🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <5110@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov>, packer@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (Charles Packer) writes...
>have short segments shifted cleanly to the left at a point


It was with acute chagrin that I realized later that the effect
was caused not by a shift to the left of selected parts of the
image,  but by a repeated horizontal band in the photograph
about .05 inch high and going all the way across. 

Incidentally, the most likely cause for the glitch was that it was
read out of a computer memory twice. The implication: the age of
computer-processed news photographs has definitely arrived.

In article <5130@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov> packer@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov writes:
>read out of a computer memory twice. The implication: the age of
>computer-processed news photographs has definitely arrived.

So why not mention the cover photo of last week's Time? The one where
they used a computer to put bar codes on the nose of the fighter
planes?

They did, apparently, get quite a few letters about it, and admitted
that they did it for "effect" and promised not to do it again, sort
of.


--M. G.

In article <10034@plains.NoDak.edu> stinnett@plains.NoDak.edu (M.G. Stinnett) writes:

   In article <5130@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov> packer@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov writes:
   >read out of a computer memory twice. The implication: the age of
   >computer-processed news photographs has definitely arrived.

   So why not mention the cover photo of last week's Time? The one where
   they used a computer to put bar codes on the nose of the fighter
   planes?

Actually, Time processes lots of their covers.  My favorite one (I witnessed
this in person, was several years back, right after the Chernobyl accident.

Let me make a short story long...  (If you're in a hurry, skip to
the bottom paragraphs).

I was at a pre-press house in NJ (GS Litho) installing some software
for a product that my then-employer was beta testing at their plant.
GS Litho is a major customer of Scitex's (a big player in imaging
systems) -- an employee of GSL claimed that GSL had more Scitex
equipment in one place than anyone in North America.  I was wandering
around watching GSL's imaging artists retouch, stitch together, and
otherwise enhance, images of all sorts.  Much of the stuff they were
working on was advertising material.  I was (and still am) amazed at
what one can do with this equipment.

I started paying attention when I saw several pictures of Volvo sedans
and station wagons lying around.  It seems that Volvo needed some
pictures of the new model year's station wagon in time to meet a press
deadline, but hadn't built any yet.  Not to worry -- the previous
year's sedan was the same as the new wagon from the front doors up,
and the new wagon wasn't changing in the back.  So GSL was taking the
two pictures, of two different color cars, matching the colors and
lighting perspectives, and everything was copacetic.

That one didn't bother me *too* much, but the BMW ad really pissed me
off.  This one was of a bright red car, shot from the side.  The
picture had come back from the ad designer's desk with circles and
arrows (on the 8x10 color glossy photo, just like the Guthrie song!)
on it, pointing to the chrome door keylocks.  'Visually distracting',
said the markup, accompanied by instructions to airbrush them out.
For pete's sake, if the keylocks are on the car, and they ruin it's
lines, change the car, not the ad!!

The previous two things paled compared to the Time cover.  This was a
cover photo, for an article chronicling the efforts of that famous
American leukemia (I think) expert that went over to try to do
bone-marrow transplants on some of the victims.  The picture was of a
very unhappy, hairless person dying horribly in an oxygen tent some
where inside the USSR.  The image had been taken on the sly, and was
not particularly well composed.  The cover had come back from the
editor's heavily marked.  The two things I remember clearly were that
an IV tube was in the way and was to be removed, and that glare from
the oxygen tent was obscuring most of the victim's face, and again was
to be removed.  Other minor elements were to be excised as well, but
those are the two I remember.

Perhaps I'm being a weenie, but I think photojournalists are making a
serious mistake by allowing their images to be manipulated in this
way.  They may sell better in the short run, but I think it will
damage the field irreparably.  The manipulated Time cover was much
better looking and had more impact post-airbrushing than before, but
it was an artist's conception, not a photograph!  I think anything
that blurs the distinction between true photojournalism and the
National Enquirer's "Saddam Hussein Wears Women's Clothing!"-type
pasteups is a crime, and a disservice to straight photographers.

We are very close to having commercially available scanning and
film-output technology that operates at better-than-film-grain
resolution.  At that point, photojournalism will be dead if the
public isn't convinced that responsible publications will make no
use of the technology in any way that could affect the journalistic
content of an image.

Done Fuming For Now,

Tony Berke (tonyb@juliet.ll.mit.edu)

In article <5130@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov> packer@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (Charles Packer) writes:
   In article <5110@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov>, packer@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (Charles Packer) writes...
   >have short segments shifted cleanly to the left at a point


   It was with acute chagrin that I realized later that the effect
   was caused not by a shift to the left of selected parts of the
   image,  but by a repeated horizontal band in the photograph
   about .05 inch high and going all the way across. 

   Incidentally, the most likely cause for the glitch was that it was
   read out of a computer memory twice. The implication: the age of
   computer-processed news photographs has definitely arrived.

