Recently, I got into a discussion with a guy on social media about one of my photos. He claimed it was fake. I had manipulated the image by adding birds, he said. The incident got me thinking about how easy it is nowadays to change an image completely. How do you prove your image shows the reality?
When I was photographing with the Olympus OM-D E-M1 II, I got a chance to capture some sheep on a dike together with a flock of geese in the air. It was just a matter of time before some of the massive amount of geese in the area would fly over the dike, because they were flying everywhere. I posted the image on social media, when one guy responded in a very negative way. He said the image was completely fake.
One guy accused me of manipulating this image. He said it was fake and wanted to see the raw file. When I refused, he told me in public it was proof against me. What do you think? Is it reality or fake?
Right then, I should have ignored the guy, but I didn’t. We got into a discussion, and he insisted I should send him the raw file to prove me right. I refused, of course. But I took the effort to send him a screenshot of the image in Lightroom. He kept on telling it was fake, and the discussion became very nasty. I ended it when he started swearing and even accusing me of manipulating all my other images also.
Are Your Photos Real or Manipulated?
The whole incident got me thinking. With modern software like Luminar and its Augmented Sky option, it has become very easy to add all sorts of elements into the image. Of course, this is not the fault of Luminar. Photo manipulation had been possible since the dark ages. Nevertheless, with Al, it has become available for everyone without the need for very complicated workflows. You can make an image very appealing by adding interesting elements with just a simple click of a mouse button. In Luminar, you can add an aurora, lightning, the Moon, planets, and even a giraffe. And birds, of course.
A flock of birds at sunrise. Or is it? In reality, it is a long exposure at sunrise, and I added the birds through the augmented sky option in Luminar 4. Did you think it was real the moment you saw the image?
Most of the things you can add to the sky in Luminar are clearly fake. They blend in nicely, but you can see they aren't real. When you add birds into the sky, it's completely different. The image may become more interesting in a very convincing way. From this point of view, I can understand how someone like that guy might think it is not real.
There Is a Difference Between Photo Manipulation and Post-Processing
I believe there is nothing wrong with manipulating images. It can be called art if it is done in an original way. Photo manipulation is completely different compared to post-processing. The latter is optimizing your image without changing reality. On some occasions, colors may be exaggerated, and perhaps some elements in the image can be removed digitally, but it is reality, for the most part. It becomes manipulating when elements are added to the image and when the image is changed completely.
I played around in Photoshop long before the age of Luminar and merged different images together. It was absolutely not art and amateurish at best. But it was fun to do, and I learned how to use the different tools in Photoshop. I have always been honest when presenting my Photoshop manipulations, and I never claimed these images were real.
I manipulated this image many years ago in Photoshop. There are three different images merged together: the foreground, the birds, and the sun and clouds. I never claimed it was real.
Software like Luminar is just the beginning. It uses clever algorithms to merge all sorts of elements into an existing image without difficulties. We have seen Luminar skies all over the internet already. We can recognize these skies. It becomes much more difficult when custom skies are being used. Also, bird silhouettes are easy to add to an image. More software with similar possibilities will follow soon.
How can you tell the difference between a real image and a fake one? If you look at the photos below, can you tell which are real and not?
Reality or manipulation? This one is a merger between two images: one of the path between the heather and one of the trees and bench in the mist. Shot in the same location, two minutes after each other, but two images, nevertheless.
Reality or manipulation? This one is real, although I have used two images with different exposures: one of the road with the traffic, and one of the sky with the aurora. It is HDR in a way. You tell me if this is considered reality or manipulation.
Reality or manipulation? I took this telephoto photo from a hill in the French Auvergne region right after sunrise. The balloon drifted in the distance behind the castle. It is reality.
Reality or manipulation? An amazing morning twilight with a flock of geese flying over. It is reality; nothing is manipulated.
Reality or manipulation? Did I add these paragliders into the image, or are they reality? Can you tell? Well, they are real. They were the reason why I took this image.
Reality or manipulation? It is an image from the archives. I took this photo back in 2012 with a long lens. The gulls flew through the frame, and I took a series of images. It is amazing how the gulls and sun fit together. Nothing is manipulated.
