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Keep those raw files: WPP disqualifies 22% of 2015 entries


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<p><a href="http://www.pdnonline.com/news/awards/competitions/How-World-Press-Photo-Catches-Image-Manipulators-13819.shtml">Unauthorized editing led to 22% of submissions being disqualified from the World Press Photo competition this year, way up from 8% in 2014</a>.</p>

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<p>"We were shocked by the 22 percent,” (WPP managing director Lars) Boering admits. “Industry veterans I spoke to, the jury chair, everyone, just shocked. We thought it would be lower than the year before."</p>

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<p> And, again, this experience demonstrates why it's essential for photojournalists and documentary photographers to keep the original camera raw files (not proprietary raw-to-Adobe-DNG conversions) or, at the very least, the original SOOC JPEGs.</p>

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<p>...in the case of RAW files—it’s extremely difficult to disguise editing. “You cannot cover your tracks in a RAW file,” Boering says. Hany Farid, a professor of computer science at Dartmouth College and a leading expert on imaging forensics, concurs. “Because of the proprietary nature of RAW formats, it would be very difficult to open, edit and repackage a RAW image,” Farid tells us.<br>

<em>- See more at: http://www.pdnonline.com/news/awards/competitions/How-World-Press-Photo-Catches-Image-Manipulators-13819.shtml#sthash.7bNJI4je.dpuf</em></p>

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<p>I wonder if, at some point, the members of the WPP competition committee will fail to be so shocked and will even consider updating their competition rules. I'm not quite sure, to be honest, how I feel. On the one hand, it's extremely important to maintain journalistic integrity. On the other hand, I imagine a sizable degree of integrity could be maintained with some modifications to the strictness of the rules about what is considered editing that would impact the validity or integrity of a journalistic photo. The world of photography has changed. And our understanding of what truths and accuracies photos can convey and how they can do that and with what impositions by the photographer is kind of having to change as well, or at least I think it's worth considering whether it's possible. Integrity is the key, and there are many ways to arrive there.</p>
We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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<p>The current standards for photojournalism are much stricter than when I was in journalism. Back in the 1980s one of the standard college texts for photojournalism and editing permitted modifications that nowadays would violate today's standards. And it's arguable whether there would be any ethical problems.</p>

<p>For example, back then it was considered permissible to eliminate an inconsequential distraction, such as a bright bare lamp over the main subject's head, or a utility pole growing out of someone's back. Or to remove a distracting logo from a cap or shirt.</p>

<p>During the past few years some really good photos have been similarly altered -- inconsequential to the primary subject or entire context -- resulting in the photographers' submissions being disqualified.</p>

<p>By current standards, <a href="http://petapixel.com/2013/09/12/marked-photographs-show-iconic-prints-edited-darkroom/">the iconic work of Magnum master printer Pablo Inirio</a> might result in disqualification or allegations of ethical violations. Some current standards could be interpreted as prohibiting selective dodging/burning and contrast control to better isolate a subject against a busy background, to compensate for exposure error, etc.</p>

<p>Personally I believe some of these standards may have gone too far. But these stricter rules are the inevitable result of photographers themselves going too far in pursuit of a high impact, award winning photograph, making alterations that were ethical problems by almost any standards: cloning to fill gaps in a crowd; selectively altering light, shadow and contrast in ways that did not and could not have existed at the scene. And it's increasingly difficult to capture the viewer's attention with traditional still photography in the news. There's a temptation to push the boundaries in pursuit of a memorable image.</p>

<p>It's particularly problematic when state of the art digital cameras are capable of dynamic range beyond anything seen before, and in-camera JPEG processing capable of wringing out detail that wasn't possible a decade ago, or even a few years ago. There's pressure on less well-heeled photographers to compensate in the digital darkroom for shortcomings in their "obsolete" cameras.</p>

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<p>As Fred, I find it difficult to really pin down what to think about what they're doing. In part I can understand the reasoning about the rules, and how one could feel this serves a goal of maintaining a certain level of integrity.</p>

<p>At the same time, the edge cases are really muddy grey areas; the assumption that seems central that un unmodified raw file is more true or integer than an edited final jpeg/print/.... is rather shaky ground. Journalism is much about points of view, not about a single truth. What is integrity to start with? So even that unedited, never-touched, file isn't necessarily an integer thing. Choice of where to put focus, focal length and so on can all frame a scene such that it takes on a different meaning than others may have perceived at the very same moment. It's editing and directing a scene as much as Photoshop does. So, where does the manipulation become too much? I think the 'limit' is rather arbitrary, at the same time it is extremely hard to think of better alternatives too. <br>