This sort of goof doesn't *have* to be too scary.  I didn't catch your
original posting, so I don't know where the picture was published, but
I can tell you that lots of newpapers scan images and pass them around
that way for layout and screening.  Some well heeled papers (Newsday
and USA Today come to mind) even have cute satellite-linked portable
scanners, allowing photographers to get color or b/w images into the
papre from remote locations before deadlines.  Any of these innocuous
uses could have allowed a 'glitch' like you saw to happen.

As for the *other* things that people do with photos after they've been
scanned, see my other posting!


Tony Berke (tonyb@juliet.ll.mit.edu)

In article <TONYB.91Apr30132158@titania.juliet.ll.mit.edu> tonyb@titania.juliet.ll.mit.edu ( Tony Berke) writes:

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   From: tonyb@titania.juliet.ll.mit.edu ( Tony Berke)
   Newsgroups: misc.headlines,rec.photo,sci.electronics
   Date: 30 Apr 91 17:21:58 GMT
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   In article <10034@plains.NoDak.edu> stinnett@plains.NoDak.edu (M.G. Stinnett) writes:

      In article <5130@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov> packer@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov writes:
      >read out of a computer memory twice. The implication: the age of
      >computer-processed news photographs has definitely arrived.

      So why not mention the cover photo of last week's Time? The one where
      they used a computer to put bar codes on the nose of the fighter
      planes?

   Actually, Time processes lots of their covers.  My favorite one (I witnessed
   this in person, was several years back, right after the Chernobyl accident.

   Let me make a short story long...  (If you're in a hurry, skip to
   the bottom paragraphs).

   [...]

   Perhaps I'm being a weenie, but I think photojournalists are making a
   serious mistake by allowing their images to be manipulated in this
   way.  They may sell better in the short run, but I think it will
   damage the field irreparably.  The manipulated Time cover was much
   better looking and had more impact post-airbrushing than before, but
   it was an artist's conception, not a photograph!  I think anything
   that blurs the distinction between true photojournalism and the
   National Enquirer's "Saddam Hussein Wears Women's Clothing!"-type
   pasteups is a crime, and a disservice to straight photographers.

I don't think you're being a weenie, but I do wonder why you think
that photography (even photojournalism) is anything but an artist's
conception?  I know this idea is verging on the theoretical and can
get as messy as arguments over religion, but it is an important point
to me.  I'm not a pro photographer, nor am I a photojournalist.  But I
do feel that any photograph is in some way, however subtle, chosen for
a reason, and in this way, it is a subjective act on the part of the
photographer to represent something.  There is no "true" photograph
that accurately represents the essence of some object or situation.

   We are very close to having commercially available scanning and
   film-output technology that operates at better-than-film-grain
   resolution.  At that point, photojournalism will be dead if the
   public isn't convinced that responsible publications will make no
   use of the technology in any way that could affect the journalistic
   content of an image.

I don't think that photojournalism will die - we'll always be in need
of pictures to show us tidbits of the world around us.  It's
rediculous to predict that non-film media will kill the
photojournalist.  His or her job may change somewhat in a technical
way, but the essence of it will remain the same.  This world loves
pictures, especially those parts of the world that publish huge
amounts of journalism.

   Done Fuming For Now,

   Tony Berke (tonyb@juliet.ll.mit.edu)


-Ken 
--
-----------------------------------------------------------
-ken herndon-  kph@cs.brown.edu          uunet!brunix!kph
               st601698@brownvm.bitnet   kph@browncs.bitnet

address: po box 5636 brown university providence ri 02912
-----------------------------------------------------------

After the previous posting which isn't included here 'cos it's huge,
how about the manipulation of images like the addition of flames to an
oil drum that women were dumping their bras in. The 'Bra burning
feminist' did not exist, but I suppose that the 'Bra dumping feminist'
Wouldn't be so good for the story. 

I think, sadly, that all pictures are liable to doctoring if it will
enhance the impact of the story. Any other ideas?
--

   Andy Taylor

******************************************************************************
* ... and pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space           *
* 'cos there's bugger all down here on Earth.                                *
*                                            Monty Python's Meaning Of Life  *
******************************************************************************

I think a few people misinterpreted my comments about image
manipulation and its implications for photojournalism.  First of all,
I don't think there's anything wrong with electronically manipulating
images that are used for art.  I have occasional access to
sophisticated equipment for doing just that, and have absolutely no
qualms about hanging a picture on my wall that has been jazzed up in
any way that my skill, equipment, and time allow.  That's what burning,
dodging, contrast control, and many other essential darkroom
techniques are all about, and I certainly don't have any problem with
them either.

I really think things are different when you are talking about news
photos.  If I had picked up a copy of Time in 1987 and saw a political
cartoon depicting Gary Hart partying with a non-wifely babe on a boat,
I'd laugh.  When the world saw some photographs of the same thing, our
country's political situation changed overnight.  With current
technology, it'd be about a one hour job to fabricate the photo that
ended Hart's political career to a level that you could *never* detect
by eye.  The FBI or someone could probably detect evidence of
tampering in the negative, but I think in a few years a clever
individual could make even that pretty difficult.

