Image manipulation is like candy—a little is okay, but too much can be bad for you. The question is when to stop.
As a starting point, I believe it is acceptable to manipulate images for purely aesthetic reasons. This website, for example, is a source of art, not news, and I do not owe you a duty to speak plainly, or even completely truthfully, in my images. That said, I remain suspicious of image manipulation.
The problem is that photography is bound in a more direct way to the real world than, say, painting or drawing. The viewer expects (legitimately, in my view) that the photograph has captured some real thing, a thing that actually existed or happened. This is at the heart of photography, a key reason for its power. We shouldn’t mess with it too much.
On the other hand, I think we can mess with it at least a little. So, in the interest of full disclosure, here are my thoughts on the subject:
1. I am fine with global corrective changes to an image, such as lightening or darkening, increasing or decreasing contrast, removing colour casts, or sharpening to improve detail. I routinely perform these changes, sometimes significantly lightening or darkening an image—effectively addressing poor exposure by after-the-fact manipulation.
2. I am fine with localized changes to remove background objects from the image, such as removing pieces of litter or stray objects that have somehow crept into the scene. I probably would have picked this stuff out of the scene if I’d noticed it at the time, so I don’t feel bad about removing it electronically.
3. I am okay with fixing small blemishes or imperfections that would otherwise draw unwarranted attention. For example, I have fixed chipped paint on the head of statue, or removed distracting bubbles from photographs taken in aquariums. I consider this a legitimate expansion of point #2 above, although I acknowledge that I couldn’t have corrected these problems at the time of taking the photograph.
4. I do some burning and dodging, to darken highlights or lighten shadow areas. I’m comfortable with these activities because I used to do them in a much more painful way in the darkroom back in 1980s. But I try to keep these effects to a minimum, because they can make an image look odd if applied too lavishly.
5. I am uncomfortable with removing people or foreground objects from images, and have done this only rarely. In my view, this is the point at which you start stepping over the line, although I acknowledge that many photographers feel otherwise.
6. I don’t insert objects into images. I think this goes to my point about undermining the representational nature of photography. That said, it’s possible that I may experiment with composite images in the future, where the composite nature of the image is obvious in the finished product.
7. I don’t have a problem with high dynamic range (HDR) photography, where a photograph is created by compounding different images into one scene, so that the finished image displays a range of detail in the highlights and shadows that would have been impossible through “straight” photography. I don’t do HDR myself, but I could see experimenting with it. Similarly, I don’t have a problem with using Photoshop to achieve a particular aesthetic look, such as the de-saturated, highly sharpened look currently in vogue for portrait photography.
8. I am willing to make more extensive changes to black and white images. Perhaps this is because I follow the usual approach in digital photography of photographing in colour and desaturating later for black and white. Monochrome images are therefore by their nature more synthetic to me, which makes further manipulation acceptable. Whatever the justification, some of my black and white images feature very significant contrast changes and adjustments to alter different grey tones appearing in the image.
9. Despite the above, I sometimes forget the degree to which I’ve manipulated an image. Every now and then I happen upon the original RAW file and realize it looks dramatically different from the final version.
Looking back on these points, I see three themes.
First, I am most comfortable with changes intended to correct errors that could have been addressed if I had more foresight at the time I pressed the shutter button. I don’t begrudge brightening a dark image that would have looked better if I’d been smart enough to use a bigger aperture in the first place. Digital manipulation provides a rare second chance in life.
Second, I am most comfortable with changes intended to draw out material that is already present in the photograph. For example, I will clean up backgrounds to avoid distractions from the main subject matter, and I will manipulate colour images to ensure that they retain their strength and drama in black and white. I agree that it can be difficult to distinguish changes that augment things already present from changes that add things entirely new. But I still believe this is a valid test.
Third, I am uncomfortable with changes that delete key objects or add new objects to the photograph. In my mind, this smacks a little too much of Orwell’s Ministry of Truth, where the past is adjusted without regard to the facts. Many will argue these sorts of concerns simply don’t apply to a site that provides images for entertainment, rather than news for decision-making. And in fact, I’ve made this very point somewhere above. But I believe that, given the viewer’s expectations about the photographic medium, it’s okay to tell some little white lies but not any big black ones.
Finally, my attitude towards image manipulation has changed over time. When I first started doing digital photography, I used a Canon point and shoot (which adjusted images in its on-camera software) and Google’s Picassa photo editing software. The resulting images were aggressively manipulated, with a clean, high-contrast, cartoon-like look. After I bought a DSLR and started shooting in RAW, I became more conservative, often staying pretty close to the original RAW files. Over time, I’ve become more comfortable deleting background clutter, dodging and burning and creatively manipulating RAW files.
So there you have it. I’ve set out my comments here as much to clarity them in my own mind as to inform you, my loyal viewer. It’s possible that my views about image manipulation will change over time, as I continue to explore Photoshop and as the technology itself further changes around me. In that case, I may be back to revise this essay. But for now, I will take my candy in moderation.
Posted: January 2012.