Friday, March 09, 2007

The World According to Photoshop

Adobe is about to add authentication tools to Photoshop. These will detect image manipulations. Reuters is working with both Adobe and Canon on this technology; last year a Reuters photograph taken during the war in Lebanon turned out to be doctored. This is important, but it's hard to know where to draw the line. There was the systematic airbrushing conducted by Stalin's goons - see this amazing site - but, at the other end of the scale, there are the routine enhancements applied by any picture desks. I would guess no image in contemporary journalism is entirely untouched. Fashion shoots are so heavily manipulated they should more accurately be regarded as paintings of the models. And, anyway, what is 'untouched'? A camera 'touches' reality and the resulting picture is a highly artificial construct which we call 'real'. This conception of the 'real' is a convention, but, since it is more or less universal, it must be respected - hence Adobe's attempts to police its own technology. But the truth is that Photoshop's unprecedented power has destroyed our faith in the image's claim to authenticity. This means the news photographer must become more like the reporter. We must trust him to do the right thing because we know the technology won't.

7 comments:

  1. Very interesting. And since Photoshop has evolved into the generally accepted verb to describe such manipulation (usually with a negative connotation), no surprise on Adobe's part.

    A case in point, recently highlighted by Popbitch:

    "The joys of photoshopping?

    The News of The World last week had a large photo of Amy Winehouse at the Brits with white powder all over her nostrils. Curiously, the photo appeared to be exactly the same as a shot supplied to many media outlets by a leading paparazzi agency. Except in this version, Amy's nose is totally gak-free."

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  2. The 2006 Reuters photo was a terrible attempt. The cloning was far too obvious. Hopefully (for legal reasons) traditional cameras will stay around for a long time. Did Iraq have photographic 'proof' of WMD's? Mmm maybe one? Copy, paste, copy, paste, copy, paste...

    OK sounds nerdy, but I'd like to see the real film proof of the Apollo Moon Landing!

    Ah the power of a successful brand. Upload or Google an image and Photoshop it later! Its like a whole new language.

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  3. Indeed, that which we call 'real'. The human eye 'touches' reality too and, arguably, is less trustworthy than the camera. Even if I saw something with my own two eyes, I'd prefer to have a photo to be sure I saw what I saw. Cameras can't see what they want to see, only we can do that.

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  4. So, we go to YouTube and other sites where individuals supply photos. Less likely to have the technology required to do all that manipulating.

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  5. The photo in the upper right has undoubtedly had extensive work done and I will no longer trust it as fact.

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  6. You may have missed it, Sand Storm, but I posted the untouched pic of myself on March 2nd.

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  7. The deeper question becomes "Is there an objective reality that exists independent of our perceiving it? Or do we exist merely ephemerally within this universe of our own construction? Harking back to Descartes et al. We really do live within the Matrix...

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