2010-04-06 We Are The Network: Trends and Ethics in Image Enhancement and Alteration
Trends and Ethics in Image Enhancement and Alteration
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every Tuesday at 12PM noon U.S. Pacific / SL time
This Tuesday, Apr 6, at the Epoch Institute in Second Life™
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This Week’s Topic
Trends and Ethics in Image Enhancement and Alteration
Advances in image manipulation and enhancement software have made it ever easier to enhance, or modify, images in ways that look natural and would not be noticed readily as altered. This trend is not new, however the technologies for manipulating images are getting radically easier. “Normal people” can now seamlessly alter images in ways that used to require significant expertise in advanced tools. One example of the new tools generation is the “Content Aware Fill” feature that is bound to ship shortly with Photoshop CS5 (linked below in the reading links section). This tool has now made it possible for almost anyone to make major structural alterations to images no more effort than selection a region of the image and clicking a few checkboxes.
How will ever-advancing image manipulation capabilities, and the drive to provide these as consumer-easy features, change our views of the world? Legal challenges and discussions of ethics continue to multiply as these capabilities appear. Will image modification become “the status quo” for every use, or will news, reporting and education resist these temptations? Major publications have answered ethics challenges with the comment that they just exercised industry standards of image manipluation. Does this mean that extensive image manipulation is now the norm across industries? Are attempts to contain image manipulation based on ethics arguments too little, too late? Where is image enhancement and alteration headed, and how will ethics of image integrity and enhancement change to keep up with these changes?
Join us Tuesday at 12PM noon SL for an interactive discussion, and thanks for being part of “We Are The Network”!
Best regards,
Joel
Reading links below – have fun and see you soon!
Photoshop CS5 Content Aware Fill Sneak Peek Demo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH0aEp1oDOI
The Biggest Retouching Scandals, via Gone Hollywood
http://gone-hollywood.com/2010/01/the-biggest-retouching-scandals/
Microsoft Apologies for Racially Charged Image Alteration, via PC World
http://www.pcworld.com/article/170820/microsoft_apologizes_for_racially_charged_image_alteration.html
Every Contact Leaves a Trace, blog for Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination
http://mechanisms-book.blogspot.com/2008/06/every-contact-leaves-trace.html
Demi Moore Sues over “Altered” Photo on W Cover
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Demi-Moore-Sues-over-Altered-Photo-on-W-Cover-130928.shtml
10 News Photos that took Retouching Too Far
http://www.10000words.net/2009/05/10-news-photos-that-took-photoshop-too.html
To Retouch or Not to Retouch, That is the Question
http://creativebits.org/retouch_or_not_retouch_question
Chapter Six, Picture Manipulations, by Paul Martin Lester, from Photojournalism: An Ethical Approach
http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/chapter6.html
Kate Doesn’t Like Photoshop: Digital Ethics
http://photoshopnews.com/2005/04/03/kate-doesnt-like-photoshop/
A Thread about Reactions to Retouching on “Retouch Pro” Forum
http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/photo-retouching/20659-ethics-retouching.html
Digital Custom Model Ethics Guidelines
http://www.digitalcustom.com/howto/mediaguidelines.asp
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Thanks for attending!
Joel Foner (Second Life: Joel Savard)
http://joelfoner.com/about
http://twitter.com/JoelFoner
Sorry I missed it! Crazy day at work, then I had to meet with an instructor from last quarter.
The input I had to offer was that image alteration should definitely be left out of the news. But I see National Geographic as more art than news. As artists’ subjects sometimes get political (such as the graffiti artist who won awards for his portrait of Barack Obama), the lines between news and art become blurred. It’s important to recognize the publisher’s main interest. National Geographic places a high priority on evoking emotion with its imagery, and that’s art.
It’s important that artists’ rights be preserved – artistic license is an important part of the craft. But the news is a different kind of craft, and it doesn’t need altering. It’s about the truth, and that’s it.
Alteration is also appropriate in advertising. Consumers may consider that an ethical issue, but advertising is about making more money for the ad buyer. They pay money for the advertising, so they deserve to have it pay off. Say, for instance, a sales rep is visiting a client on a certain day that was planned 4 weeks in advance, and the rep is to take pictures of the client’s property on a day that turns out to be a dark and dreary day that looks like a storm is brewing. With a very tight production window, the rep has to take the picture that day and then move on to another client. With these circumstances, the picture taken that stormy day must later be altered by a designer, or it’s so unattractive it’s misleading. The designer takes down the cyan level a little, bumps up yellow a bit, and drops in some pretty blue sky with fluffy white clouds instead of the dismal gray. An experienced designer can make the photo look like it was taken in weather that’s typical for the client’s peak season. And that’s the point of the ad.
So there’s my take – I welcome comments to follow!
And oh for those in the We Are the Network group who don’t know who Elizabeth Whitmire is, look for me in Second Life as Beth Walcher.
It was a fascinating discussion I think we blabbed on for over 2 hours!
Thanks for your comments @Elizabeth, and I hope to see you again soon.
There was strong agreement about the need for artistic license. In addition the discussion focused a lot on the news and journalism issues, and the blurring of lines between journalism and entertainment, with news outlets feeling the need to compete in terms of entertainment value – thus driving questionable image integrity decisions. We had a couple of folks from the news industry internationally in the discussion (including @RolandLegrand from Belgium!), and they brought in some interesting perspectives.
Thanks @Angie – it was great to have you there too!