Having the raw alongside the final result to compare, and to judge if the post-processing is coherent, in line and authentic to what the journalist originally recorded isn't a bad thing. But how to fix those rules, apart from accepting the human nature of judges, and take it as it comes? No idea.</p>

<p>I think Lex sums it very well; striking the right balance between the post-processing of the image and the pursuit of eye-catching headline photos is a tricky one, and the access to the technology to make that headliner happen has become a lot easier. While the problem isn't new at all, its increase shouldn't come as much of a surprise. A newer generation photographers will only be more used to having photoshop around for some fixes and brushing up; I don't see this problem going away any time soon, and certainly not grow less. But I guess the WPP organisation has as much trouble defining decent and usable rules as much as we do.</p>

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<p>I'm sad there is a just <em>words</em> discussion about image ethics that aren't really supported by a lot of participants.<br>

Folks who want to see ethics lived should provide understandable example images of yes / no for each of their deamands, followed by borderline case demos, the latter preferably with instructions how to "get away" with something by doing whatever.<br>

An IMHO even bigger question: If they define "press photo" by their ethics, what are the terms for a publication or images that doesn't follow these? - Over here we have a long tradition of doing consumer protection by urging the producer of similar products from less pure ingredients to come up with another name for these.</p>

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<p>Wow, your photo could be given the boot on ethical grounds if it was oversharpened?! That might be a violation of good taste, but come on! Disqualified because of excessive manipulation? Because the scene wasn't really that sharp? What's next? Will color correction be disallowed? All tungsten shots must appear orange-yellow, and all fluorescent shots green? I'm glad my own work doesn't have to satisfy anyone else's ethical standards.</p>
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<p>If the adjustment brings the appearance of the shot closer to how the viewer in person would have seen it, then it should be fine. I don't see why this would be controversial. The idea is to preserve the documentary (communicating facts) nature of photojournalism, as opposed to art and fiction where anything goes.</p>

<p>In my opinion a huge problem with professional journalism is that a lot of it is sensationalistic instead of factual, and so in a way it is not surprising if most media have little credibility left. The outcome is that the general public starts to prefer free content instead of paying for journalism if they don't see the difference in the quality and factuality of the content. A kind of information chaos results since fact checked content and fabrications get the same amount of visibility online. Professional journalism can only survive if it distinguishes itself by its superior quality and trustworthiness. Having high standards for photographic integrity (as well as the text of course) is a part of the requirements for restoring credibility, if it is to happen. It is not at all a given that society supports professional journalism; this type of trust has to be earned especially when now there is an alternative. Some people today think that mobile phone snaps are more direct and likely to be more honest representations of what happened than professionally prepared and edited (including post-processing) images where the photographer and editors have the skill and may in some cases have the motivation to alter what they saw deliberately.</p>

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<p>I agree with Ilkka, and I think the WPP has no problem with that. I am in favor of the WPP rules. If you have a standard, then you should stick to it, and their rules do not seem onerous - perhaps the shots will not end up having the smack-you-in-the-face impact they could have had with extensive manipulation, but so what? They are there to tell a story and represent something real. If the photographer wants to show a slightly different processed version later they can do so in their own time.</p>
Robin Smith
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<p>Is a photo valid in the WPP competition if, for example, the photographer waited for the sun to come out which resulted in a more contrasty shot than the moment before when clouds were filtering the light and things appeared softer? Is a photo valid in the WPP competition if a strong shadow, naturally captured, imposes a more dramatic texture than had the photographer snapped the moment before the shadow appeared? Photographers impose things on documentary and photojournalistic shots all the time by the choices they make, whether they intend to or not. Putting more restrictions on processing than other potentially biasing photographic methodologies, to me, represents a bias in itself about the entire photographic process, which includes framing/composition, lighting, perspective, and many other things. If I kneel down and shoot up at someone giving them a "heroic" view, have I broken a rule? Such a perspective can be extremely influential? If I shoot Richard Nixon smiling and playing with his dog, unmanipulated in the darkroom, digital or analog, natural as the day is 24 hours long, have I given the viewer the "truth" about Nixon? I've seen all kinds of biased news reporting that had nothing to do with the processing of the photos and everything to do with one-sided perspectives, stuff left out of the frame, etc.</p>

<p>The only thing a photo ever represents to me is a reality of the perspective of the photographer at the time. No photo has ever shown me THE reality. The viewer has as much responsibility as the photographer in understanding what a single photo is showing her or him.</p>

