawl and imagine that the photographer or editor has used cropping or blurring to remove the fact that this scene is taking place directly in front of a police station.
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  Excellent example.
niels_olson 13y ago
> the same effect with a DSLR and there would be no outcry. I think at some point the metadata would have to set the precedent. If the image capture device were forensically examined and showed the image was taken as it, then it's untouched. If it was downloaded and blurred, then it's not untouched. I think a similar, albiet reverse, comparison would be the iPhone's panorama function. If your cousin jumped from one end of the frame to the other, the camera's not lying. It's the person. If the Google Camera app took the picture and the metadata prove it, the camera's not lying.
acjohnson55 13y ago
Those permitted edits you mention seem to all preserve the pixel-level integrity of the image. The fact that intentional blurring does not do this seems to be a distinction to me. I think that the fact that the blur layer must be synthesized heuristically indicates that not all of the information of the final image was really captured from the real world. I suppose that resizing (resampling) an image might be said to not preserve the integrity of the original pixels, but I think it does if you consider the original pixels to be a reflection of the continuous field at the sensor. Question for professionals -- how are noise reduction, masks (unsharp), etc. treated?
- grecy 13y ago
  >Those permitted edits you mention seem to all preserve the pixel-level integrity of the image. Curiously, you're allowed to convert color to black and white, which in my opinion is not preserving the pixel-level integrity. An algorithm is making a guess at what level of black to convert a pixel to. > Question for professionals -- how are noise reduction, masks (unsharp), etc. treated? I'm not a pro yet, but my understanding is it's a big no-no.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    Huh? Noise reduction is not a no no by any means. At least in some newspapers I know. Also, I have to add that it differs for news reporting versus stuff like interview shots, travel shots etc.
    - grecy 13y ago
      > Also, I have to add that it differs for news reporting versus stuff like interview shots, travel shots etc. Right, it really depends on if the shot is being used for "news" or if it's just an artistic shot to fill space. That's why at the start of this whole thread I reference photojournalism.
      - coldtea 13y ago
        >That's why at the start of this whole thread I reference photojournalism. I saw it, but it's not that clear cut. What you write, "an artistic shot to fill space" implies to me generic illustration pictures, which the above isn't an example of. I think the restrictions to editing are mostly contrained for photos about stuff like politics, world affairs, crime etc -- stuff that is presented as 100% dry news. But the term photojournalism covers other stuff too, right? Isn't, say, a travel article written by a journalist with a photographer photojournalism too? Or the images taken by a photojournalist for a piece on dance culture, the burning man, stuff like that. Or for a sports feature.

by jawns 13y ago

grecy 13y ago

> I think that's overreaching. I'm a former newspaper editor, and "digital edits" in the form of adjusting levels, color correction, etc., are performed on every single photo. Yep, sorry. I was a bit rushed when I wrote my comment. I should have said "digital edits beyond basic color correction".

sneak 13y ago
...and cropping.
- grecy 13y ago
  Which is massively interesting, as I can walk forward effectively cropping the scene to remove (let's say) a car from the very bottom corner. I could use software to crop the image to remove the car, but if I use the clone tool to get rid of it, that's a big no-no.
  - stan_rogers 13y ago
    The difference, in the PJ ethics sense of things, is that while the car is gone in both cases, cropping is a "lie of omission" while cloning is a "lie of commission". It's the difference between not mentioning the years 2001 through 2003 on your CV at all on the one hand and claiming you were the CEO of a now-defunct foreign company (when you were actually incarcerated) during that period on the other. (That's a bit hyperbolic, of course, but such exaggerations are differences of degree, not kind.) All journalism, no matter how "fair and balanced" you wish to paint it, is editorial and bias, but there is a big difference between editorial and fabrication. (And you don't have to zoom or "zoom with your feet" normally; cropping in post/printing is ordinarily allowed, though the editor/publisher will want to see the full frame as well. The shot you intend is not necessarily possible with the lens you have mounted - think of all of the PJ that has been done with wide primes over the years, as often as not so that "f/8 and be there" is all you need to think about. As long as the full frame is not showing your crop to be a blatant lie, like turning a dozen people in an otherwise empty city square into a massive popular demonstration, the publication will usually run with the image you intended rather than the one you captured.)

darkmighty 13y ago

Yea I think it's ok to edit as long as it doesn't produce significant logical inconsistencies from the original (A=>B) - e.g. two missiles are turned into three; or it seemed to be late afternoon which can be made to seem nighttime from color balance (when that's significant). Procedures like blurring shouldn't be able to cause those because like you mentioned the could have been done in situ with a camera, and they usually just lower the amount of information in the picture. That itself can change the interpretation of the scene (B=/>A), but to some extent this is inevitable -- and so acceptable if not overdone.

