BS: digitally enhanced photography

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 May 04 - 10:24 AM

There seems to be some sort of "purist" standard being pushed with this topic of "enhancing" photos--based on what? The photos that we shoot and get prints of from the drugstore? Those are unaltered because no human hand has touched them or changed the level of brightness? Today even those are altered by the machine--Kodak has some kind of system that (to my dismay, so I stopped using it) lightens the background to the level of the subject in the foreground--thus tending to confuse how we view the photos. If you look at the negative, the background is still dark. It is the print image that was digitally "improved" by Kodak's machine.

The raw material of the image on the negative is subject to what the photographer was looking at and focusing upon. Once the negative is developed, other things in the image may become of more importance than the original subject. The original subject may not have been aligned exactly the way the photographer wanted. The photograph doesn't begin and end with clicking a button on a camera. The photographer makes use of it once the photo is printed--the intended use of the image may require cropping (removing extra material so you can focus in on a subject), it may require brightening the shot (whether through the length of exposure in the dark room or the abilities of Adobe PhotoShop). I often take photos of groups, knowing full well that when a photo is used only a few of the people will appear in the finished product. This isn't dishonest, this is simply using photography as a tool to communicate an image.

There is never going to be a photo that will meet the standards some of you are asking for. There is simply no point in trying to mark a photo as "enhanced" or to what degree it was enhanced.

As to what is in the eye of the beholder (the real issue here, perhaps?) the context, the printed or spoken word used in association with the image, is at least as important as the image.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: Rapparee
Date: 07 May 04 - 09:05 AM

A friend, now a professional photographer, came into our darkroom and my brother handed him a jug of home-made wine and said, "Drink this." He did.

When it was over, our friend wiped his mouth and said, "Not bad. What is it?"

"Photoflow."

Anyway....

If there is no symbol that the photo is digitally changed, then the deception should be immediately evident from the subject matter of the picture. This isn't easy, though.

Back in 1961, a photo of the 1907 library here was taken with a 1910 car in the foreground. The parking meter was shrouded and the photo taken from an angle that hid most of the shrouded meter. Until I found the original set of photos taken in this instance, everyone at the library thought that the photo had been taken in 19teens. Those who knew better had been scattered or had died, and it took some doing for me to disprove the "19teen" theory.

This wasn't done to deceive, but had the theory not been exploded it would continued to do so.

"Prove it!" has to be the watchword. As for the Iraqi photos, either the ones I've seen were retouched or the bodily parts of the prisoners are made differently from those of folks in the US.

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: Wolfgang
Date: 07 May 04 - 05:21 AM

Seems I'm having a little trouble explaining myself lately. (dianavan)

No, you have not.
Your posts in the Iraq threads make it very clear that you have no reasonable doubt in your mind that the allegations against American soldiers are (perhaps not in each detail, but in the big picture) true and that you are as disgusted as (nearly) everyone here. You did put it very clearly: If there were only the photos, then.... But you know as good as we all that there is more than enough corroborating evidence.

If someone doesn't want to understand that the Iraq photos (and doubts regarding a very small portion of them) made you pursuit another track, and made you think about photos used as evidence, and that you very sensibly did chose not to derail the Iraq thread but to start an own thread, then it is not your fault.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 07 May 04 - 05:15 AM

I'm still not convinced we can ever rely on a single photograph as an accurate or honest representation of an event or object. A single photograph captures only one instance. It's like having a single document - no matter if it's genuine or not, we still have to ask why it was written, by whom, in what time, etc. It only gives us one perspective. As JohnInKansas has said above, it's nothing without a full range of evidence.

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: dianavan
Date: 07 May 04 - 01:48 AM

Thanks, Wolfgang - Seems I'm having a little trouble explaining myself lately. I've had to backtrack on several of my posts.

Guest - Whether the pictures were "doctored" or not was not really the point. What I hoped to hear (and I did) was that photographs today are not really evidence. I think during wartime, we have to be especially vigilant about believing all of the images that are being presented to us. The same as we have to be careful about believing what the administration has to say about whats happening in Iraq.