Here's a real example (from another business trip).  For fun, a Scitex
operator took a Polaroid of me, scanned it, and in about ten minutes
he had rubbed out my hair (I look really wierd bald!), changed my
clothing color to a dark blue, and placed a white rectangle near the
bottom of the photograph, with a series of digits incribed inside of
it.  This was only a ten minute job and wouldn't stand up to careful
scrutiny, but what would my political future be if a more convincing
prison mug shot were published of me on election eve?

Once the hardware gets good enough to prevent the detection of
tampering (you NASA JPL types might be able to convince me that that
is never going to happen), I don't think it will take too long before
the public no longer believes that an image has to represent truth in
any form.  While this might not affect People magazine, I think it
will have a very big effect on *real* news photography -- who'll want
to risk getting shot taking front-line combat photos if the paper down
the street is pasting them up from stock photos, and no one can tell
the difference?

The editors of magazines and newspapers need to come up with some very
strong ethical guidelines for these technologies, soon.  Once they
come up with them, they need to follow them, and make sure the public
knows about it.

Still Fuming (I guess),  Tony Berke

tonyb@titania.juliet.ll.mit.edu ( Tony Berke) writes:
>The editors of magazines and newspapers need to come up with some very
>strong ethical guidelines for these technologies, soon.  Once they
>come up with them, they need to follow them, and make sure the public
>knows about it.

If ethics and "news media" have anything to do with each other,
it is only because it is convenient or accidental.

--

In article <KPH.91May1230920@unnamed.cs.brown.edu> kph@cs.brown.edu (Kenneth Paul Herndon) writes:
>In article <TONYB.91Apr30132158@titania.juliet.ll.mit.edu> tonyb@titania.juliet.ll.mit.edu ( Tony Berke) writes:
>   In article <10034@plains.NoDak.edu> stinnett@plains.NoDak.edu (M.G. Stinnett) writes:
>
>   Perhaps I'm being a weenie, but I think photojournalists are making a
>   serious mistake by allowing their images to be manipulated in this
>   way.  They may sell better in the short run, but I think it will
>   damage the field irreparably.  The manipulated Time cover was much
>   better looking and had more impact post-airbrushing than before, but
>   it was an artist's conception, not a photograph!  I think anything
>   that blurs the distinction between true photojournalism and the
>   National Enquirer's "Saddam Hussein Wears Women's Clothing!"-type
>   pasteups is a crime, and a disservice to straight photographers.
>
>I don't think you're being a weenie, but I do wonder why you think
>that photography (even photojournalism) is anything but an artist's
>conception?  I know this idea is verging on the theoretical and can
>get as messy as arguments over religion, but it is an important point
>to me.  I'm not a pro photographer, nor am I a photojournalist.  But I
>do feel that any photograph is in some way, however subtle, chosen for
>a reason, and in this way, it is a subjective act on the part of the
>photographer to represent something.  There is no "true" photograph
>that accurately represents the essence of some object or situation.

I agree that all journalists slant their stories to some degree. Some
much more than others. But an unretouched photo does show the scene
the same way you would see it in person if you were looking from the
same vantage point. That vantage point may have been chosen specifically
to hide some detail the photographer didn't want you to see, or to 
give added emphasis to some minor feature, or even be staged. However,
once the technology to manipulate the elements of the photo become good
enough to be undetectable, all bets are off. There is no way you can be 
sure that what you are looking at is in any way part of a real scene. Yet 
the photo is presented as evidence of reality. This is nothing short of 
fraud.

Even a photo taken with the intent to deceive yields a wealth of detail
information to the trained observer that can't be hidden. Once the 
power to undetectably change that detail becomes possible, there is
no longer any assurance that any truth can be derived from a photo.
Subtle things like powder smudges on the nose of an aircraft, depth
of ruts on the ground, color of grass, etc all yield valuable information
that may not have been intended to be released. Shadows can give the
astute observer the exact time a photo was taken. If that doesn't 
match the time quoted in the caption, you know immediately that
you are being lied to. I could go on and on, photo interpretation
is a pretty advanced science. Even the layman unconciously notices
detail that lends an air of reality or unreality to a photograph.

Photographs are particularly convincing in a way that reams of text
are not because people have become accustomed to believing that what
they see is real. When it becomes technically feasible to break that
assumption, and when people finally wake up to the fact that they are
being blatently lied to by photos, photojournalism is dead as a credible
source of information. This concerns me because I work in the field
and don't want to lose what little credibility that remains.  

In broadcast news, tools already are in common use that can alter a scene
completely. And I know first hand that they *are* being used in this
way. People are aware of this and because they have seen the tricks in
commercials and entertainment programing, they put less trust in the
images. With still photos however, the public is not yet aware that
such clever manipulation is being done. 

Gary