georgemcbay 13y ago
There are certainly some cases where the line is a bit blurry. Consider this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2544662/Pulitzer-Prize-winning-photographer-fired-admitting-doctored-Syrian-war-rebel-picture-photoshopping-camera-original-image.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2544662/Pulitzer-Pri... The edit doesn't really introduce any "logical inconsistencies", it just acts to "remove" the photographer from the scene (by way of removing his other camera), and yet it was ultimately a fire-able-offense.
- marshray 13y ago
  The photographer, Narciso Contreras had manipulated a photo of a Syrian rebel by using a common Photoshop technique called 'cloning' in order to remove a fellow reporter's camera out of the picture, before sending it to an AP photo desk. He removed another photographer's camera, essentially exaggerating his own ability to get pictures that other photographers cannot.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  It seems to me that photojournalists in general ought to be disclosing any digital editing (especially if it is near the boundary), and it ought to be an editorial decision on the part of the publication on using the photos. The only thing that ever ought to be a firing offense (in this area!) for a photojournalist is undisclosed edits which interfere with ability to make informed editorial decisions. On the other hand, while I agree that firing might be an extreme response, the edit in question does seriously effect the implied context of the picture. On the third hand, it does so in a way which photojournalist often seek to do through composition, so as you say, the ethics are a bit blurry -- which gets back to why I think disclosure and editorial decisions on whether and how to use photos is more important than blanket policies on edits (digital or otherwise).

marshray 13y ago

Blurring seems almost a form of cropping; in both processes image information is removed rather than added. But blurring could be more powerful and subtle since it's less constrained by the need to maintain a rectangular shape. Removing image information can certainly be an editorial choice. Take the all-too common picture of someone being beaten in a street brawl and imagine that the photographer or editor has used cropping or blurring to remove the fact that this scene is taking place directly in front of a police station.

anigbrowl 13y ago
Excellent example.

niels_olson 13y ago

> the same effect with a DSLR and there would be no outcry. I think at some point the metadata would have to set the precedent. If the image capture device were forensically examined and showed the image was taken as it, then it's untouched. If it was downloaded and blurred, then it's not untouched. I think a similar, albiet reverse, comparison would be the iPhone's panorama function. If your cousin jumped from one end of the frame to the other, the camera's not lying. It's the person. If the Google Camera app took the picture and the metadata prove it, the camera's not lying.

acjohnson55 13y ago

Those permitted edits you mention seem to all preserve the pixel-level integrity of the image. The fact that intentional blurring does not do this seems to be a distinction to me. I think that the fact that the blur layer must be synthesized heuristically indicates that not all of the information of the final image was really captured from the real world. I suppose that resizing (resampling) an image might be said to not preserve the integrity of the original pixels, but I think it does if you consider the original pixels to be a reflection of the continuous field at the sensor. Question for professionals -- how are noise reduction, masks (unsharp), etc. treated?

grecy 13y ago
>Those permitted edits you mention seem to all preserve the pixel-level integrity of the image. Curiously, you're allowed to convert color to black and white, which in my opinion is not preserving the pixel-level integrity. An algorithm is making a guess at what level of black to convert a pixel to. > Question for professionals -- how are noise reduction, masks (unsharp), etc. treated? I'm not a pro yet, but my understanding is it's a big no-no.
- coldtea 13y ago
  Huh? Noise reduction is not a no no by any means. At least in some newspapers I know. Also, I have to add that it differs for news reporting versus stuff like interview shots, travel shots etc.
  - grecy 13y ago
    > Also, I have to add that it differs for news reporting versus stuff like interview shots, travel shots etc. Right, it really depends on if the shot is being used for "news" or if it's just an artistic shot to fill space. That's why at the start of this whole thread I reference photojournalism.
    - coldtea 13y ago
      >That's why at the start of this whole thread I reference photojournalism. I saw it, but it's not that clear cut. What you write, "an artistic shot to fill space" implies to me generic illustration pictures, which the above isn't an example of. I think the restrictions to editing are mostly contrained for photos about stuff like politics, world affairs, crime etc -- stuff that is presented as 100% dry news. But the term photojournalism covers other stuff too, right? Isn't, say, a travel article written by a journalist with a photographer photojournalism too? Or the images taken by a photojournalist for a piece on dance culture, the burning man, stuff like that. Or for a sports feature.