Ethics Conference: Photoshop; Touch-Up or Too Much?

A panel was given by UCO professors Mark Zimmerman and Jesse Miller, as well as Chris Landsberger, who is a photographer for the Oklahoman.

They've done a similar panel for the last several years for the conference, talking about manipulating photographs using image-editing software, and what levels of manipulation is appropriate or acceptable in what fields of the media.

For advertising campaigns, it's considered acceptable to edit a photo beyond recognition to its original material.

For portraiture, manipulation to remove imperfections like blemishes and run-away hairs is acceptable, but not much beyond those simple edits.

For documentary material, the ethical boundaries are very tight and strict. Color corrections and cropping are among the very few accepted manipulations, but even those edits must be subtle, and must not change the feeling of the image to anything other than what would be felt by the viewer if they'd seen the original photo.

Journalism rules of ethics for photographs extend beyond the photograph alone. Captions cannot mislead a reader, or it is considered manipulation. Photojournalism is considered "natural moments," that means that even if you were photographing a natural moment once, the moment your subject reacts to the camera and changes their behaviors, it is considered a manipulation.

This is the style that I prefer. As a nature photographer, I don't want to change photos or make them something unnatural. That's the whole point of photographing nature is to keep it original appeal.