Posted on 08/28/2006 5:14:42 AM PDT by Halfmanhalfamazing
You would think that Reuters learned its lesson about publishing to the world photos doctored to create a false image. After all, they were caught with multiple false photos from Lebanon, and had to take down more than 900 images from one stringer. Reuters promised it would have "experienced editors" look at all such photos in the future.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...
I'm not sure, but it looks like the photo was taken in the early evening maybe 30 minutes to an hour before sunset. You will notice that no direct sunlight is on the tank, but there obviously is behind it. Take a look some day when you are out driving around and you will see that the lighting can do weird things as sunset approaches.
Don't get me wrong, it doesn't surprise me at all to find out that Reuters, AP, etc. are doctoring photos. I'm just not sure about this one.
Changing the contrast is not doctoring a photo. Everybody needs to calm down.
This is on the intellectual level of DU posters noticing that a sitting President has a bulge in his jacket during a debate and concluding that Karl Rove was moving his jaw muscles with electrodes.
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| ^^^^^^^^^^Save it for the real thing.^^^^^^^^^^ Yeah, I have to agree. However, with all that Reuters and other lib media outlets have done up until this point, you can't blame people for overscrutinizing. You sir are a true gentleman, open to criticism and thinking rationally. We need more like you. |
Plus, I'm just not seeing what benefit they would derive from "washing out" the blue helmets and flag in this. The last thing the left wants to make people think is that the "glorious" UN would ever surrender.
It's now obvious that the photographer screwed up his f-stop settings and the original main subject image, the vehicle, was underexposed due to back-lighting. He should have known better if a pro and opened up a couple stops OR used his EV compensation dial. But he didn't so it was done in the lab, washing out the blue. (its still funny hough, French & 'White' Flag)
A first year Photo student knows about the evils of back-lighting and light meter readings
Something like this? I found others with even fewer supports, but they were too big to post. Between blurring in the distance and jpeg compression I could see how the supports would disappear.
The brightness was changed in order for the image of the chief hezzie to be visible. Since the flag was backlit, the sunlight was coming toward the camera. I'd wager the poster's features would be dark and indistinguishable and obviously Al Reuters couldn't let that stand, hence the change.
Or he may have had it properly exposed on a digital camera. Digital cameras' maximum value is much more defined than film. If the light blue (RGB = 133, 151, 193) got twice as much light as it should it would be RGB = 266, 302, 386. However, the pixels are limited to 255 so you get RGB = 255, 255, 255 or pure white. Film doesn't have such a sharp maximum, so it will still bluish.
Generally on digital cameras I underexpose the picture slightly because I can later brighten the picture to get it to look good. If it is overexposed then colors can be lost which cannot then be recovered by darkening the picture.
That's the half amazing part. *laughs*
I appreciate that.
Non-event.
When a camera's aperture / shutter speed is set to capture detail in a relatively dark area, the brighter areas are overexposed and washed out of color, or even completely burned out to pure white. The exact opposite of when you take a picture on a bright day & the person (because he's in the shade) is nothing but a dark shadow. The photographer as focusing on dark areas (the poster of Nasrallah, the heavy equipment), while bright sunlight was shining on the helmets & flags.
In this case, it looks like photoshop could have been used to darken the helments & flag to make them look blue (the UN logo would have been clearly visible), but they didn't.
This isn't a 'doctored' image in a nefarious sense. This is an image where there is an intense lightsource behind the foreground and in order to bring out the details of the foreground they had to do some dodging (lightening) or levels adjustments.
I've done photoshop work for 16 years and all they've done is make the image more presentable. They chose the image because of the content.
NO!
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