Digitally altering an image

[Marc Lucas]

Just wonder what the criteria is/is not deemed digitally altering an image?

 

For simple colour adjustments and exposure/contrast/vibrance etc are they deemed digitally altering or does it refer to more radical procedures?

 

 

Thanks

[Ed Rooney]

Yes, Marc, they are referring to high-end Photoshop manipulation. Routine post processing, like adjusting exposure, contrast, noise reduction, saturation, cropping, is just normal . . . routine PP. If you move the Queen's head onto the body of a zebra, you're into digital altering. If you change the color of the ocean to red, that too is a digital alteration. I routinely pick up cigarette butts and candy wrappers in a street scene. That is NOT digital alteration. 

 

Welcome to Alamy.

[John Morrison]

If you move the Queen's head onto the body of a zebra, you're into digital altering.

 

That's also a capital offence in UK...

[Marc Lucas]

Thanks for the replies!

 

Because I shoot in RAW and like the ability to 'digitally' manipulate the image with all the mentioned tasks in the post I thought I would clarify and now need to change the description of my images because I put them as digitally altered when they aren't.

 

Thanks for the quick feedback!

[Ed Rooney]

 

If you move the Queen's head onto the body of a zebra, you're into digital altering.

 

That's also a capital offence in UK...

 

Yikes, not the Tower! (I just started reading Wolf Hall last night.)

[Imagery by Charly]

If I add filters/textures or remove unwanted items, I consider those digitally manipulated. That is correct yes?

[spacecadet]

I haven't tidied up streets, but I have removed the odd cable and bird and I don't mark those.

[Nick Jenkins]

I suspect that 'unwanted items' may need further clarification here Charly. A crisp packet or cigarette end removed is not, to my mind, manipulation, but if a bus stop or car was 'unwanted' that I would say is. If the wind can blow it away or it moves anyway (bird in the sky) then I don't think that is loss of integrity or manipulation. 

[Imagery by Charly]

Ah yes should've clarified. With removal of birds, wires, posts, trash, etc. I thought it was considered manipulation and have marked them as such. So I'm wrong in my thinking? I get removing large items like a car or plane or such would be manipulation.

[wiskerke]

I suspect that 'unwanted items' may need further clarification here Charly. A crisp packet or cigarette end removed is not, to my mind, manipulation, but if a bus stop or car was 'unwanted' that I would say is. If the wind can blow it away or it moves anyway (bird in the sky) then I don't think that is loss of integrity or manipulation. 

 

Maybe not here in Europe for most uses, But it would definitely get you sacked as a PJ in the US.

That is why you have to declare those things. You can always explain: cigarette removed from Paul's hand ;-). Or removed my own shadow.

 

This is what Reuters says:

 

ALLOWED:

 

Cropping    

Adjustment of Levels to histogram limits

Minor colour correction

Sharpening at 300%, 0.3, 0  

Careful use of lasso tool  

Subtle use of burn tool  

Adjustment of highlights and shadows

Eye dropper to check/set gray 

 

NOT ALLOWED:

 

Additions or deletions to image

Cloning & Healing tool (except dust)

Airbrush, brush, paint

Selective area sharpening

Excessive lightening/darkening

Excessive colour tone change

Auto levels

Blurring

Eraser tool

Quick Mask

In-camera sharpening

In-camera saturation styles

 

For anything that could ever be used as an editorial image in a US newspaper, this is what they would expect.

I think it's mostly nonsense, but it's what they think is a minimum standard. And they are the client.

This is the market you work for:

http://pdnpulse.com/2013/05/ny-times-public-editor-questions-t-magazine-photoshopping-policy-2.html

 

So ticking the box and declaring what you have done, is the safest way to go.

