Seeing is no longer believing-digital image
alteration gets easier
by Alan Zisman
(c) 1998. First
published in Computer Player, February, 1998
In the last verse of the boomer classic ?Heard it
Through the Grapevine?,
Marvin Gaye (and later countless others) sings: ?Believe half of what
you
see, believe none of what you hear?.
But even before the Motown hit, long before personal
computers and digital
photographs, it was clear that seeing wasn?t necessarily believing.
It didn?t take long after the invention of photography
before crude
darkroom techniques were used to recreate history?as early as 1861, a
political
scandal resulted from a composite photograph placing the head of the
Queen
of Naples on another woman?s nude body. When Joseph Stalin took power
in
the Soviet Union, rival Leon Trotsky vanished from historical photos
such
as a famous shot of hero Vladimir Lenin?s May 1920 address to a crowd.
But just as personal computers democratized skills
like typesetting
and page design, the last decade has brought the possibility of photo
editing
onto millions of desktops. Add increasingly affordable digital scanners
and cameras to more and more powerful computers and software, and
virtually
anything you can imagine can be made to look as if it was captured onto
film.
Some personal favorites:
? Not long after film star Demi Moore appeared, naked
and very pregnant
on the cover of Vogue Magazine, U.S. satirical magazine Spy featured
her
husband, Bruce Willis, on its September, 1991 cover, in an identical
pose,
seemingly just as naked, and just as pregnant.
? A 1994 cover of the much more serious Scientific American offered
a photo of Abraham Lincoln, arm and arm with Marilyn Monroe. Inside,
they
demonstrated how, using an off-the-shelf Macintosh with easily
available
software, they were able to bring together the president (who died in
1865)
with the film star (who died in 1962).
? A 1997 ad for Diesel jeans, seemed to offer a behind-the-scenes look
at 1945?s historic Yalta conference, showing world leaders Churchill,
Stalin,
and Roosevelt cavorting with a group of jeans-clad young women.
(Perhaps
a fitting revenge for Stalin?s earlier attempts at photo-manipulating
history).
No longer limited to trained professionals using
high-end equipment,
photo manipulation has even become a subject for high school projects.
At Vancouver?s Total Education program, for example, grade 11 and 12
students,
working on humble 386 and 486 computers, a $200 flatbed scanner, and a
$140 Connectix QuickCam camera practice using Corel PhotoPaint
software.
They quickly learn to add pictures of themselves into historical
photos?
though they find it?s more difficult to adjust lighting and shadows to
make it look good. (That?s student Mat Lee following Mahatma
Gandhi
on the famous Salt March for Indian independence).
Manipulating photographic reality can be great fun,
and has been used
to good effect for advertising and entertainment. The ease with which
reality
can be distorted poses problems, however, for publications which
hope for a reputation for accuracy. After, in 1982, moving the
Egyptian
Great Pyramids closer together to better fit the size of the cover,
National
Geographic swore off photo manipulation; they want their readers to
trust
that any photos published reflect something as it actually exists, and
are limiting digital image processing to correcting colours or removing
lens flares from photos.
Many of our daily newspapers, however, have less
strict guidelines.
The Vancouver Sun, for example, prides itself on being the world?s
first
all digital newspaper?all photos are taken on digital cameras, edited
and
processed digitally, and sent to a state-of-the-art press for printing.
They have not yet accompanied the digital hardware with a written
policy
setting guidelines for photo manipulation.
When an October 24, 1997 article titled ?Reeling in
the Bucks? highlighted
feature films being shot in Vancouver, for example, the Sun printed a
photo
of that city?s North Shore mountains, complete with Hollywood-style
letters
spelling out ?Vancouver?.
Similarly, after the prestigious Vancouver Club voted
to continue limiting
membership to men, the paper published a photo of the Club?s
turn-of-the-century
building, festooned with ?No Girls Allowed? banners, seemingly painted
on bed sheets, hanging out the windows. These digital reconstructions
of
reality were identified to the readers, simply as ?Photo Illustrations?
in tiny print underneath the photos.
Sun Photo Editor Nick Didlick sometimes feels like
he?s forced to conduct
a one-man crusade to protect readers against the intrusion of photo
manipulation.
He said that photo-manipulation software like ?Adobe PhotoShop was one
of the worst tools to come into the newspaper?it?s filled with bells
and
whistles and everyone wants to play?. According to Didlick, ?changing a
photo is the same as changing a quote?, and doesn?t belong on the news
or sports pages of Vancouver?s paper of record.
He?s less concerned about the blatantly obvious
manipulations?these,
along with the ?Photo Illustration? byline should be obvious to the
readers.
Instead, he expresses concern that ?lots more happens every day that is
less identifiable, and isn?t clearly labeled as an illustration?.
Didlick
would like to see his paper have a written policy, and publish it
annually
for the readers. While the Seattle Times and a number of other US
papers
have such a policy, Didlick isn?t aware of any major Canadian
newspapers
that have let their staff and readers formally know their standards for
photo manipulation.
As the Sun?s editorial artist, Vic Bonderoff is the
photo manipulator?
he added the ?Vancouver? sign to the photo of the city skyline, for
example.
He agrees that sometimes he?s working on the edge of a slippery slope.
There?s always a danger of adding subtle editorial comments to a
picture,
but mentioned that with tight deadlines, he typically ?doesn?t have
time
to think? of these issues. He noted the case of a Newsweek photo that
darkened
O. J. Simpson?s skin tones during his trial, non-verbally heightening
the
race factor.
The Sun?s Managing Editor, Paul Sullivan, expressed
some agreement with
these concerns. ?We?re quite sensitive about manipulation, and try to
avoid
it at all costs. We?re not interested in fooling the readers?, he
commented,
adding that he too would like to have a formal policy once they?ve
worked
out the technical details of their still-new hardware.
Prior to the digital era, Marvin Gaye thought we could
believe half
of what we see? now, that?s no longer the case. Now that seeing is no
longer
believing, more than ever, we need to be able to critically judge the
sources
of our information.