To Photoshop or not to Photoshop

[johnastovall]

...And Damned If You Don't

A little taste,"...So what's Fox complaining about this time? Another episode in the episodic war against fakery? Hardly. It's complaining that the current Newsweek cover of Sarah Palin was not retouched. It shows skin pores and "unwanted facial hair." OMG!

Seriously. Not enough Photoshop! Now that's a new one...."

[Frazzled LaShawn]

It depends on the standard. Do they regularly photoshop to make B. Obama look "smooth"? Do they with McCain? Do they with other people? Did they deliberately choose to not just to make Palin look bad?

However, with all that is going on I think this is the least of our worries and hardly worth news coverage.

[CaptainTom]

Who reads any of these RAGS anyway ??

[johnastovall]

Originally Posted by Frazzled LaShawn

It depends on the standard. Do they regularly photoshop to make B. Obama look "smooth"? Do they with McCain? Do they with other people? Did they deliberately choose to not just to make Palin look bad?

However, with all that is going on I think this is the least of our worries and hardly worth news coverage.

This is very important to the Photojournalism community because of the many abuses of photoshop and the guidelines on its use by many of the world's leading new agencies.

http://www.ap.org/newsvalues/index.html

http://blogs.reuters.com/blog/2007/0...-of-photoshop/

[PhotoPunk]

Yup...when I started shooting for the Houston Chronicle back in 2000 it wasn't a big deal...wasn't an 'issue' but over the years it became big enough to be included in our contracts. We use PS to do 'conventional' stuff like color corrections, exposure, and cropping.


We'll get spanked if we manipulate...

[gregkendallball]

I think it was an intentional, and powerful, decision to leave the photo unretouched. The thrust of the article was on Palin's being "one of the folks," and most "folks" realize they aren't the most glamorous or beautiful of people. I don't know if Palin understood the risks of associating with "normal" people, but by essentially saying, "I'm just like you," she stood to not only reap the benefits of such an association, but also the negative side of things.

Celebrities get retouched, normal people do not. She is simply reaping what he handlers have sown.

[dminton]

No no no no no no no. This has nothing do to whatsoever with whether or not she is a celebrity or a regular person nor was it an intentional decision on the part of the magazine, or any of that. This is Newsweek we're talking about, not Vanity Fair or Glamour or, god forbid, Vogue. News magazines don't retouch because they're NEWS. Plain n simple.

Now when Newsweek pulled this B.S. a few years back: Except for Martha Stewart and OJ Simpson. that was different. That WAS purposeful. (The Stewart one wasn't meant to harm anyone unlike the OJ thing, but it should have been disclosed nonetheless).

But this is not anywhere near the same situation whatsoever. Not to mention the fact that the picture of Palin came from a photo shoot of her and McCain together and a photo which was shot in the exact same way of McCain and Palin together ran way before the Palin picture, and it met no controversy. This is simply political posturing meant to take a pot shot at a news outlet that didn't not flatter that group, which, is not the job of a news outlet to do. That's what PR is for: news tells it like it is.

http://www.pdnpulse.com/2008/10/video-republica.html

[johnastovall]

An interesting follow up to this can be found in:

The Politics of the Retouched Headshot

[erisian pope]

Originally Posted by johnastovall

An interesting follow up to this can be found in:

The Politics of the Retouched Headshot

I really enjoyed this article until the end. I felt the end kind of trailed off, but it gives me a lot to think about and it is well written and really makes every point come alive for me. The debate about where to draw the line in editing blemishes is one I have at a much smaller scale than Newsweek's semi-controversial cover (ie - my sister's wedding) so I appreciate the well thought out perspectives in it.

On the main topic of the thread, I instinctively applaud Newsweek's baseline stance of not editing blemishes and posting 'real' unedited shots. I agree that this method seems to have more photojournalistic integrity. I also agree with this article's statement (theAtlantic.com) that the photo in question is hardly unflattering.

If the norm were to move to posting glamour-shot style portraits only, with heavy-handed editing like we'd expect from models in advertisements in Vogue then I feel we'd lose one more battle in the larger war of journalistic truth versus sensationalism and exaggeration.

[Corrie]

I liked it. She didn't look bad. She looks her age and I like that there is none of that BS glamour crap on her.