I, too, have been a photographer for nearly 45 years. My husband was an army photographer in VietNam. In that time I have seen many technological changes. The darkroom is no secret to me. I am upgrading my computer system very soon and I will have all "the latest" thanks to my cousin, the computer wiz. Soon I will be in full production. I can hardly wait to start.

I still think, as Jim Maginn pointed out to me, there has to be a way to include a symbol of some kind to indicate that a photo has been digitally enhanced. So many of our historical references today are the result of very honest depictions of an event. If nobody believes our history, we leave no history.

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: EBarnacle
Date: 06 May 04 - 11:43 PM

I have been doing professional photography since the '60's. This was beyond the enhancement that high ASA or ISO could help with. I used to do nighttime concerts handheld and get usable images with Tri-X, pushed to 1200 ASA.

Both he and we had tripods.

Visually, we were barely able to see the QM II. The digital camera was simply picking up the little available light and putting it to work better than the eye or film could. [Of course, it was a professional, top of the line unit.] QM II was only lit from her onboard lights, no spotlighting from shore or nearby vessels.

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: Gareth
Date: 06 May 04 - 04:17 PM

Unfortunately it's frightingly easy to mix and match with a computer.

At present I am doing a series of election address photographs, with our local Government candidates shaking hands with our beloved leader.

£And removing the "No Parking" signs that some BF left in the background).

It's no problem, just cut, adjust for size and perspective, and paste.

Dishonest - No ! just that some candidates could not make the photosession.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: Art Thieme
Date: 06 May 04 - 02:25 PM

I should've mentioned that the wax figure of Pope Paul right across the aisle was reflected in the glass of the case containing the tea party.

Art

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: Art Thieme
Date: 06 May 04 - 02:23 PM

I have a photo I took in 1966 of Madame Toussaud's Wax Museum on Wells Street in Chicago. Depicted is the Mad Tea Party from Alice in Wonderland---all in wax figures. Reflected in the glass, and showing up as clear as can be in the photo, was the image of Pope Paul. (remember him?) It looked for all the world like I'd taken a picture of the Pope about to take aseat at the table. I went back there about four times to get it pretty much right. I still enjoy that shot.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: Donuel
Date: 06 May 04 - 10:30 AM

I recall the famous cut and paste of the head of Lee Harvey Oswald that is still claimed as evidence in the Warren Commision report.

Here is a UK photo I changed ...George and the Queen

http://www.angelfire.com/md2/customviolins/bushqueen3.jpg

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: GUEST
Date: 06 May 04 - 10:03 AM

Except dianavan was posting to the thread about the photographs of American soldiers in the other thread when she "suggested" they may have been altered, and she makes no mention of the British photographs in her opening post to this thread either.

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: Wolfgang
Date: 06 May 04 - 09:30 AM

I haven't seen any suggestions that the photographs of American soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners were doctored anywhere, except by dianavan in this and another thread. (06 May 04 - 09:08 AM )

Huh?

Look at the date of dianavan's first post here and compare it with what has happened in the world at that time.

Exactly at that date the first rumors have been in the press (left and right) that the photos showing British soldiers torturing Iraqis may have been faked.

No one in this thread has yet talked about the photos of American soldiers mistreating Iraqis are faked. That the British photos are at least suspect should be common knowledge by now.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 May 04 - 09:21 AM

I did create a photo.

I went to Big Bone Lick State Park in Kentucky and took a picture of a display there of a wooly mammoth stuck in a boghole. Changed it to black and white and fuzzied it up a bit so you couldn't tell the mammoth was made of fiberglass.

Then I photographed a can of Spam (the luncheon meat). Fiddled with it, tilted it a few degrees, and resized it. Opened the mammoth photo and the doctored Spam photo and stuck the Spam (in color) into the water next to the mammoth (in B&W). It ended up looking like a wooly mammoth (in B&W) which had dropped its can of Spam (in color) when it got trapped in the boghole.

The created photo was then sent to Mr. Whitekeys at the Fly By Night Club in Anchorage (if you've been there you understand).

