Trip Advisor Pro

Reuters: Use of Photoshop

As a consequence of a recent fracas involving manipulation of images of the Lebanon-Israel conflict last summer by a photographer associated with Reuters, its Editor-in-Chief recently posted rules governing the use of Photoshop to its photographers/photojournalists. These have raised a debate within the photojournalism industry as to what is digital manipulation...is it any different from the traditional darkroom techniques used by film photographers? Is it relevant to travel photographers? I think so, but you decide.

I agree wholeheartedly with these rules. My use of Photoshop is limited to the very basics. For example, I seldom crop my images in Photoshop, but I used selective sharpening on a few of my images, as well as auto levels. However, I do not use anything other than minor color correction and sharpening when submitting my photographs to buyers. Why? Because it's unethical and digital manipulation is always found out by a professional editor.

Here are the rules summary:

ALLOWED:

• Cropping
• Adjustment of Levels to histogram limits
• Minor colour correction
• Sharpening at 300%, 0.3, 0
• Careful use of lasso tool
• Subtle use of burn tool
• Adjustment of highlights and shadows
• Eye dropper to check/set gray


NOT ALLOWED:

• Additions or deletions to image
• Cloning & Healing tool (except dust)
• Airbrush, brush, paint
• Selective area sharpening
• Excessive lightening/darkening
• Excessive colour tone change
• Auto levels
• Blurring
• Eraser tool
• Quick Mask
• In-camera sharpening
• In-camera saturation styles

This post was written by: beemagnet77

BeeMagnet is a professional graphic designer, web designer and business man with really strong passion that specializes in marketing strategy. Usually hangs out in Twitter has recently launched a blog dedicated to home design inspiration for designers, bride, photographers and artists called HomeBase