Photoshop and Photography – When Is It Real?
This article brings up a good question of what can be considered genuine photography. The author talks about how a photography contest was won by two pictures that were heavily photoshopped. One picture featured a motorcyclist being chased by a tornado while the other featured flying around a lighthouse. The events in the picture did not take place, questioning their authenticity. These are extreme examples of photoshopping as the artist created a scene that never happened. In the case of this contest, these pictures should not have won. A photography contest should simply be won by the best photograph. Allowing photographers to completely render new scenes sounds like a visual design contest. I don’t disagree with cosmetically manicuring the picture such as fixing red eye, but completely re-creating a scene should not be allowed.
Do you think a photography contest should allow photoshopping?
Have you ever photoshopped one of your photos to make it more visually compelling?
Blame Photoshop, Not Diabetes, for This Amputation
I found this article amusing as New York City had to doctor a photo in order to get their health message across. If Bloomberg’s administration had such a hard time finding someone that suffered an amputation because of diabetes, maybe he should have taken a different approach to creating this awareness advertisement. They claim that there are thousands of people who suffer from this ailment every year, but they had to use a stock photo of a man who was not suffering from diabetes. There was no reason to not have a real amputee in the ad. First off, it would have been genuine. Secondly, having an actor adds more work to the process. The city had to hire a design firm to photoshop the picture. All of that could be avoided if they had a real amputee that would have gotten the same message across. After saying all of this though, I doubt anyone would have noticed the ad was fake if not for this Times article.
Do you think it makes a difference using an actor opposed to a real amputee?
Did the city gain anything by using an actor?
Smile And Say ‘No Photoshop’
This article outlines how photoshop altering exists in every magazine. It makes celebrities look perfect, as their skin is completely smooth with no hints of blemishes whatsoever. Its almost TOO smooth as the pictures look over processed and over managed. Yes, everyone wants to look like them but in reality its impossible to look like them. They can’t even look like them. In fact, the article states that people want more authenticity when looking at celebs on magazines. I also found it interesting how one celebrity can look like three different people on three different magazine covers. The Reese Witherspoon example is perfect. She looks pretty good in the first picture, although you can definitely tell its been very photoshopped. The second picture is just weird. She looks like an alien that underwent plastic surgery. The third picture is probably the most authentic that we’ll get, but you can tell she had it cleaned up.
Do you think photoshop is making celebrities look too weird sometimes?
Would you like to see more authentic celebrity pictures on magazine covers?
I Was There, Just Ask Photoshop
This article is about adding or removing people in family photos through photoshop. I found it odd that the woman in the article felt it necessary to remove her ex-husband in every vacation photo they had. Altering a picture to the point where the main content is completely erased is pointless. What is the point of having a picture taken then? Even if she hated her ex-husband, she can’t digitally remove him from her memory. Photos are meant to represent a certain moment in time. Even if the photo evokes bad memories, its still a historical document of a point in your life. It happened and theres no way to go back in time to change that. Adding people to family photos is odd as well. Why fake something that did not happen. Usually when a family photo is taken, its at a family get-together. If that person couldn’t make it, he missed the family get-together, not the photograph. I don’t think he needs to be photoshopped in to prove that hes still part of the family. The only reason to add a person to a picture is for novelty purposes, like the picture in this article of the guy with Stalin.
How do you feel about adding/removing people in photographs?
Have you ever screwed around with photoshop and added yourself to something?
No boo-boos or Cowlicks? Only In School Pictures
This article talks about how retouching has become a major part of school portraits. Parents have the option of allowing their child’s photo to be retouched in ways such as removing scars, fixing out of place hair, and even adding teeth. As the age group goes up, so does the requests for retouching. I can see how that makes sense as the older someone gets, the more aware they are about their looks. Taking a picture that will last forever in a yearbook are a big deal to some people, so many seniors get retouched. I can agree with taking away a scratch on someone’s face. The lady in the article said it best when she remarked, “My rationale was, this is not something that is part of her face,” she said. “I didn’t feel like I was changing my child.” This makes sense because its just bad timing if someone scratches their face on photo day. However, adding teeth to a gap in a child’s mouth is going overboard. First off, don’t the parents want to have an image of what their kid looked like with no teeth? Isn’t that supposed to be one of those precious moments in time? Thats taking it too far as the child’s image is being completely altered. So all in all, cosmetically photoshopping portraits is fine, but totally adding or removing features is too much.
Do you think retouching a school portrait is too much altering and not enough authenticity?
Or do you think its acceptable with the right doses of retouching?
LINKS TO COMMENTS ON Partner’s BLOG
I don’t see a problem with allowing Photoshopped photographs in photography contests. If you think about it, the majority of images today have been manipulated in some form or another, so it would seem unfair to bar these works from competitions. I do, however, think that there should be a separate contest for altered images. Or a separate level of the same contest. Having Photoshopped images for classes since high school, I would like to think some of them are good enough to enter into some sort of contest. Only a few of these have actually been pictures of myself, though, and the manipulation was limited to making my eyes and hair interesting colors. I may have even whitened my teeth, but the photographs never found their way into the stream of social media.