Fun to do, but I made no claims to have taken a picture of a wooly mammoth, much less one that had dropped its can of Spam.

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: GUEST
Date: 06 May 04 - 09:08 AM

I haven't seen any suggestions that the photographs of American soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners were doctored anywhere, except by dianavan in this and another thread.

Considering that the charges are the main issue, and photographs corroborating evidence of the soldier's testimony that started the investigation rolling, and that no one in the military is denying any of it happened, I'd say the suggestion those particular photographs were doctored, to be paranoid and downright silly.

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 06 May 04 - 08:57 AM

Re: providing information about an image.
With digital images (and other digital sources) metadata - data about the data - can be used to describe relevant information, e.g. who created it, how, technical capture info, subject info, preservation, etc. This information sits along with the image itself. It's used widely in digital archiving, but I don't know how much other fields use it. And, of course, it depends on the honesty of the person supplying it.

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: Wolfgang
Date: 06 May 04 - 08:02 AM

I wish that every journalist would tell whether a photo is merely enhanced for better printing or is a photo of a reenactment or is a patchwork.

Even before digital enhancement, photos have been faked. Not all fakes have been so crude as the Cottingley Fairies which did fool hardly anybody except Conan Doyle. UFO photo fakes are a great fun and easily made (example; example) by double exposure and several other methods. Right at this time, in Germany there is a competition for the best UFO photo fake (and you are only admitted if you document how you have done it, that is photos of real UFOs are not admitted). The methods of detection are more difficult now, but it is not impossible for to get all details correct is still extremely difficult.

Fibula has made a very good point: There could be no 'enhancement' of the photo at all (that is the photo shows the scene as it was at the time of the photo) and it still could tell a lie.

Example 1: Loch Ness Monster The photo is not enhanced and it shows an animal, but it is an elephant bathing in another lake. The fake here was not in the photo but in the legend to it.

Example 2: Loch Ness Monster Here too the photo is not enhanced and it shows what it is, but what is it? A small play submarine (invisible) carrying a wood replica of Nessie.

Example 3: A UFO Again, the picture is not enhanced at all. A small replica of a UFO has been thrown into the air by someone behind the house a couple of times and the best photo has been chosen.

To repeat John: Photographic evidence is just that. Not very reliable and it never was and never will be. Not much change.

Wolfgang

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 05 May 04 - 12:34 PM

Repost:

"Art" used to advance political, social, or other idealogies is really nothing new, and it shouldn't be surprising that new technology is used to make "better fakes." If one goes back to the time when the "news" was spread by broadsides, posters, or other means, when woodcuts were the standard way of printing pictures, the same sort of thing is seen.

When Erhard Schoen published his Devil with Bagpipe, somewhere around 1535, with the "pope*" as the bagpipe, it was immediately picked up by the opposition, digitally edited if you will, and returned in opposing pamphlets as "The Devil and Martin Luther." (Schoen was a "hard core" Lutheran, so it's not hard to tell which was the original version of the title, although people still debate it. The same picture, or one of several "altered" versions, can also be found by the later title on the web.)

*Schoen had probably never seen the pope, so he may have used a "local" priest for his model???

Most professional photographers do quite a lot of editing of nearly all pictures that are "published." It would, in fact, be rather cruel to release many photos without some "improvement." We don't realize how many pimples, warts, and wrinkles we have until they stare back at us from a "stark" photo; and a little bit of blur, a vignette here or there, and perhaps removing a bit of drool from the baby's chin are all part of making the kind of "photos" that people want.

Not too long ago, you had do do a little "dodge and burn" to soften the lines and take out the blems. Now you apply a gaussian blur or overlay a coupe of screens, but the effect is literally the same. Warps and straightens are pretty easy, so instead of tilting the negative in the enlarger, you just warp the image, "fix" the leaning building, or to suck in the "love handles" on the "studly model." An over sized nose can be tucked back, frowns pushed into smiles, and such with relative ease. And of course removing that "ugly zit" from the daughters graduation picture is trivial now, but needed the airbrush (or very skilled dodge) not long ago.

