What's missing in this debate is the purpose for which the image is being used. Modifying a news photo (whether digitally or otherwise) is probably intolerable, although there are obvious exceptions (e.g. sharpening an blurred photo to read a license plate). Similarly, a photo meant to document a scene or animal probably shouldn't be modified except to bring out detail already contained in the photo.
<p>
But most images are used simply because they look good. As long as these images are not used to deceive (e.g. part of a sales brochure to sell Flordia swampland), then it doesn't really matter how they were created - the editors who select the pictures for their magazine won't care whether the image came from a camera or a computer, they're just interested in putting the image in their art-oriented magazine.
<p>
An analogy can be made to TV and movies. Heavy digital editing a la Jurassic Park is perfectly acceptable, even desirable if the purpose is pure entertainment. For news or documentaries, it becomes more problematic, which is why news programs have been criticized for the staged "dramatic recreation." A tricky middle ground is the entertaining documentary: Movies like Apollo 13 and Titanic are meant primarily for entertainment; yet both directors took great pains to be as historically and scientifically accurate as possible in their special effects (both digital and conventional).
<p>
It's an issue that's hit medium after medium as computer technology has improved enough to make reproductions and modifications practically indistinguishable from originals. It's hit the music industry in the form of lip synching and "live" concerts being pre-recorded. Now it's hit photography. Soon we'll be discussing digitally modified home videos. Telling the people who do these things to go away won't accomplish anything. For better or for worse, digital manipulation is here to stay, and photographers are going to have to learn to coexist.
<p>
Developing accepted standards and markings which distinguish "original" images from "enhanced" images from "modified" images is a good start.
Ethics of divulging digital manipulation-Who should tell?
in Nature
Posted
What's missing in this debate is the purpose for which the image is being used. Modifying a news photo (whether digitally or otherwise) is probably intolerable, although there are obvious exceptions (e.g. sharpening an blurred photo to read a license plate). Similarly, a photo meant to document a scene or animal probably shouldn't be modified except to bring out detail already contained in the photo.
<p>
But most images are used simply because they look good. As long as these images are not used to deceive (e.g. part of a sales brochure to sell Flordia swampland), then it doesn't really matter how they were created - the editors who select the pictures for their magazine won't care whether the image came from a camera or a computer, they're just interested in putting the image in their art-oriented magazine.
<p>
An analogy can be made to TV and movies. Heavy digital editing a la Jurassic Park is perfectly acceptable, even desirable if the purpose is pure entertainment. For news or documentaries, it becomes more problematic, which is why news programs have been criticized for the staged "dramatic recreation." A tricky middle ground is the entertaining documentary: Movies like Apollo 13 and Titanic are meant primarily for entertainment; yet both directors took great pains to be as historically and scientifically accurate as possible in their special effects (both digital and conventional).
<p>
It's an issue that's hit medium after medium as computer technology has improved enough to make reproductions and modifications practically indistinguishable from originals. It's hit the music industry in the form of lip synching and "live" concerts being pre-recorded. Now it's hit photography. Soon we'll be discussing digitally modified home videos. Telling the people who do these things to go away won't accomplish anything. For better or for worse, digital manipulation is here to stay, and photographers are going to have to learn to coexist.
<p>
Developing accepted standards and markings which distinguish "original" images from "enhanced" images from "modified" images is a good start.
<p>
John Kim