Reality or manipulation? If you have Luminar, you might recognize the mountains. Yes, it is manipulated. There are no mountains in the Netherlands. The Dutch Mountains don't exist.
Reality or manipulation? I photographed this fortress during a summer holiday in broad daylight. I transformed it into night scenery and added a Milky Way photo I made somewhere else. As a matter of fact, the image is facing North, away from the central part of the Milky Way. It is fake.
Reality or manipulation? It could be real, but it isn't. I merged a daylight photo of this beach at Lofoten and added an aurora image I took that same photo trip.
Reality or manipulation? I was playing around with the photo of this small fishing pond. I did a horizontal flip to mirror the shore and added a Milky Way in the twilight sky. It cannot be real at all, but it was fun to do.
How to Deal With People Who Call Our Work Fake
Let’s go back to the guy to claimed my image were fake. I failed to convince him of the opposite, and he became very angry, partly because I refused to send him the raw file. I don’t feel I have to prove myself, but I also find it very frustrating how some people can react. To what lengths should we go in order to prove our images are real? Must we ignore those people and let them accuse us and slander us? Or should we try to convince them and even send them raw files?
For this fun image, I enlarged the comet NEOWISE to be more visible. But believe me, the dinosaurs are real... images from the internet. I don't have to prove it is reality or manipulated. It is obvious.
Again, this is not a rant about Luminar or similar software that allows us to change an image with the click of a mouse button. I think it is fine to add all sorts of interesting things to an image as long as you are honest about it. This is how we should deal with those who accuse us of having fake images. Feel free to let me know in the comments how you feel about this and to what lengths we have to go to prove our images are real.
This argument is a red herring. Of course there's no absolute reality in a photograph, by definition, because it's a photograph, not reality. Nobody said anything about absolute reality. We're talking about does the photograph depict something that really occurred or not. If you shoot a flock of birds in front of a sunset, even if you change the colors, the contrast and whatnot, the fact remains that there really was a flock of birds in front of a sunset when you pressed the shutter. It depicts a real event, and that's fundamentally different than shooting a pond, and then adding a sunset and a flock of birds that weren't really there.
Is reality real? Reality is a matter of perception and everybody's perception of reality is different. As someone else pointed out, what exactly is reality? Is it an unspoken shared agreement between people that there is a Reality? It's actually murkier than that according to current physics and sociologists.
For my self I am not that concerned about "real" but for my own work I am concerned about "authentic". All photography is a bit of an abstraction and for an artist to want want to make that even more abstract is fine with me. I don't like it when something is heavily manipulated and presented as "real". But authenticity seems to me to come from a different place than "real", not always but sometimes. Much of my own work involves elaborate lighting set-ups. There is nothing real about that but I think you can arrive at authentic.
He wanted your photo in hi-res for free.
I am a huge supporter of photo manipulation - just go check my (very honest) bio on my profile.
I tend to create mini series most of the time. Literally all my work is either edited to convey the photo series' overall theme or, in some cases, I even go as far to manipulate the subjects appearance.
In my case, I feel strongly that my original images were taken with intent and required a degree of photographic skill and thought - this is 50% of my process. The other 50% is creatively retouching. Both parts are equally fulfilling to me.
That being said, I think the overall debate is to whether an individual tries to save poor images by over developing or manipulating without direction or thought. OR he/she tries to fit in with the IG crowd and feel the necessity to over edit their work to stand out (Hello Blue/Orange tint).
This recent phenomena is why internet trolls/critics exist. Dishonest creators/artists/photographers indirectly created a disbelieving / over critical audience.
Did you know those woman in Playboy wake-up in the morning always look flawless?
What does that mean?
Ha Ha Ha. That's funny, I was waiting for someone to leave a comment to my comment but wasn't quite what I was expecting. It means the photos are fake because no one wakes-up in the morning looking that perfect.
That's what I thought you meant. Are you saying all photos of you are fake because they don't show you in your underwear? Probably your parents would not agree. Me I don't want to see this, but your cat is okay.