One might hope that the news photos will not have been edited in a way to change their meaning, but it so easy to do that all pictures are somewhat suspect. When you add in that the news media seldom "take their own." but rely on submissions from free-lance photographers, news bureaus who buy from free-lancers, (or from congressional "investigators") who have the opportunity to alter stuff before it's seen elsewhere, and who can do so rather easily, "what you see" is NOT necessarily what happened.

"Photographic evidence" is just evidence. To have a "proof" you have to be able to assemble ALL the evidence.

John

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: JudyB
Date: 04 May 04 - 09:51 PM

Well, marking the pictures as enhanced sounds like a great idea - but there's different levels of enhanced. Can one symbol cover "lightened up a little" or "cropped to remove trash can at edge of scene" or "pimple removed from left cheek" or "passerby removed from shot of family in front of monument" or "Uncle Al removed because he left Aunt Mary" or "new Uncle Pete added where Uncle Al used to be" or "Uncle Al and Uncle Pete having the shouting match we're sure they would have had if they'd ever been in the same room"?

I admit that when I use my digital camera I consider the process of checking the brightness and contrast an essential part of preparing the photo for an audience - and I've been known to take the negatives from my film camera back to the quick print place to ask them to do a photo again a little lighter or darker - especially when my goal in taking the picture was to show the play of the shadows on the water rather than the detail of the boat producing the shadows or whatever.

My personal dividing line (for myself - I don't know what sort of standards we should use for professional photographers or photojournalists or whatever) is probably in favor of things that make the original photo I was taking better - up to and including removing the guy who walked in front of the lens as I clicked. What I saw when I took the photo was (in my mind's eye if not in my viewfinder) properly exposed and nicely framed and didn't have a stop sign coming out of someone's head. (I'm getting better at really looking at what I'm seeing - but I still tend to focus on the subject of my photo and mentally block out the background.)

I have no problem with moving Uncle Pete around, and have done things like that - but I think that the result is something other than a photo. I'm not sure what - but it does make an interesting topic of discussion.

I'd like to see a special disclaimer on photos that are intentionally made to deceive - but I suppose "photo edited to support my world view" probably won't catch on....

    JudyB

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: GUEST,Larry K
Date: 04 May 04 - 03:38 PM

Working in marketing it is really scarry what you can do with todays technology.    Most of it is inncocent- making a product look its best or optimal condition.    It can be used for very bad purposes.   Newsweek ran a cover a few years back that was altered and caused a great controversy.    I think that when a picture is enhanced it should be labeled as such.

Have you seen the humor file of animals with photoshop.   A beetle with peace signs on it.   A cow with a map of the world.   An aligator with a human hand. Penquins with soccor balls. Brilliant job- very funny.

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 04 May 04 - 03:30 PM

EBarnacle -

In restoring a bunch of old family heirloom photos, I came across a fair number of those that "barely showed and outline." They'd mostly gone to the "bottom of the barrel, but never got thrown away. Amazingly, about half of them came up to passable black and white, and a very few had enough color to make "fair" prints, when scanned at fairly high resolution and run through some of that "optimization" in Photoshop Elements.

If your film is too badly underexposed, you can't bring back color, but just because the print is "black" doesn't mean there isn't a picture there. Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

At Watering Hole 2003, there are about 4 "group pictures" near the bottom, of some of the pickin' gang, that I had to lay 3 or 4 layers of screen on to brighten up enough to tell that there was any picture, but the results aren't too bad. These were film shots, scanned (even though the prints looked solid black) and "brought up" digitally.

John

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: Megan L
Date: 04 May 04 - 03:22 PM

But do we see what is there, or what we think should be there?

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: dianavan
Date: 04 May 04 - 02:55 PM

I've been told that "seeing is believing" and also that "a picture says a thousand words".

With that, coupled with today's technology, I'd think that photojournalists today might want to include this subject in their code of ethics - or do they have one?

