modifying or photoshoping news images

[hmelton]

What do you think of manipulating news photos?
I can see digital enhancements such as noise filters, edge detection or enlargeing the area of importance, but increasing the amount of smoke and damage by adding cloned elements back into the picture?
/QUOTE/
Reuters withdraws photograph of Beirut after Air Force attack after US blogs, photographers point out blatant evidence of manipulation
/END QUOTE/
here is the website where the above quote came from it also has the picture that was being sent world wide by Reuters.
www.judeoscope.ca/breve.p...breve=2227
howard melton

[classicdrogn]

Hmmm... I'd have to say it's not realy any different than the kind of warped graphs that get printed pretty often, espescially for opinion polls, where the "chart" image is irrelevant to the actual margin of difference between items. That means I consider it despicable - slipshod sensationalism at its worst. It's like running a historixal piece, and putting in a still from Forrest Gump or talking about some treaty and putting together a fake handshake shot from file photos of the respective faction leaders.
- CD has done quite a bit of photoshopping, in one case including combining some photos of dead relatives who never met each other in a group shot over his objections, and so has a strong opinion on thisSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
A kung-fu nun in a leather thong was no less extreme than anything else he had seen that day. - Rev. Dark's IST: Holy Sea World
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[khagler]

Manipulating photos is a huge no-no in the news business. Even the digital manipulation you suggest can get you in trouble (a PJ was fired recently for making a color correction on a file just to match the actual color of the subject), but deliberately falsifying an image is the worst sin a PJ can commit. That guy's career is over--he'd be lucky to get a job working for the National Enquirer now.
(Photojournalism isn't really my area of photography, but I learned the rules "just in case.")

[Bob Schroeck]

I should have included the link when I first read the article last night, but Reuters now reports that the photographer now claims to have made the changes "by mistake" while trying to eliminate dust or something from the picture while working in low light.
Nobody -- not even Reuters -- is buying it.
-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

[hmelton]

khagler does PJ stand for Photo Journalist?
There is a report that claims the PJ has modified at least one other photo used by Reuters.
brain-terminal.com/posts/...ganda-pics
It didn't sound as bad as the one that got Adnan Hajj caught.
howard melton

[ECSNorway]

Apparently this photographer (who has been fired by Reuters) is also the one responsible for most of the photos coming out of Lebanon right now.
Many of which are alleged (with strong evidence) to be staged for the cameras.--
"I give you the beautiful... the talented... the tirelessly atomic-powered...
R!
DOROTHY!
WAYNERIGHT!
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Ayiekie]

So, was the original picture staged for the cameras? Because it basically looks the same without the Photoshopping, you know.
Do they kill a bunch of people and stomp on them a few times to take pictures of Lebanese corpses? Do they blow up their own buildings and then take aerial shots?
What exactly is your point? That there's no actual war going on? That Lebanese civilians are not getting killed? That their homes are not being destroyed? That the civilian infrastructure has not been attacked by Israel?
If so, you'd better let Israel know, since that contradicts their own statements on the matter, let alone those of everyone else.

[Rev Dark]

Gods...
This has never happened before! The horror!
tbogg.blogspot.com/2006/0...smoke.html
www.dailykos.com/story/20.../22442/878
bobgeiger.blogspot.com/20...le_12.html

[khagler]

Yes, PJ is photographer-speak for photojournalist.
Rev, there is one major difference: the people who photoshopped the examples you mention were probably getting paid to do so. Certainly nothing bad happened to them as a result (unless Ken Light ever caught up with the guy who violated his copyright).

[hmelton]

Political ads don't really compare to news reports.
I hold the "professional" news services to a far higher standard than any political ad.
Political ads are created by people with an axe to grind and enough anger to be easily fooled by con-men.
The unreasoning hatred many democrates have of Bush and republicans is just as bad as the unreasoning hatred many republican have of Clinton and other democrats.
Worse this hatred blinds them to the obvious fakes and makes them vulnerable to con men.
Reuters should have been checking up on their reporter's work coming out of Lebonon. The fact that such an obvious fake made it to public consumption is the sign of a possible problem.
I expect Reuters, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and FOX news to have a very high professional standard for all the stories and information they broadcast. If they are no better than the Blogs or discussion board why bother with them?
howard melton

[khagler]

Reuters is the victim in this. There's no way any media agency to "check" a photojournalist's work. It's not like they can hop in a time machine to see if that's how it really looked, after all. The process depends on the PJs being honest, and knowing that faking a photo is career suicide.
Photo editors get hundreds or thousands of photos submitted to them, and they have to go through and pick out which ones to use in just a few hours. Presumably if someone did submit an obvious fake it would be caught, but the reality is that every faked photo I've seen that was used in print wasn't obvious. These two certainly aren't, especially at the low resolutions they're reproduced on web pages.

[Rev Dark]

Shows what I get for being subtle.
The media is the message. The prime thrust of ECS Norways message was that all pictures from Lebanon were fake as one fake begets another and some were even staged for the camera. This is especially jarring in the reference to his confederate Yankee link, which even with my load knowledge of forensics, is a load of bollocks. Rigor mortis indeed.
People will readily believe anything that corresponds to their particular view. Hence The three picture succession of Lebanon.
As to H. Meltons well reasoned points. The media and the political animal are now too closed inbred to tell one from another. Deregulation concentrates ownership to a handful of companies all of whom have a political agenda. There is not nearly enough questioning going on, especially in the US media.

[hmelton]

I just found this over at Judeoscope, it's a futher modification with a connection to the Japanese.
www.judeoscope.ca/breve.p...breve=2234
howard melton

[classicdrogn]

... okay, I'll admt to not actually looking at the image in question before chiming in on it, the specifics of this incident really don't matter to my general opinon. That said, the guy who did this picture is a MORON. I can PAINT better smoke than that with a mouse, and if I wante to be convincing about it I'd get a picture of some heavy smoke, add it as a another layer over where I wanted there to be smoke, and then soft-edge erase the extraneous bits.
- CDSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
A kung-fu nun in a leather thong was no less extreme than anything else he had seen that day. - Rev. Dark's IST: Holy Sea World
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[hmelton]

ClassicDrogn did you look at the last modified picture I posted a link for?
Here is another article about the modified pictures it also talks about a couple of other techniques used by the hezzbolla.
www.strategypage.com/htmw...60808.aspx
howard melton

[hmelton]

Here is another report of faked pictures. In this case the same woman, probably a hired victim is moaning over two different destroyed homes.
www.ynetnews.com/articles...06,00.html
brain-terminal.com/posts/...uxtography
Has there been any reports about the IDF faking pictures?
howard melton

[Acyl]

Hm.
See, now, I can actually understand why someone'd try something like this. I used to work in the news department of a radio station, and I've seen colleagues do similar things. Nothing so serious, but...still.
Case in point. You know the whole 'on the street' reaction bit, right? For news stories? Like... "We asked a few people what they thought of..."
Of course, deadlines being what they are, those soundbites were often recorded by just passing a microphone round our office.
Is that wrong? Well, yeah, definitely. But that's common.
I can just see this photojournalist thinking...well, damnit, I don't have any good pictures. I need better pictures. And it's not like I'm really lying, I mean, this stuff is really happening, these shots are just illustrations...
People are people.
-- Acyl

[hmelton]

Here is an article about the recent fakes and journalism in general.
Pretty good read.
www.editorandpublisher.co...1003019475
howard melton