While I don’t think it makes a major difference whether or not the Bloomberg administration used an actor for these advertisements, I think that if they had wanted to, it would’ve been easy to find an actual amputee victim. Seeing as they are trying to raise the awareness of how often this occurs to diabetes victims, it probably would have also had a bit more of an impact to city residents. Sort of in the same way a horror movie labeled ‘based on true events’ is always scarier. Plus, it doesn’t seem like the city gained much from using a stock photo which was further edited. People might use it as an excuse like “if so many diabetes sufferers are losing their limbs, why couldn’t they find one to pose for a photo?” Though there seemed to be a critical reception to the advertisement, at least it got people talking.
I think there are too many magazine photos of celebrities that have been photoshopped into near-alienesque creatures. It’s almost getting to the point where I don’t look at these photos and think “hey I want to look like that!” Because hoping to achieve that level of flawlessness is pretty much calling a plastic surgeon and asking if you can have your eyes whitened and all of your pores removed. I would enjoy seeing some more authentic models on magazines. This doesn’t necessarily have to mean completely unretouched. It could just mean less reconstruction of facial features, like the many faces of Reese Witherspoon narrowed down to, I don’t know, her actual face?
Do you think a photography contest should allow photoshopping?
I think the only way the photography contest should allow photoshop is if they make it a separate category. People photoshopping the perfect picture is not the same as taking the perfect picture. It takes a lot more skill to take the perfect picture than to create it with photoshop. Photoshop to me is a form of cheating when it comes to photography.
Have you ever photoshopped one of your photos to make it more visually compelling?
The only time I have ever photoshopped photos was in my graphic arts class because we had to make a lot of advertisements and posters. I had to photoshop images, because sometimes they were not of good quality or were not exactly what I was looking for. Photoshop helps to get a dramatic/effective point across when creating an advertisement.
Do you think it makes a difference using an actor opposed to a real amputee?
I do not think it makes a difference. I do not think it makes a difference, because half of the time people are not even aware that it is an actor; however, it would be more effective to use a real person, because then people would believe it more.
Did the city gain anything by using an actor?
The city did not gain anything other than more time. It took them less time to find an actor rather than search for a real person who had an amputation and get them to come out to the photo shoot.
Do you think photoshop is making celebrities look too weird sometimes?
I think that sometimes photoshop is a little more than it should be. At times photoshop can be very effective and make a real image. In class, we were shown a picture of Justin Beiber and how his abs were photoshopped. Pictures like that are where photoshop goes wrong, because then it becomes unrealistic. At time famous girl celebrities faces look to clear and clay like as well.
Would you like to see more authentic celebrity pictures on magazine covers?
I would like to see more authentic celebrity picture on magazine covers. The only reason I would like to see this is so we can see the real them. Most celebrities are naturally attractive, but it would be nice to see what they look like without all the photoshop and editing. I think it would give them a strong respect from their fans as well.
How do you feel about adding/removing people in photographs?
I feel like this is entirely wrong. Pictures are meant for memories whether that memory be good or bad. Removing people from pictures is altering that memory. Years from now someone might forget that they photoshopped someone out of their picture and not even remember the real memory behind that picture. Pictures are also used historically, so pictures of us now found in the future that are altered are giving the wrong history.
Have you ever screwed around with photoshop and added yourself to something?
I have played around with photoshop before in my graphic arts class. I gave myself blonde hair and blue eyes which is the complete opposite of how I really look. I also photoshopped myself into pictures with funny backgrounds or with celebrities. It was fun to do but I would never do it seriously.
Do you think retouching a school portrait is too much altering and not enough authenticity?
I am also against this. If a school picture is altered when you look back at it you are not going to get the correct memory from it that you should. It might look good to hang up or to give to family members, but in the long run it is defeating the purpose of a picture entirely.
The act of adding or removing a person from a photograph seem a bit wrong to me. I can understand that some people are so devastated by loss that they feel a need to do a complete sweep of a person from their lives. There are many people who do not properly know how to handle grief, so there is obviously a sort of industry for this need. I would personally never do it though. Removing a person from a photo doesn’t remove them from your memory. Some of my favorite photographs since high school are with people I don’t get on well with anymore, but I would still never crop one of the people out of a photo. I mean, at the time they still were a part of my life and I wouldn’t want to create any sort of warped memory as time passed on. As for adding myself into photos, I have done it jokingly to send to my friends or for a class, but never at a serious level that involved actually misleading others to believe I was somewhere/with someone.
Retouching photographs doesn’t even seem to be a big deal anymore. It is such a prevalent act in society that it didn’t even surprise me photographers were offering the option to elementary school students. I do, however, feel that it should be limited to removing things such as schoolyard scrapes and the like. Altering a child’s natural physical imperfections could lead to development of a poor self image of said child in the future. They may be young now, but I think a kid will realize when they’re older that their parents chose to have an awkward birthmark or something removed from their face. If a parent can’t accept that type of thing, how can the child be expected to?
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