Artists and non-professionals alike, can and should do whatever they want with the technology available. The public is not so apt to view their images as truth. Photojournalists, on the other hand, should have a little more integrity. Otherwise they just become a part of the propaganda machine.

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: Homeless
Date: 04 May 04 - 02:36 PM

EBarnacle - That's not an effect of digital - that's an effect of the ISO, or "film" speed, that you are using in combination with your shutter speed. Slow films, such as an ISO 100 or 200, could not get enough light without having an extremely long shutter speed. If you've got a point and shoot type camera, it probably has a set shutter speed of about 1/125 of a second. A camera or film with an ISO of 1600 or even 3200 would be able to get enough light with a relatively short shutter speed. Or he may have been using long shutter speeds - in excess of one second. Was he using a tripod, by chance?

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: Rapparee
Date: 04 May 04 - 02:31 PM

Let's not forget that the British government looped film of Hitler stamping his foot at the signing of the treaty with France and made him do a little jig of joy -- film that was shown around the world.

The Cotterington faery photos, the photo of the Loch Ness monster -- faking photos isn't new.

Heck, my own uncles had a photo of my Uncle Ed standing beside a table upon which was the smiling head of my Uncle Jack!

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 04 May 04 - 02:31 PM

"should it be used by photojournalists"

Better them, than wankers who think they have 'commentary' to make through their 'art'

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: EBarnacle
Date: 04 May 04 - 02:24 PM

Consider that this is not a new issue. The hero of Orwell's "1984" was employed altering inconvenient facts, including photos for the public record.

A week ago, Lady Hillary and I were at the departure of the QM II and the QE II. We were on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. Next to us was the photographer from the Brooklyn Eagle. His digital camera, with minimal effort, was turning a nighttime shot of the QM II into a very clear photo of the latest grande dame. Our Nikon only barely showed the outline of the Queen.

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 May 04 - 12:15 PM

I goofed on the html, if a Mud elf could remove that post and this remark, here is what I meant to say:

A similar topic arose on a literature discussion list of mine. Here was one response (aimed at the line "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar"):

well, a pipe is a pipe, but a painting of a pipe is
quite a different thing. i sometimes discuss how our
language leaves out the 'middle' -- meaning, we see
a representation of something and call it by the
thing it represents instead of the representation of.

A photo of a pipe, is not a pipe. We did not see
Pres. Bush on TV, we saw a series of dots/lights
that simulated him. And to top it off, all these
images are through other people's eyes, other
perspectives not our own.

We accept this distance without question. I find
that very odd.

I find that observation very lucid.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 May 04 - 12:12 PM

A similar topic arose on a literature discussion list of mine. Here was one response (aimed at the line "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar"):

quite a different thing. i sometimes discuss how our
language leaves out the 'middle' -- meaning, we see
a representation of something and call it by the
thing it represents instead of the representation of.

A photo of a pipe, is not a pipe. We did not see
Pres. Bush on TV, we saw a series of dots/lights
that simulated him. And to top it off, all these
images are through other people's eyes, other
perspectives not our own.

We accept this distance without question. I find
that very odd.

I find that observation very lucid.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 04 May 04 - 12:11 PM

Lets face it, with todays technology, can you be sure that the pictures you are seeing are an acurate rendition of the event?

But could you EVER be sure that a photograph is an accurate rendition of an event? A photograph is merely a representation of reality, not the reality itself. It's not just post-processing that can give us a certain (mis)interpretation - the selective process involved in the physical act of taking a photograph can do that too. It's such an interesting area - how do we represent (a version of) reality through visual media? What makes something more "real" than another?

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 04 May 04 - 03:07 AM

Is someone saying that journalists shouldn't lie to "make a story.?"

What a novel concept! But I'm afraid it will never take off.

The newest computer imaging programs have made it quite easy to do fairly sophisticated "modifications" to images, but can do literally nothing that couldn't be, and wasn't, done using photographic techniques before the programs became available. There are vast numbers of "historical photos" that are known to have been altered, and many of them are either not identified as such in the repositories that hold them or in publications that use them. For historical photos there sometimes is an "original" for comparison. For modern snapshots, and for any instance of skilled deliberate modification, it can be extremely difficult to see the alterations.

