(Editor’s note: Reuters.com asked Gary Hershorn, News Pictures Editor for North America, to discuss some of the tools photojournalists have used in the past — and what they use now — to produce pictures. On Monday, Reuters withdrew all 920 photographs by a freelance Lebanese photographer from its database after a review showed he had altered two images. You can see the images and reactions from readers here. Reuters, also the publisher of this report, tightened procedures for photographs from the conflict between Israel and the armed group Hizbollah and apologized for the case. You can read the company’s statement here. You can send a comment to Hershorn from the link below and read his interview with NPR today here)
Photojournalism tools
News photographers routinely process images using Adobe Photoshop software. But there has been a basic premise in the world of photojournalism that what was allowed in making prints in the pre-digital days of darkrooms is all that is acceptable today.
Back in the days of the darkroom, we used very basic tools to develop prints. In black and white printing, the contrast of a picture was controlled by a paper’s grade. The higher the number of the paper, the higher the contrast. In the wire agency darkooms I’ve worked in, we typically used grades 3,4 and 5. We allowed “dodge and burn” to lighten or darken areas. A dodge tool was made by taping a small piece of cardboard the size of a quarter onto a paper clip. A burn tool was a piece of cardboard the size of an 8×10 sheet of paper with a hole in the center. If a print had dust spots caused by a dirty negative, we used Spotone, a photographic paint that was dabbed onto a print with a very fine paint brush to eliminate the unsightly marks.
One other tool that was allowed when printing color pictures was changing color balance. This was done by placing filters between the light source of the enlarger and the paper that the image was being printed on.
When we moved to scanning negatives and then to shooting digital, we began using Photoshop. This program allows us to do the same things we did in the darkroom. Changes in contrast, dodging and burning and color balance are now done with software. The most controversial tool in Photoshop that we use is the cloning tool. The only accepted use of this tool is to clear dust from the image. We have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to using the cloning tool to change content, and by that we mean removing something that exists in a photo, moving or replicating it or adding to a photo.
The tools we use in Photoshop are levels, curves and saturation for changing contrasts; and, color balance to bring the image back to the way the natural eye would see the color. Here is what we tell our photographers in the Handbook of Reuters Journalism.
Photoshop is a highly sophisticated image manipulation programme. We use only a tiny part of its potential capability to format our pictures, crop and size them and balance the tone and colour. For us it is a presentational tool.
The rules are no additions or deletions, no misleading the viewer by manipulation of the tonal and colour balance to disguise elements of an image or to change the context.
Photoshop is a powerful image processing program with many more tools to help photographers produce the best quality image they can for the type of photography they do. There is not a Photoshop program for use by news photographers and another for advertising, where image-changing is tolerated. What we in the news photo community need to regulate is what tools are used for photojournalism and what are not.
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[...] Hershorn, Gary “News Photography and Photoshop” Reuters [...]
- Posted by The Thin Line Between Reality and a Lie « Grand Rapids Photo blog[...] Read the original post and comments. [...]
- Posted by Opps » News photography and PhotoshopHi I am a student in Barrie looking to learn a bit about Gary. I. Rothstien for a witten part to a project. So please if Gary could give me his ok I’d love to ask a few questions. Thanks so much.
- Posted by Student with a project on Gary. I. Rothstien[...] What about that story a little while ago about how we (USA) targeted a Iranian house that had children in it, and pictures were used by the major media that were found to be not only posed, but taken from another area entirely, where the bombing was done by the Iranian terriorists not the USA. And ones where they’ve tried to blame killings on Marines that have been PROVEN to be fake. Media Use False Photo to Smear Marines on Haditha [Malkin Hat Tip] | NewsBusters.org Reuters Caught with Doctored Lebanon Photo, Again | NewsBusters.org News photography and Photoshop - Reuters Blogs [...]
- Posted by homework help - Off Topic[...] News photography and Photoshop - Reuters Newsblogs Reuters attempts to explain how Photoshop can be properly used to enhance news photography. (tags: photography Reuters Photoshop) [...]
- Posted by Maria Langer, the Official Web Site* » links for 2006-08-11I went through all the posts about this manipulation issue and before I say anything, I have to address Dennis Dunleavy - With all due respect, I find you a little patronising. “In-country freelancers are paid less and must take far more risks than their Western colleagues” “I feel a deep sense of sadness for the freelancer who probably did not even know that he was doing anything wrong in the first place”
Doesn’t matter from which country a freelancer come, we still know right from wrong, yeah?? And can surely take responsibility for ourselves, yeah?? We are not children that need looking after, you know.
I just wanted to get that off my chest.
