neonascent

The BBC reports on the obvious doctoring of Reuters news images from a Beirut photog.

Of course it is extremely likely that this is the tip of the iceberg, as the image that aroused suspicion is the worst use of Photoshop I’ve seen in a non-comedy print context.

It would be unbelievably naive to believe that no editing whatsoever goes on between camera and print. Even factually “truthful” images can be emotively weighed in one direction or another simply by altering the brightness.

To any photog visitors this is obvious: Aside from any digital manipulation, photography as an objective information source is simply an illusion. Framing (if not actual staging) of images is not only common practice; it is an unavoidable part of taking a photograph.

With regards to a common set of practices by organizations such as Reuters, there is no doubt a pragmatic choice made to accept compressed digital images in lieu of unwieldy raw format. With no knowledge of the division of labour within them, digital touch-up, cropping, and colour correction may well be the photog’s job prior to submission. However, it is possible to detect even sophisticated manipulation of images by analysing the digital file.

Failing this sort of policing policy on images, I guess the cynical take-home message for budding Photojournalists is not to neglect Photoshop skills in place of producing verity of content.