In most cases, it's just called "processing." In many cases it's a legitimate effort to improve a picture that was defective in some way in the original. (All the Playboy Playmates have been "airbrushed" since the first issue. Many of them needed it.)

In far too many cases, faking photos is done to advance an agenda by creating the appearance of something that never was. Many cases are known. Some may never be found out. In most cases where it's significant a few years later, someone will have opinions.

Legitimate publishers have had access to methods for doing anything that modern computer programs can do for at least the last 80 to 100 years. Some have used it legitimately. Some have used it dishonestly. You simply know (or try to know) your sources and juge their content accordingly.

It takes only a little knowledge and practice to make fairly sophisticated "fake" photos, either in the darkroom or with one of the new programs. The programs smell better, and there's less chance of toxic side effects for the user. For some things, they're a little - or a lot - quicker. There are still some things that are best done with chemicals, or with a combination of both methods. There is nothing new in terms of what can be done, or in the presence of people willing to do it.

Altered images are so common in some fields of "information technology" that the safest course is to disbelieve any photograph unless there is supporting evidence to confirm that the image represents an actual event. If you turn off "Safe Search" and enter the name of any female "public personality" in a Google image search, more than 95% (by my count on a few personalities) of the images returned will be OBVIOUS FAKES. For some personalities, it's vanishingly close to 100%.

It's nearly impossible, for example, to find a picture of Martha Stewart on the web that has not been obviously altered. This includes images used in her own advertising, although there most of the changes are just "wart removal." Several "magazine covers" posted use the same "Martha Stewart face" but have different accessories on the table in front of her. In some cases, it's even a different style of table, but the "pixel blems" in the face are unchanged - i.e. same photo of Martha.

One defense anyone can apply, if it really matters $69(US) worth to you, is to get a copy of Photoshop Elements 2.0 and look closely at suspect images. Even without much experience, you can often see where "effects" have been applied. Becoming "proficient" with the program takes a little effort, but you can do basic "detective work" with little training. With a little practice, it's surprisingly easy to get pretty good at it. Becoming proficient at creating fake images quite obviously takes more than a little effort, since most of the "web fakes" are badly done and still pretty easily detected. And once you've seen "where it is in the pixels" you get better at seeing fakery without computer aids.

John

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: dianavan
Date: 04 May 04 - 12:13 AM

Of course I'm not saying it shouldn't be used but should it be used by photojournalists?

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: Art Thieme
Date: 03 May 04 - 11:50 PM

I worked on just about all of my photos from the folk scene that are posted now at http://rudegnu.com/art_thieme.html

PhotoShop is pretty amazing but even Ansel Adams did strange dodging things to most of his photos to enhance aspects he wanted more luminescent than they were on the negative. I wonder what he'd've done with Photo Shop!? What we need to do is just get used to the fact that photography has changed. National Geographic told everyone when they had changed a photograph. They thought that putting that mark on the picture to indicate the change ought to be the way everyone ought to do it now that digital altering is the name of the game all over.

One of my photos was of Studs Terkel and Win Stracke sitting in front of a book case that had a Coke bottle on it. My friend Larry Rand removed the Coke Bottle---and it made a better photo out of it.


Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: pdq
Date: 03 May 04 - 10:42 PM

Through enhanced photography, we have recently located Bill Clinton's conscience.

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: Rapparee
Date: 03 May 04 - 10:07 PM

I use Photoshop Elements and I've used Photoshop 6 (and 7). Currently I'm engaged in an on-again off-again project to digitize a couple hundred family photos and burn them to a CD so that the whole family can share them.

One picture was taken (dated by the rip-off, one day at a time calendar on the wall) as the Sunday two weeks before the attack at Pearl Harbor. We knew the place it was taken and the two men in the photo, but the right half of the picture had gone white (most of these were developed in home darkrooms). When it was scanned, a picture of my late Aunt Helen appeared in ghostly outline -- we'd recovered something that had been utterly lost!

