BS: Reality digitally distorted

Subject: RE: BS: Reality digitally distorted
From: Homeless
Date: 08 Aug 06 - 11:15 AM

Alice, I'm still lost. Are you against changing a photo after it's been taken, manipulating the truth photographically, exaggerating to manipulate consumers' opinions, or the use of digital means to accomplish any of the above?

"Compare pre-digital magazines to the ones we have today and you will see more idealized enhancement just because it is faster and easier to do." In a word, Bull. The only difference is that today it is done to photos and looks like a photo and in the past the idealization was done via illustrations. I've seen the perfect mom in the kitchen and the 98 pound weakling at the beach. The exaggeration in the ads hasn't changed, only the avenue of the visual representation.

So you're arguing that it isn't the degree of manipulation that's extreme, just that it's more pervasive?

regarding stretching of legs - any competent photographer can do that in the camera. It's called corrective posing. Any decent portrait photographer (I'm talking professional here, not walmart, olan mills, or their ilk) knows and uses these techniques with every client to make them look their best.
A good lab tech can (and did) stretch images in the darkroom.

Greek sculpture? Somehow I think we've gotten WAY out of the realm of digital here. Once again, it shows that manipulation is nothing new. I would think than any given sculpture back then would have had more of a per-capita impact than any given photo now.

"deliberate changes to persuade buyers to spend their money on a product" This is what marketing is. It's not new. Since food was brought up earlier in the thread, I can remember as a kid reading about how they would put motor oil in the beer on commercials and ads to give it a more golden appearance. They just did their manipulation pre-photo. It's still a lie to appear more appealing.

JohnoSC - "Reuters stringer, purporting to show massive devastation to Beirut" This is nothing new. Go to the library and do a little research on the "photo fakes" that Hitler had put together for propaganda purposes.

6- "The altering of history i.e. through distorting digital pics, documents, news articles ... anyone can do this." You have got to be kidding, right? I would bet that if every single one of us on this forum were to distort whatever things we liked, that not one piece of it would make it into "history." Just because "anyone" can do it, doesn't mean it's going to affect history. And those powerful enough to have an impact distort it before it gets to the general public anyway. You want to see distorted history? Get on any file sharing network and do a search on "banned cartoons" then ask yourself why you never see any of Disney's cartoons that had characters in blackface in them anymore. Or "Song of the South" for that matter.

Subject: RE: BS: Reality digitally distorted
From: Homeless
Date: 08 Aug 06 - 11:24 AM

Ever hear of Pallywood? Want to see real manipulation and changing of history? And they don't even need digital.
http://www.break.com/index/what_really_happens_pallywood.html
clicky

Subject: RE: BS: Reality digitally distorted
From: GUEST,Alice at library computer
Date: 09 Aug 06 - 12:33 PM

Homeless, I'm not arguing with you. I don't know why you think I am. I am just discussing the topic of how people are influenced by images.

Subject: RE: BS: Reality digitally distorted
From: Homeless
Date: 09 Aug 06 - 01:16 PM

Sorry, Alice, I meant arguing in terms of formal discussion or debate, not as in a yelling match or fight. I enjoy a good debate, and will frequently play devil's advocate for the sake of such (and occasionally I'll argue both sides of a point). Since you started this thread, I assume you feel strongly about this topic, but I'm having difficultly determining exactly what your main point is. ¿Comprende?

Subject: RE: BS: Reality digitally distorted
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 09 Aug 06 - 08:28 PM

Homeless--and I hope you;re not really--I am well aware that doctoring photos is nearly as old as photography itself. But those akes were easily detected by competant technicians. Digital images conceivably be altered so well, that one might need to find the actually computer to tace the steps of alteration. We are indeed in the world of "Winston Smith".

Subject: RE: BS: Reality digitally distorted
From: Bert
Date: 09 Aug 06 - 08:41 PM

I think that is just a question of where do you draw the line.

Even before the days of Paint Shop Pro, I don't think that I ever printed a photo exactly as the camera took it. There was always some cropping and retouching before the picture looked the way I wanted it.

