Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/04/04
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Yup, and occasionally they get caught and fired. Jack Herron 8118 E. 20th St. Tucson, AZ 85710 520 885-6933 - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tim Atherton" <tim@KairosPhoto.com> To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us> Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2003 5:30 PM Subject: RE: [Leica] fired for photoshopping > In a way, what we are talking about is "Photoshop Creep" > > It goes something like this: > > In the "old" days it was just black and white - if you were lucky, and the > deadline wasn't too tight, you could play with the image a bit - different > contrast paper. darken the skies a bit , do a bit of dodging here and there > to make the picture feel a bit more like you thought it should look. > > Then came colour and you couldn't do much with it, but pretty soon, along > came Photoshop and desktop scanners. > > The colour processing was often not that great, so now you could clean up > some of those horrid spots with the wonderful little "rubber stamp" tool - > boy was that cool. > > And you could alter the colour and saturation a bit again. Make it look a > bit more how you think it should. > > And Photoshop's so cool you can fool around with it - stick the editors head > on the body of that huge fat guy you did a story on who was so big they had > to take the wall of his house down to get him out. That one sure looked > funny stuck on the office wall. > > But every now and then when no-one was looking, you got rid of that > telegraph pole that stuck out of the top of some kids head, or that > disembodied hand that somehow got in the edge of that great picture (hey - > in the "old" days you would have just cropped it anyway right?) > > And then they went all digital and it became even easier. No more sitting > there scanning - just do everything on the desktop. No-one even knows that > the original had those annoying power lines were there in the sky or not - > and you only do it every now and then, just to improve things. Just like > taking out the odd dust spot from the CCD. > > The pay is really crap, the competitions tight and you probably had to pay > for most of this really expensive digital gear out of your own pocket > anyway. So, if you can just touch things up every now and then to make the > picture sing a bit more (as the "manipulated" picture in question does, > compared to the other to), then go ahead and do it - it's not really that > much different than Don McCullin printing his skies so dark and ominously in > every picture it looks like it's just about to rain. Sure, most of the time, > it's dust, and sharpening and colour and contrast, maybe the odd wire or > lamppost. But occasionally, just getting rid of something a bit more > obvious, or moving something just a bit (after all, the photograph itself is > artificial - an inhuman 1/250th of a second - everyone was moving anyway) - > if it somehow makes the picture just that bit better. > > NOW - if you don't think something like this is happening in almost every > newsroom in the country, you're fooling yourself. It's never really talked > about, but everyone knows it goes on, to some degree or another. > > tim > > > > > -- > To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html > - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html