Artificial Intelligence (AI) is always in the news these days. The old expression “seeing is believing” or “a picture is worth a thousand words” no longer applies. With AI we see images and we are not sure if they are real or not. We have all seen famous people in manipulated AI shots. Sometimes it is done for our amusement and sometimes it is meant to deceive.
So the next obvious question would be: is modifying or manipulating the photo by changing the lighting, putting in a new background, removing distractions be ok??
The answer is: yes and no.
For me it is very simple. What is the intent of the photo? If you are trying to deceive then this is cheating. If you modify the photo for aesthetic reasons with no intention to deceive than this is OK. That’s it!
Of course photo editing has been around since the very first cameras but there is no doubt it is much easier to achieve realistic results today than in the early days of photography.
Are we preserving the original image but presenting it in a more ideal way or are we changing the meaning of the photo in order to deceive? Are we saying something specific about the subject or scene that may not reflect reality.
Editing can meaning many things. It could be as simple as cropping or changing the exposure of a photo. Or it can mean to take the photo out of context to change its meaning?
The camera does not see the world in the same way as the eye does. The eye scans the subject before taking it all in, while the camera records it all at once. The camera has settings such as shutter speed, depth of field, light sensitivity to name just a few. These all change the image. We can alter the photo just by changing the camera settings. A fast shutter speed freezes action while a slow shutter speed shows movement.
In journalism the photo should be as realistic as possible. But as we move away from hard news the line becomes more blurry. Most movie posters have been altered. No one complains about those because we know it is not realistic. Advertising photos are almost always manipulated.
Your intent might be to produce a more aesthetically pleasing photo. Portrait photography, wedding photography, product photography or with model photoshoots, the purpose usually is not to show the scene/person as it is, but to show it in a way that it captures the original mood.
In fine art photography there are no rules about photo editing or manipulation. The photographer is free to use his imagination and skills to create a photograph that represents what he wants.
There you have it. There are two sides to the question. No one wants to be deceived but on the other hand nobody likes to hang a dull and uninteresting image on their wall.
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