 

OK have a laugh here:

 

http://www.slideshare.net/LisaColesuk/spot-the-difference-17647228

http://www.fourandsix.com/photo-tampering-history/

http://petapixel.com/2012/08/29/the-kent-state-massacre-photo-and-the-case-of-the-missing-pole/

http://www.cbsnews.com/2300-501465_162-10013678.html

http://pdnpulse.com/2010/07/getty-photographer-fired-over-altered-golf-photo.html

http://pdnpulse.com/2012/02/photo-manipulation-scandal-follows-same-old-course.html

http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/138728/ap-drops-freelance-photographer-who-photoshopped-his-shadow-out-of-image/

http://pdnpulse.com/2010/12/ngs-photo-contest-winner-does-it-look-real-to-you.html

 

http://blogs.reuters.com/blog/archives/4327

more ethics: http://journalism.indiana.edu/resources/ethics

 

wim

[MariaJ]

I've wondered about the definition as well, as the examples given of digital manipulation show highly manipulated images (very unrealistic).

 

But from what's been mentioned above, adjusting the focus/dof post-processing would count as digital manipulation, even though nothing else was added or removed.  Correct?

 

Also I recently cleaned up some bird poop from a pier (thankfully only through photoshop).  I'm assuming I don't need to declare this as manipulated?

 

Thanks for any suggestions or clarifications.

[Nick Jenkins]

"Maybe not here in Europe for most uses, But it would definitely get you sacked as a PJ in the US."

 

My work is more outdoor photo/editorial aimed and NEVER at Reuters or similar Press outlets so maybe a different playing field? Current news/issues relies on integrity (ha!) but if a cig end is removed from a country lane in the Yorkshire Dalessurely to Heavens no one would care a monkeys? (If they even knew?). If, however, a cigarette was removed from a celebrity's hand or mouth I could 'sort of' understand.

[wiskerke]

"Maybe not here in Europe for most uses, But it would definitely get you sacked as a PJ in the US."

 

My work is more outdoor photo/editorial aimed and NEVER at Reuters or similar Press outlets so maybe a different playing field? Current news/issues relies on integrity (ha!) but if a cig end is removed from a country lane in the Yorkshire Dalessurely to Heavens no one would care a monkeys? (If they even knew?). If, however, a cigarette was removed from a celebrity's hand or mouth I could 'sort of' understand.

 

My feeling entirely, but that is not the point.

The point is what the client expects. That is why we have these rules.

And believe it or not, in the US there are vastly more rules, and they are much more adhered to, than here in old Europe.

They can have a different form though: protocols is one; but most important and least understood: the contract.

 

In this case it's the contract. You declare there was no digital manipulation. Client leases the image; somewhere down the road client does not want to pay and is looking for an excuse. See the scenario?

Now there's another US client and he/she gets a claim for let's say 25 million for using an image showing someone. The onus is on the publisher so the photographer goes unharmed. But then there's a lawyer who finds out there are in fact power lines on the spot where the image was taken, but they do not show in the picture: fake. Blame falls on the photographer. Maybe not for the full 25 million, but only for 10% or so plus legal costs. No big deal, you just don't pay. The downside: you can never go to the US any more. Oh and they will find out that your Alamy payments are through an American bank ;-)

True: I exaggerate here, but we are a lot further down the food chain than people making money in contract law.

 

wim

[spacecadet]

So there's an argument for answering 'yes' for even the slightest alteration. Then if the buyer gives a hoot, he can ask what the alteration is.

[wiskerke]

Why not just declare it? Like HDR. Which btw I totally do not find alteration at all.

If it is, one can see it. If you do not see it, it's just good old darkroom skills. I used darkroom techniques with 2 or 3 developers; dodging and burning with multigrade filters; pre-flashing; wet exposure; you name it - I tried it. And not ever did I think this was image manipulation. It probably was darkroom magic for some, to most it was just good skills to convey what the photographer had seen.

Image manipulation is letting Trotsky disappear. Removing Paul's cigaret.

But what about cleaning up the great looking face of Julia Roberts? No may do:  you have to let the make-up artist do that. (And you don't have to declare that.)

(rant mode off)

But as I said: it's all beside the point what I think or believe.