Every modification is done with the intent to deceive to some extent, even if it's just to make you think that I'm a better photographer than I really am.

I guess when I do it it's OK. but when THEY do it it's wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Reality digitally distorted
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 10 Aug 06 - 10:11 AM

"those akes were easily detected by competant technicians"
False....



"Digital images conceivably be altered so well, that one might need to find the actually computer to tace the steps of alteration"
False....



"We are indeed in the world of "Winston Smith"
Bullflop.... There is no Big Brother... he died of boredom a LONG time ago....

Subject: RE: BS: Reality digitally distorted
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 10 Aug 06 - 10:20 AM

Clinton, you have asserted falsity twice, with no substantiation.
You also sort of missed my allusion to Winston Smith...it was not big brother I was refering to, but to Smith's job, which, as I recall, was to alter newspapers and books by deleting persons and events from them, or adding same where none had actually existed.
So I guess that's strike three (that's a baseball allusion, not the draconian law allusion).

Subject: RE: BS: Reality digitally distorted
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 10 Aug 06 - 10:34 AM

" You also sort of missed my allusion"
I didn't miss it... I dismissed it.... it's flawed....Without Big Brother, there is no Ministry Of Truth.... And there is NO Big Brother....

Old faked photos were not always easy to find....

altered digital images are much easier to discover....

Subject: RE: BS: Reality digitally distorted
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 10 Aug 06 - 11:03 AM

I'm happy that we agree that there is no Big Brother--and I'd bet so is GWB whose gov't has often been so compared. But modern technology has rendered Big Brother unneccessary. On our desktop computers and/or our laptops we have more computing power than was contained in large rooms of computers just 40 years ago--to say nothing of the power of nascent computing in 1948 (Orwell's publication)--so that EACH of us can become our own Winston Smith.

Subject: RE: BS: Reality digitally distorted
From: Homeless
Date: 10 Aug 06 - 12:46 PM

JohnotSC - "But those akes were easily detected by competant technicians" This is simply not true. It is correct that a bad fake is fairly easy to spot. But how do you tell a good fake?? Well done retouching, even in the early days, is not detectable. By what means can you look at a print and know for certain that no retouching has been done on it?

Bert - what you say about not printing what came from the camera has merit. As you probably know, the dynamic range of tones that film will capture is much greater than what print paper is capable of showing (which is what allows burning and dodging to work). Most cameras capture 3-5% more image on the negative than what shows in the viewfinder. Add to these two facts the options in choosing which paper you print on (such as portrait paper, high color sat, etc.) and you find that the photographer is only half done once the film is developed. IMO, the true artistic vision requires work in the darkroom. When I have a lab print my work rather than doing it myself I feel robbed.

Homeless - who is or isn't, depending on your definition.

Subject: RE: BS: Reality digitally distorted
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 10 Aug 06 - 01:04 PM

"Well done retouching, even in the early days, is not detectable."

I saw a dude on The Discovery channel not that long ago that said it's actually much easier to find a digital 'fake' than an analogue....

Subject: RE: BS: Reality digitally distorted
From: GUEST,Grab
Date: 10 Aug 06 - 01:11 PM

John, if you think it was easy to detect fakes, I suggest you look up the details of the famous "fairies" photos in Britain in the late 1800s. Fooled an awful lot of people at the time, and weren't conclusively "outed" until the kids responsible owned up. Of course, the subject matter made it a moot point, but the fact that even schoolgirls could do a good fake with an analogue camera in the late 1800s says a lot about the trustworthiness of analogue.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Reality digitally distorted
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 10 Aug 06 - 06:12 PM

Uncle! I'll agree that it is hard detect film forgeries. The next person to post that gets a fifteen yard penalty for piling on...that's a(n American) football allusion.

I do stand by my comment that we can all be Winston Smiths.

Subject: RE: BS: Reality digitally distorted
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Aug 06 - 07:36 PM

Oh yes I can!

Winston Smith.