Photoshop

On October 9, on freerepublic.com, Vietnamese blogger DieuVan Nguyen argued that a news photo implicating two Vietnamese journalists was a fake: Nguyen reports that Dantri.com, a Vietnamese online paper, had published a story about two journalists arrested for assault.

The accompanying photo of an injured man features a timestamp dated 9/10/2009 (October 9, 2009—dates are traditionally written day/month/year in most countries, including Vietnam).  But,...Go to full story

Legislators in Great Britain and France are out to protect reality -- or at least reality as portrayed in photographs.

Concerned that airbrushing alterations (often made with the software Photoshop) have gotten out of hand and that the practice is creating misleading expectations, both countries have proposals on the table that would require altered images to be labeled as such. The proposal in Great Britain, led by the Liberal Democrats, also aims to put a ban on...Go to full story

On September 17, 2009, the New York Times photography, video, and visual journalism blog, Lens, published an essay by the Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist David Hume Kennerly. In the essay, Kennerly takes issue with the way his photograph was cropped for an article in the September 14, 2009 issue of Newsweek. He felt the editing was so extreme as to distort the meaning and context of the image. 

The cropped photo features former Vice President Dick... Go to full story

London Fog announces it has found a new use for Photoshop in their new media campaign. They openly used the software to "retouch" images of supermodel Gisele Bundchen's stomach area in order to remove her "baby bump." 

The Melbourne Herald Sun reports, “Nobody is sexier or more beautiful than Gisele Bundchen in nothing but a London Fog trench coat, even with her visible baby bump." So says London Fog’s Chief Marketing...Go to full story

Scott Kelby, president of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (yes, there is such an organization!), tells The Los Angeles Times that he believes "every single major magazine cover is retouched."

"Aside from U.S. newspapers, most of which do not permit photos to be manipulated," Los Angeles Times reporter Jeannine Stein writes, "it's quite possible that the vast majority of images seen in the public arena have been...Go to full story

Fred Towle Jr, director of sales and marketing for the weekly newspaper, The South Shore Press, told The Southhampton Press this week  that it's okay to doctor photos as long as you are adding stuff and not removing information from the image. 

The SH Press writes that Towle Jr. "a former Suffolk County legislator who resigned from his county post in 2003 after pleading guilty to receiving bribes in office, acknowledged this week that the paper...Go to full story

 Al Giordano's blog, The Field reports that "CubaDebate discovered the "white washing" of violence in Honduras by the "pro-coup newspaper, La Prensa."

Giordano writes: "The now-iconic photograph of the late 19-year-old Isis Obed Murillo, being carried by his friends to seek medical help moments after his shooting by gunmen during Sunday’s demonstrations in Tegucigalpa, was also published by the Honduran daily… Except...Go to full story

Canada's National Post reports that the city of Toronto's summer "Fun Guide" cover was doctored to create an "ethnically diverse family." The image on top shows "the family" before the digital alterations, below which is the instantly more inclusive family after the photo surgery. The Post reports that John Gosgnach, a spokesperson for the agency that published the booklet, said an "African-Canadian" person's head "was superimposed...Go to full story

Mainstream media's new dependence on content from citizens opens new problems. Determining authenticity of weather photos is now part of a new job description for meteorologists, according to the blog Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal.  

Chief Meteorologist for WHNT NEWS 19 in Huntsville, Alabama, Dan Satterfield, writes: "I get hundreds of emails a week/sometimes each day. I try to answer as many as I can, but I and hundreds of my fellow...Go to full story

July 1, 2009, Korea Beat posts new photos of Kim Jong-il, from Chosun.com that bloggers claim are most likely Photoshopped. Korea Beat commenter, Teadrinker wrote: "They expect us to believe he’s gained 20 pounds and reversed 10 years of aging over the last two months?'   Allegations that the North Korean leader’s political stunts include fake photos have intensified since last year’s stories about his serious illness. Now with new information...Go to full story