 

wim

[Ed Rooney]

Just when was it that this thread morphed from stock PP to photo-journalism? I guess this kind of thing became inevitable when Alamy opened it "news feature" element. For a newbie, though, who asks what he or she thinks is a simple question, looking for a simple answer, all this cross-pollination is not very helpful.

 

If I were going out to shoot what would be called hard news or PJ work, I would set the camera up for Fine jpegs and do almost no post processing. I almost did this a month ago when here in NYC we introduced the Citi Bike bicycle sharing program . . . but I thought, "We are a late comer to this party, way behind Washington DC, Paris, London and Montreal, so how much interest can I expect?" In the end I decided not to bother to try to make what I saw as the deadline for uploading. My PJ days are long gone. 

 

As I said many times, I view my own stock-shooting approach as Romantic Realism, that is I pick up butts and candy wrappers. Reuters says no to: Cloning & Healing tool (except dust). For stock, I consider butts and wrappers as dust. Of course on any particular image I take the Fifth. That is, "I respectful decline to answer that question on the grounds that my answer may intend to incriminate me." 

[Niels Quist]

 

If you move the Queen's head onto the body of a zebra, you're into digital altering.

 

That's also a capital offence in UK...

Breach of Court or RSCPA etiquette?

[wiskerke]

Just when was it that this thread morphed from stock PP to photo-journalism? I guess this kind of thing became inevitable when Alamy opened it "news feature" element. For a newbie, though, who asks what he or she thinks is a simple question, looking for a simple answer, all this cross-pollination is not very helpful.

Since Alamy's images are being used in newspapers; news magazines; on tv; news blogs; internet newspapers, etc I guess.

Anybody with big G wanting to chime in here? What are G*y's rules?

 

wim

[Ed Rooney]

 

Just when was it that this thread morphed from stock PP to photo-journalism? I guess this kind of thing became inevitable when Alamy opened it "news feature" element. For a newbie, though, who asks what he or she thinks is a simple question, looking for a simple answer, all this cross-pollination is not very helpful.

Since Alamy's images are being used in newspapers; news magazines; on tv; news blogs; internet newspapers, etc I guess.

Anybody with big G wanting to chime in here? What are G*y's rules?

 

wim

 

You don't have enough rules and lists of rules? You want to cast your net for yet more rules? I began working as a photographer in 1960—all that time thinking for myself, yet I've never been sued. Just lucky, eh?

[wiskerke]

Ed,

 

Shot at yes, sued never ;-)  Or, as I've learned to say in the East: Not yet. ;-)

Knowing the competition enemy is always useful. Whether they wave a red book; a black book or a law book.

Oh boy we are helping the OP not a bit are we. Still would really like to know G's rules. 

 

wim

[Ed Rooney]

Never took it personally when they shot at me . . . since they missed. I tried to figure out a way to let them know that I was an Italian PJ, not a Yank, not military, to show them my Lasciapassare. (Okay, I'm not really an Italian or a Communist, but I am an American Democrat.)

 

Getty's rules? Are we not allowed to say Getty? There's another rule broken. 

 

I was with the Big G when they first acquired Tony Stone Images. I guess they had different rules then, and I remember little of that time, the transfer. I asked them to return my chromes, which they eventually did. I had taken another path, away from photography. 1960? Was that before or after the Crimean War?

[Richard Baker]

" ..Minor colour correction"

 

Do people consider desaturation (usually 30-40%) as altered?

 

" .. the Queen's head onto the body of a zebra .."

 

I beseech you lay your head on the block, forthwith Master Rooney - for the health of the realm.

[Marc Lucas]

Thanks for the constructive replies to the thread, thanks!

[Lynn Palmer]

What about perspective corrections and removal of floating tree branches, palm fronds or other unwanted objects at the edge of the image?

[spacecadet]

I think it is up to you to apply the guidelines and only worry if you end up in the New York Times.

A lot of great British news pictures I can think of from film and paper days would fall foul of those American rules.