We have all seen photos that have obviously been altered to increase dramatic effect or make someone or something look better than it actually does.
In this age, this type of digital image manipulation is so prevalent that we can rightly be concerned as to whether any given image is original. I once made the mistake of suggesting to a photographer (who was having trouble getting a particular shot) that he could just digitally achieve it instead. Ouch!
Apparently, that is a huge no-no, not because news photographers are too good at their job or too cool to resort to such a thing, but because the advent of affordable digital cameras (and editing software) has made altering images far too easy, resulting in respectable journalists and photographers following a self-imposed code of conduct that dictates all news photographs are real and untouched in any way.
Not so in the pulp-fiction and fashion worlds, where just about every magazine cover published sports digitally altered imagery.
The difference is everyone should know those covers are enhanced, whereas we take news photograph at face value.
The term “airbrushing” was coined back when photos and negatives were physically altered by skilled artists using air or normal brushes.
These days, airbrushing has been replaced by “photoshopping”. The name comes from the famous Adobe graphics software, Photoshop, possibly the most pirated software on the planet (after Microsoft Windows and Office). Nowadays many graphics applications boast similar feature sets as Photoshop and anyone with a little time and patience can create incredibly realistic, yet totally fake images.
I went to a small restaurant in Italy. Photos behind the counter showed the pizzeria’s owner with the Pope, George Bush and a host of other famous people. All were fake, but very well done and all in the name of a good laugh.
But what about when it isn’t funny? There have been several recent cases of photographers who should have known better being given the “don’t come Monday” from lucrative employment because they fiddled with images that were subsequently published as genuine. Sharp-eyed readers exposed the fakes and rival publications had a field day over the resulting hoo-hah.
This isn’t some modern phenomenon either; in 1917 two young girls perpetrated what now seems a rather obvious fraud which had experts guessing for decades; they photographed “fairies” in their back garden with their dad’s Box Brownie.
Even Arthur Conan Doyle got swept into the “spirit” of it all, though inevitably the fairies turned out to be cardboard and it wasn’t until the 1980s the girls admitted their fraud.
How can we tell if what we are looking at is real? We can’t, unless the fake is poorly done or obviously doctored. It takes expertise, a good pair of eyes and good forensic software to expose a well-faked photo.
The fun, however, is making your own photos. These days excellent software is available. There are programmes like Photoscape, Inkscape, The Gimp and Paint.Net as well as Paint- Shop Pro, Serif Draw Plus, Corel Draw, Adobe Illustrator and of course Photoshop.
Prices range from free to costly; if I was to pick one I would recommend Serif Draw Plus, though it isn’t free. The thing is to download and try them all. Whichever you go for, expect a learning curve; graphics software is complicated till you get your head around it. The main thing is, have fun!
* Dave Thompson runs a computer services company in Christchurch. Email dave@computerkungfu.com
Source: www.stuff.co.nz
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