We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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<p>The problem, Fred, is that we've seen examples of agenda-minded photographers doing things like cloning in extra billows of smoke to make conflict in a contested area look more extensive than it actually was. If a journalism organization (the publisher, or a guild-like organization like the WPP) don't insist on standards that put such manipulation completely outside of acceptable, their entire area of work is then seen as untrustworthy.<br /><br />Yes, a photographer who gathers a dozen young otherwise idle men and has them light up their Molotov cocktails and some burning tires, and uses a long lens to, through careful choice of perspective, make them appear to completely fill a theatrically flaming street in an area where there's not actually anything going on ... absolutely deceptive. But that doesn't mean that the contest judging organization should subject themselves to the very real criticism that would come with using looser standards and then having to decide with clone/healing-brush use is capriciously, subjectively OK and which is not. I completely understand their desire to put hard limits on post-production fiddling. Compositing in the moon is not the same as waiting around for the moon to rise. </p>
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<p>I wonder, would automatic Digital Lens Optimization during RAW conversion disqualify an image? Canon's Digital Photo Professional processing software includes a DLO module that corrects for geometric distortion, chromatic aberration, vignetting, etc. automatically (if enabled) for each focal length and aperture. Some Canon bodies apply DLO to in-camera JPGs. Hence, it might be within the rules to use a DLO corrected in-camera JPG, but not for an image taken as RAW and converted in Canon's own DPP, with DLO enabled. If they're going to do pixel-level comparisons to the RAW file, I think that DLO adjustments will show up as alterations.</p>
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<p>Matt, you're using extreme examples, which I can understand, to make a point. But, in a sense, it's also proving a point. Which is that you understand the difference between extreme examples and much less extreme examples, which is why you chose the extreme ones. Less extreme examples of post processing may not have the same effect as cloning in something that wasn't there. My point in bringing up waiting for a cloud to go by was by no means to justify cloning in of material as much as it was to help us consider what are reasonable photographer impositions and what are unreasonable photographer impositions.</p>

<p>I've never been one to like zero tolerance policies. They tend to be mindless and tend to give authorities cover in using a broad brush when nuance and a careful look at each situation would produce a better outcome.</p>

We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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<p>The <a href="http://nicolettedeboer.nl/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/12-030.jpg">photo on this book cover</a> came to my mind; I'm sure I've linked to it before in earlier discussions around this theme. Sure, there is a difference between waiting for the moon to rise and cloning it in. But in some countries, press meetings are tightly organised propaganda trips, and not playing along is risking your life. Getting the 'real' shots is made impossible. Those photos are as tightly designed as something that was drawn in Photoshop in the first place, it just happens to happen on-site.<br /> Now, those directed photos are unlikely to show up for WPP, as they're bog standard, but still, it's fair to say the concern is very related, and that manipulations in Photoshop etc. sometimes aren't half as bad as the manipulations that happen before the photographer presses the shutter. It's not a simple "either/or" situation, and for better or worse, the WPP rules do seem to make it such.<br /> Still, as said earlier, I think the WPP rules make sense as all alternatives for something better are pretty impossible and would always end in endless debate.</p>
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<p>This is exactly the kind of thinking that has resulted in criminal laws being written so that almost everyone is guilty of something these days: the idea that if we can regulate it or make a law about it because someone, somewhere may be offended, we should. I guess some people think that is a good idea, but I do not.</p>
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<p>We seem to have shifted our understanding of honesty to new-age relativism. Where down is up and false is truth. The standards they have for the contest and how they disqualify seem reasonable especially when discussing photojournalism. Who likes to be fooled?</p>

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<p><em>"The WPP contest rules state that the “content of an image must not be altered. Only retouching that conforms to currently accepted standards in the industry is allowed.” According to Boering, “currently accepted standards” encompass basic processing for color, tone, etc. Disqualifying manipulations are edits that materially change the image’s contents—such as excessive toning, and especially adding or removing objects from the frame. It was the latter action that implicated most of the rejected photos. “People have been focusing on the excessive toning [criteria] but that was only a small percentage of what we threw out,” Boering says."</em></p>

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<p>I am much less disturbed by the possibility of "new age relativism" than I am by the absurd Orwellian Doublespeak of statements that essentially say "Current standards are defined by what current standards are". And if removing things from photos is considered bad and current standards good, then we must assume that if I stand in a different spot from all the other photographers, thus taking a different picture then the mob decided was the right one and selectively edited the content that they decided was appropriate, I have violated the rules. From an objective standpoint, standing in a different place and cropping anything AT ALL from the total scene are all manipulations of a situation much more damaging the objectivity of the situation than removing a lightpost is.</p>