I am surprised at the the shock and horror, criticism insofar the manipulation goes. And the setting up of photos. Its not as if the farm administration photographers did not set up photos. Or Eugene Smith? Or as if pictures / expressions on faces/ are never chosen to convey the idea of grief or starvation that exists in either the photographer or the editors’ (business that owns the publishing house)head.
It’s not as if objective reporting exists now, is it? The fact that the photographer is present at the scene with his/her own baggage, ideas, beliefs, culture together with the interests of the business who owns the particular publishing house surely makes it rather obvious that its A truth rather than THE truth. I’m just a little surprised at such naivety that leads to statements such as “The Reuters brand means nothing to me now” especially if the writer feels him/herself to be very knowledgeable in all things photographic. Surely you had to question this inherent the-photograph-does-not-lie quality of photography before? If not, you have more to learn. I think the public should be taught to question all images, footage, articles and be encouraged them to think for themselves.
- Posted by lodewika Afrika[...] The idea of people being paid to whip up grief hasn’t died around the Mediterranean. We saw this during the recent war between Hezbollah and Israel. We saw the same woman mourning the destruction of two different houses, both of which were supposed to be hers. We saw the same stuffed toy lying in the ruins on more than one place. And some of the minstrels, abandoning their lutes and mandolins, turned to Adobe Photoshop to increase the emotional reaction. Hezbollah reminded us that they could run with the best in terms of whipping up mourning and sadness, which they did to further their cause. As is usually the case in the Middle East, the more things change, the more things stay the same. They had help from that gullible institution, the Western press. No matter how many paid “mourners” are sent in, no matter how many paid protesters march down the street, or any of the other devices people and organisations use to induce emotions, the press is there to uncritically report everything and sometimes join these modern-day minstrels in the show. In doing this they are turning from reporters of the facts to conduits for advocacy. [...]
- Posted by Positive Infinity » Throwing the Minstrels Out of the HouseReuters is not the only one publishing manipulated photographs out of the war zone in Lebanon. Another case has come up involving a photograph submitted to the Associate Press which involved dropping text into a banner drapped over ruins in Beirut which says “Made In America.” This was probably a Hezbollah targeted site so the question that must now be asked is how are terrorists groups involved in such propaganda? Are the photographers producing propaganda for the terrorists or are they being threatened in any way to cooperate with terrorists? I would appreciate hearing from anyone who may be able to shed some light upon this issue.
- Posted by Terry LynchReport the Story.
Democracy counts on a free, objective press to present the truth…Truth and moral clarity are as important than military force in this war the west finds itself in right now. Sadly, our fanatical enemies seem to be able to bend the press at will.
Report the Story.
- Posted by Dale Grogan[...] Reuters is in a mess lately with unacceptable uses of Photoshop in news photography by one of its freelance photographer. As a result, Reuters published a note to talk about news photography and Photoshop. And it decided to withdraw all 920 photos by this photographer and released a formal reply (two paragraphs are included here). [...]
- Posted by Kempton’s blog » Blog Archive » Reuters doctored photos & implicationsAs you said, Photoshop is a highly sophisticated image manipulation programme and photojournalists are allowed to use only a tiny part of its potential capability, photojournalists just need a programme to abjust the the tone and colour balance, crop the images and re-size of rename it, Photoshop CS2 is “too much” for that kind of job, I suggest photojournalists try adobe LIGHTROOM, it maybe a more safty tool for the industry as it contains no selection and cloning fuctions.
- Posted by Alex Ng[...] The Associated Press runs a summary of the Reuters Photoshop teacup-tempest, re-noting that photog Adnan Hajj blames his bad brushwork on an attempt to remove “dust marks” under “bad lighting conditions.” (Reuters has since embarked on an ass-covering campaign that includes a short discourse on the acceptable uses of Photoshop.) On the AP side of the fence, another photographer’s “careless” use of Photoshop’s cloning tool to compensate for a “dirty sensor” cloned an extra set of hands onto an Alaskan oil pipeline worker. The AP pulled that photo Monday; of course, we’d love a copy if anyone still has it on file. But really, we also love how WRAL’s layout of the AP story comes complete with the graphic at right, where the Reuters logo gets the proprietary credit of “AP Image.” Use of the Reuters logo is forbidden without the express written permission of the Associated Press. [...]
- Posted by Iskenderiye Resources » Wire Service Photo Slapfight: Dust Marks, Dirty Sensors, Cloned HandsOdd that those who would ‘keep the bastards honest’ as it were, are infact doing nothing of the sort. You would think i’d be suprised by all this, but depressingly, it ain’t so… Hmmmm… I wonder what the goodwill on Reuters books looks like at the moment… /ponders
- Posted by Furball