A couple weeks ago I scanned pictures of petroglyphs which had been taken about 1906. No surprises, but I've now renovated photos which were fading away -- they're currently in the sepia stage.

I've also digitally altered various things -- logos, for instance. These were done for work.

Have I done other things? Yes, for practice. I put the face of good friend on a dominatrix and sent it to my friend -- she loved it and sent it on to her daughters as "Mom's new profession." I also delighted my 10 year old nephew by turning him into a vampire (photographically, I mean).

I most emphatically wouldn't do anything to alter anything substantial. Faking a photo, such as moving Kerry closer to Hanoi Jane, is beyond the pale.

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 May 04 - 09:01 PM

It's already happened. I've seen two photos so far (one of which was linked to in thread here on Mudcat) that somebody "PhotoShopped." The one some Mudcatter linked to showed a young John Kerry sitting next to Jane Fonda at an anti-war rally. He was there, but he was sitting several rows back, not beside her. Someone was trying to make a political point, and with modern technology, there is more than one way to tell a convincing lie. Another one showed Washington State Senator Patty Murray (shortly after she delivered a hard-charging speech in opposition to Congress giving Bush free war powers) playing a guitar (D-Model) with Saddam and a group of other Middle-East baddies standing behind her, labeled "Taliban Patty," but it was so crudely done it wouldn't have fooled anyone who didn't want to be fooled (the head was too big for the body and nobody but Quasimodo could hold his or her neck at quite that angle).

I also heard of a case a few years ago (but still recent enough for "PhotoShopping") where someone used a photo showing a man carrying a briefcase as he walked out of a building as evidence in what I vaguely recall was a spy case (can't recall the details at all, but someone else here may). The man accused said that he remembered the occasion in the photo very well, but he absolutely was not carrying the accusatory briefcase. He insisted that the photo had been altered, and that had he wanted to get the contents of the briefcase out of the building, he wouldn't have been stupid enough to carry it out in the briefcase in plain sight. As I recall, experts did manage to establish that it had been altered, but said the job was darn close to undetectable.

It does make ya wonder. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: Bill D
Date: 03 May 04 - 05:38 PM

They used to 'fix' photos a lot...but it was much harder and more tedious to dodge and burn and re-photograph...etc. Removing someone was not too hard...the Russians removed from Kremlin pics some who had been 'removed' otherwise, but adding them back in was quite tricky...until now.
Still...there are ways to judge a digital image and detect 'many' type of alteration.

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 03 May 04 - 05:24 PM

There likely isn't a single photograph you'll see in in a magazine that HASN'T been doctored in some way....

Assume every pic you see has been....

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: Megan L
Date: 03 May 04 - 05:20 PM

I had to clean up some photos for a publication my ex boss did on a local theatre, I had no problem with removing foxing, scratches and tears. My husband han no photograph of his parents sitting close together and i did on that occasion remove other people from a photo and move them together so the family would have a decent photo of their now deceased parents together, but it has frightening possibilities, man is getting to clever for his own good.

Bye the bye photographs were fiddled with long before digital imaging, it was just harder to do.

Subject: RE: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 03 May 04 - 05:11 PM

I agree dianavan. I was shocked ten years ago to learn that National Geographic had altered an image for a cover. It was only to clear up a smudge or something, and they told everyone, but I found it quite ominous.

Subject: BS: digitally enhanced photography
From: dianavan
Date: 03 May 04 - 05:06 PM

The recent photographs of the abused Iraqi prisoners has brought to light a very real problem in our digital world. I am not saying that those photographs were doctored but many have been alluding to the possibility.

There is an interesting website about Irish Folk Musicians by Jim Maginn and he first alerted me to the dangers of digitally enhanced photographs when I accused him of doing just that. He is advocating for the inclusion of a small symbol which denotes digital enhancement. This, of course, is to ensure that the public is not misled and would go far toward protecting the integrity of photojournalism.

Lets face it, with todays technology, can you be sure that the pictures you are seeing are an acurate rendition of the event?