<p>The real problem here is the they are trying to define their photo winners as objective and unedited views of reality, literally true, which is a totally absurd view of what photography does or can do. In building expectations that can't possibly be met, they are damaging rather than helping the trade.</p>

<p>And when all of this is viewed in the context of what journalism now really does: pimp for power through lying for the government and business (Judith Miller/New York Times, all of Fox, Murdoch's papers, etc., etc.), I am really glad I am no longer a news photographer. Current standards? They have a lot of balls talking about "standards".</p>

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<p>Fred,</p>

<p>Your examples are allowed in the WPP rules and that is the way it should be. I think we pretty well know why the rules are there: your examples are not problematic at all. We are not talking about art we are talking journalism. There are very misleading photos taken all the time: the WPP rules are an attempt to remove one way of producing them and this seems entirely sensible to me.</p>

<p>Likewise, I do not think that WPP rules would prevent DLO use as this would fit into currently accepted standards. But if they did: it would hardly ruin a shot. I doubt think they any shots because it was used.</p>

Robin Smith
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<blockquote>

<p>At each point along the way, there are expectations for <em>how light should behave—expectations that are shaped by the geometry of the scene and the light source (for example: are shadows where they should be?)</em> all the way down to the behavior of the camera’s sensor and compression algorithms. All across this pipeline, Farid says, there are models that predict, with varying degrees of specificity, what an image from a given camera and sensor should look like at a very granular level. Deviations raise red flags.</p>

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<p>I don't see how they can distinguish the way light should behave in any given scene especially on shadows vs the amount of allowable "toning" & "color" editing that wouldn't raise red flags.</p>

<p>They're getting into splitting hair territory on this IMO especially considering editing software like Adobe's already 3 processing versions (PV2003, PV2010 & PV2012) drastically affecting shadow detail and clarity as explained in this blog on the newer laplacian tonal rendering technology in PV2012... http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2012/02/magic-or-local-laplacian-filters.html</p>

<p>I know I wouldn't want that job of deciding if the shadows look right for that scene. You can't even clone out stuff? Geez!</p>

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<p>"Question regarding the title: Is there an appeal procedure in which the raw files are used?"</p>

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<p>Beats me, I don't represent the WPP.</p>

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<p>"Can the OP please explain why it is recommended to keep the raw files?"</p>

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<p>In previous instances similar to this story, raw files were used for provenance. Some contest wording has required original manufacturer raw files. That wording may have changed, but I recall one contest a few years ago that would have disqualified raw-to-DNG conversions, as the DNG was not the OEM raw file. This wouldn't apply to cameras that do happen to use DNG as their native raw format.<br>

<br>

While I don't object to DNG conversions and can see some advantages, particularly in embedding metadata, I would definitely keep my OEM raw files even if I routinely converted to DNG. For example, I'm still using Lightroom 4.4, which can't read Fuji RAFs. I do convert to DNG for editing (although Fuji X-system JPEGs are so good they seldom need editing). But I don't discard the RAFs. I'm keeping those for provenance - I do some medical documentary photography and might be asked to provide the raw files at some point. And I'm hoping LR6 will handle RAFs better than the Adobe DNG converter, Photo Ninja, Silkypix, etc.</p>

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<p>"Among the 22% were any appealed using raw files as evidence?"</p>

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<p>I don't know, I've only read the above story so far. It doesn't go into detail about which particular entry photos were compared against raw files.</p>

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<blockquote>

<p>you can't even clone out stuff? Geez!</p>

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<p>Of course you can't. It seems obvious to me. Perhaps I should join WPPs judges...Sometimes it will be splitting hairs - but you don't have to enter the competition if you don't like the rules.</p>

Robin Smith
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<blockquote>

<p>Your examples are allowed in the WPP rules and that is the way it should be.</p>

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<p>Of course my examples are allowed in the WPP rules. My point was that many comparable things (though I don't think the same exact things) can be done in post processing and it makes little sense to allow the former without allowing the latter, just because the former impositions are done before or when shooting and the latter impositions are done in post.</p>

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<p>We are not talking about art we are talking journalism.</p>

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<p>Yes, of course, I'm aware of that. It should be obvious when reading my posts here that I'm talking about journalism/documentary and not art, since I even use those terms in the posts.</p>

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<p>you don't have to enter the competition if you don't like the rules.</p>

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<p>I did not take this thread to be about whether we want to enter the competition or not. Whether we enter has nothing to do with having opinions on the rulings of the judges and the more far-reaching stakes for journalistic integrity.</p>

We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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