Digital Deception

Not so very long ago, a doctored photograph was pretty easy to spot... you had to be really clever to make a convincing "phony photo." These days, with digital technology and Photoshop, a talented and inspired individual can work miracles with photography. This has raised the hairs on the backs of literary purists who want to keep the classic children's book "Goodnight Moon" intact. The crux of the controversy is a photo of illustrator Clement Hurd. Since 1947, his picture as published in the book shows him with cigarette in hand, but in new copies recently printed by HarperCollins Publishers, the cigarette has been digitally removed. In GOODNIGHT MOON...GOODBYE CIGARETTE, Michelle Malkin has the details and the "before" and "after" photos.

To distinguish digitally altered images from unaltered ones, a committee on photographic standards at New York University has proposed that manipulated images be accompanied by a "not-a-lens" symbol - a circle inside a square with a diagonal slash and a description of what in the picture was changed. The idea has received substantial attention, but it's unlikely to work. The symbol's absence might signify that a photograph is legitimate, or it might simply mean that its publisher declines to display the icon. After all, wouldn't a publication that wished to deceive its readers be unlikely to denote its deceptions with a symbol? A better approach might be to remind readers to view photographs with the same healthy skepticism they apply to the written word. (more from wired.com)

Related: What is "Pure Photography?"

Related: Photographic Truth in the Digital Era

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