Seeing Is Unbelieving

Manipulation of photos (or “enhancement,” as it’s sometimes called) has been going on a long time. Here are excerpts from a web page that has tracked down famous examples of alterations or trick photography down through history.

1. “This nearly iconic portrait of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is a composite of Lincoln’s head and the Southern politician John Calhoun’s body. Putting the date of this image into context, note that the first permanent photographic image was created in 1826 and the Eastman Dry Plate Company (later to become Eastman Kodak) was created in 1881.”

2. In this photo by famed photographer Mathew Brady, General Sherman is seen posing with his Generals. General Francis P. Blair (far right) was added to the original photograph.

3. In this National Geographic magazine cover story on Egypt, the Great Pyramids of Giza, in a horizontal picture by Gordon Gahen, were “squeezed” together to fit the magazine’s vertical format. Tom Kennedy, who became the director of photography at National Geographic after the cover was manipulated, stated that “We no longer use that technology to manipulate elements in a photo simply to achieve a more compelling graphic effect. We regarded that afterwards as a mistake, and we wouldn’t repeat that mistake today.”

4. This Pulitzer Prize winning photo by John Filo shows Mary Ann Vecchio screaming as she kneels over the body of student Jeffrey Miller at Kent State University, where National Guardsmen had fired into a crowd of demonstrators, killing four and wounding nine. The original photograph shows a fence post directly behind Vecchio, that was removed in the published version.

5. This photograph of O.J. Simpson was manipulated from the original mug-shot that appeared, unaltered, on the cover of Newsweek. Time magazine was subsequently accused of manipulating the photograph to make Simpson appear “darker” and “menacing.”

6. Hoping to illustrate its diverse enrollment, the University of Wisconsin at Madison doctored a photograph on a brochure cover by digitally inserting a black student in a crowd of white football fans. The original photograph of white fans was taken in 1993. The additional black student, senior Diallo Shabazz, was taken in 1994. University officials said that they spent the summer looking for pictures that would show the school’s diversity — but had no luck.

7. The picture of Brad Pitt was taken in Anguilla, a Caribbean island, in January 2005. The picture of Jolie was taken in Virginia some time in 2004. On page 8 is a disclaimer noting the image is a “composite of two photographs.” This composite was purchased from Big Pictures, a London-based photography agency, for $500,000.

8. A Harvard spokesman confirmed that someone involved with the production of the viewbook had decided to remove the headline – “It’s a mistake, and it should not have happened,” he said.

9. Schneider said that he only meant to restore the actual color of the sky that was lost when he underexposed the photo. Schneider was suspended in an earlier episode after it was revealed that his award-winning photographs had been manipulated. Schneider allowed this case to be used to educate other professional photographers in ethics seminars. At the time he pledged, “I will no longer tone my background down that far.”

10. “The publisher and staff acknowledge that the satirical article was inappropriate. We wish to sincerely apologize to Tiger Woods, his wife Elin Nordegren and other Ryder Cup players and their families for any offence they may have taken to it.”

11. “Times policy forbids the manipulation of any photograph. Had editors been aware of the manipulation and seen the original picture, they would have either published the picture with the blemish or not used it.”

12. “The retouching we did on Faith Hill’s photo for the July cover of Redbook is completely in line with industry standards.”

13. Richard Valvo, a spokesman for Men’s Fitness, said, “We wouldn’t comment on any type of production issue.” Adding, “I don’t see what the big issue is here.”

14. The image was doctored to include a tear on Reagan’s face. Time issued a statement saying it regularly runs what it calls “conceptual covers.” They said: “This week’s cover image is clearly credited on the table of contents page, naming both the photographer of the Reagan photo and the illustrator of the tear.”

Source: http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/research/digitaltampering