When is editing cheating?

[jeffnles1]

I may be in the minority here but the way I look at it: The image is yours, do with it what you want. Photojournalism has rules, various contests have rules and if you're submitting a photo then it must be in accordance with those rules. For your personal photos or ones you're sharing on social media, printing for your home or even printing to sell, who am I to say what you should or should not do?

Other than cropping, color (white balance) correction and removing the occasional distraction, I do very little post processing. Not that I am averse to it, but because 1) I'm lazy, and 2) I'm not very good at it.

After seeing this post, I did watch the OP video. Honestly, the image being discussed where lights were added to the windows of a house in a blue hour shot is not something I would do (see lazy and not good at it in prior paragraph). However, it adds visual interest to the scene and didn't really alter what the scene was. Had the family been home, the lights would have been on. I don't really see this as any different than a National Geographic photographer having his/her assistant walk through a crowd wearing a red scarf.

Jeff

 

[Abinoone]

If a pickpocket takes my wallet on the street outside a theater, the police are called, but if a magician lifts my wallet on the stage inside, he or she gets applause. The difference is the social contract between the parties. Inside the theater the audience consents to and enjoys being deceived.

In photography there has to be some cues for the viewer. If it is a photo in National Geographic or the Times, one trusts that there are editorial standards being adhered to. If in an art gallery then something about the name of the show, the title of the work, the caption, or the work itself might make it clear that it might be manipulated. If not, the viewer is left to wonder. Was the sky really that blue? Was the moon made bigger? Were those tail feathers really that detailed. The wondering is part of the fun as long as the viewer is in on the secret. But if someone passes off a photo as being something it is not in an attempt to deceive, then a line has been crossed.

I wish it were that simple. Using just two of your examples, blue sky and sharp tail feathers, has a photographer "crossed the line" by adjusting hues to make the sky more dramatic, and/or by using sharpening tools to give better definition to feathers? Personally I'd say no, as the majority of wildlife photographers do this kind f thing all the time, along with making other changes in post. To me, the real but difficult question to answer is when do such changes become ethically unacceptable, if being passed off as "real". Perhaps we should all simply specify how the original, out of camera, photograph was manipulated into the final image?

 

[Anthony]

I believe that when people are shown wildlife photos they expect to see something which really happened. I am sure there is tolerance for removing distractions, but the actual creature must be accurately presented.

Here is an example where I would always tell the viewer how I had manipulated the photo. In the original, one of the birds was some way behind the other two. In the heavily edited version I moved that bird. I believe the people who see the edited version believe it to be accurate, and I therefore invariably tell them how I have manipulated it. I do not like making such manipulations, and only did so on this occasion as an experiment and for discussion purposes.

Not to reveal the manipulation would, in my view, be cheating the viewer. (Although if you look closely you can see that there has been manipulation).

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[bleirer]

Wherever I sell, I put a disclaimer in my profile about what manipulations I might or might not use, and in specific images I'll spell out anything beyond the usual enhancements.

 

[Calson]

I look at the ethics of disturbing wildlife to get a shot and so anyone who does this, including the use of bait or playing back sound recordings, is using bad behavior that is detrimental to wildlife. I see this most often with hobbyists who have limited time and want "the shot" and so take shortcuts. Those that cater to captive or semi captive wildlife are the worst in this regard.

 

[Morado]

I think this Tony & Chelsea video brings up some interesting questions about photo editing, some of which I often ask myself. I'd be curious about other people's views on the topic.

Though I am in the camp that will not click on their videos, for some of the reasons others have mentioned in the thread and for some of my own, I think this is always an interesting topic.

But it will remain a topic/question/issue that will probably get resolved only after the discussion on how many angles can stand on the point of a pin is settled (which, btw, needs the resolution of whether this was, in fact, discussed at all by scholastic philosophers).

It does not bother me if someone removes an element from a photo as long as they're not purporting that it is an accurate representation of what they photographed (more on that in a bit). While I never remove anything by cloning or erasing, I am aware that is just the choice I make. Cropping out is about as far I go. I have night photos of the sea that sometimes have short lines or elongated dots from ship's lights, because that's what the camera captured, though I will adjust shadows and highlights to minimize their impact on the image. And speaking of shadows, when we lift shadows we are revealing something that was there; it may be in detail we could not perceive with our eyes, or things that we could not see during a nightscape.

Some have mentioned or alluded to the fact that the camera introduces a bias because of how it records a scene. This true if you compare a pinhole camera to film to digital. It is true to the extent that ASA/DIN 100 film and ASA/DIN 1000 film produce different results. But this is not so different to to how a person sees with and without glasses; he or she will see the same reality, albeit differently (which is akin to choosing lenses for a photo). More generally, all of us might agree to conventions that tell us what colors red, blue, green, yellow, white, etc. But we cannot truly tell if we perceive those colors the same way. Many individuals notice that each eye perceives colors with different degrees of of vibrance and saturation. Which brings us back to the depiction of reality...

If a person with daltonism or other form of color blindness were to edit a photo to approximate how he or she sees things, but the viewer did not know the photographer has some degree of color blindness, the viewer might think there is an inaccurate representation of a lush green forest. The photo would not be a lie as no trees were removed.

Allow me the indulgence of illustrating from personal experience. Among the the things COVID gifted me was damage to visual pathway from the eyes to the lobes. As a result I lost acuity, color and contrast perception were damaged, and all sense of depth is gone. In practical terms, this means that while I can tell if a photo is completely out of focus, I can not distinguish between a photo that is in focus vs one that is tack sharp (e.g. face focus vs. eye). I am also uncertain about the colors and contrast in the image, etc. Thus, nowadays editing a photo has gone from minutes to hours, sometimes days. First I bother a family member to help pick whatever is better focused if that is important (e.g. BIF). Then I will do several edits of the same photo, which then a family member helps to choose from; when I am lucky they say one of the versions is OK and I am done, other times they will tell me some color is too intense or too dull, or that the sharpening is overkill.

Oh, and in addition I have what can only be described as ghosting, which I can illustrate by approximating what I see vs what I think you see.

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The image on the left is an approximation of what I see, even though I am s sure others will see something closer tot he image on the right. Both would be "honest" representations of reality; one about what I see, the other about what probably most other people see actually there. But neither has elements added or removed artificially (e.g. adding a bee).

To get back to your question, it is difficult to ascertain when a picture is a good approximation of reality (at least as perceived by the person behind the camera). But I would agree with those that there is dishonesty when elements are deliberately added or removed and the photographer claims to portray what he or she saw. But if no such claim is made, the person is just pursuing their creativity as he or she sees fit. It goes without saying that photojournalism has usually standard that must be met.

 

[cchuck]

Misspelling Richard Avedon's name, as they did in their presentation, may not be cheating. But it sure demonstrates what happens when somone fails to proofread.

 

[cchuck]

Thanks for starting this this thread! Truth doesn't stretch well.

 

[Woodyg3]

There is an invisible line that, when crossed, looks bad and or fake to me. The problem is I don't know where that line is, and it varies from picture to picture.

As Morado said, we each see differently. The camera does not "see" the same way our eyes do, and a camera is not connected to a big blob of neurons (brain) that processes the information. So, from my perspective, there is no such thing as a totally accurate photograph. None the less, when I see a sunset picture with "too much" saturation and hue adjustment, I'm pretty sure no human being has ever seen anything like that.

One of my favorite bumper stickers reads: "Reality:... What a Concept!"

 

[RecalcitrantRon]

It is "cheating" when there are rules in place (like for a competition) and you break the rules. Otherwise, it is your art. Do what you want with it.