Unfortunately, for those of us who choose to minimize post-shoot processing, when we do capture a remarkable image, it does risk being called out as fake. But while you might provide a .raw file to a reputable contest sponsor to verify authenticity, random-guy-on-the-internet deserves no such access. I suspect he was up to some nefarious deed. Perhaps to submit your image for that aforementioned contest.
BTW, the products of such heavy manipulation as sky replacement, added wildlife or people, etc, should never be referred to as photographs. What separates photography as being a more genuine presentation of the moment is its instantaneous capture of your feelings and experience at that time. Climbing a mountain to capture a great sunrise is emotionally different than missing the sunrise, but fixing that three days later by replacing the sky, adding a few birds, all while sipping a glass of wine and sitting in your comfy studio creating a pretty picture. It's what separates photography from painting. It is, indeed, the essence of photography itself.
I agree. Anything more than adding a little contrast or correcting white balance becomes digital art. The term Photograph means it was taken in-camera.
That's why I always keep numbered, indexed RAW masters. EZ proof.
A slightly different perspective: I'm a physician scientist and sometimes publish images of the work we've done in a lab. For example, a photomicrograph of cells or tissue (you think your Nikon Z7 is expensive, try pricing a Nikon three-color fluoromicroscope :-). For all such scientific images, the basic, rigidly-enforced rule is -- no dishonest manipulation. If I have a batch of images (presented, nine images in a 3 x 3 panel), then each image must have been processed and handled the same. If I have a single image, no changes that would cause an honest person to see it as something different than what it was under the scope.
These rules are enforced by the biomedical journal editors and by NIH -- you can be banned from journals and lose your grants if it's shown that you improperly manipulated an image.
The key again -- no dishonest manipulation. For regular photography, I should think that means that if you manipulate an image, you say so. Drop in a gorgeous sunrise or birds or a flying saucer from Luminar? Sure, fine, but say so. Disclosure is the key.
In the end, most photography is art of one kind or the other. Just say what you did.
"Disclosure is the key."
Exactly.
As an amateur I am fine with whatever people are doing but they should tell that something is a composite or whatever. I often look at images and think “how the f..k did they do this?” only to find out that they replaced sky, made the moon larger, replaced large things in the image or merged exposures hours apart. At least tell us what you did.
It’s also not fair against the people who spend insane amounts of time waiting for the right conditions. To me part of an image is how it looks but there is also an element of appreciation of the effort of the photographer to shoot something difficult.
Here are the facts: "words have meaning" and not meant to fit someone else narrative. Here's the true meaning from an encyclopedia: "Photography is the art, application and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film". Anything else is simply digital art and NOT a photograph. Simple.
Fascinating discussion. What is “real” when it comes to exposure? Does a photo have to be “correctly exposed” to be “real”?
Consider the attached photo. Is it real? It is a straight export from Lightroom using “camera standard” profile and no other edits. It was photographed with a Canon 1Dx2 and a 100-400 zoom at 170mm, 1/2000, f7.1, and ISO 100 – about 3-4 stops “under exposed”. The photo was taken about 24 minutes before sundown. To the naked eye, it wasn’t as dark as the photo suggests. So is the photo less “real”?
Lightroom wasn’t used to manipulate the exposure, but camera settings were chosen to reduce the amount of light recorded by the sensor. Since camera settings were chosen against the light meter’s reading of “correct exposure”, is this an in-camera manipulated fake?
Arguably, “it wasn’t that dark” when the photo was taken. But, everything captured by the sensor is accurate – according to the sensor and software behind it. The amount of light and the color recorded by the sensor is exactly what the sensor “saw”. And, had I worn sunglasses, this is how it would have looked to my eye. (Note to self – next time wear dark sunglasses when photographing toward the sun!!)
We tend to judge images based on the perception that they present to the viewer. I agree that this image gives the perception that ambient light was lower than it actually was. But, sensors lack the full ability of the human eye, particularly in exposure latitude. This image reveals clouds and colors that were visible to eye, but would have been washed out at “normal exposure”. It also does a better job of rendering the awe of the scene as the sun was going down than a “correctly exposed” image would have shown. Plus, as I alluded to earlier, it isn’t a good idea to look at the sun, so this image helps you see what you couldn’t see with a naked eye. Since a “correctly exposed” image would “not have done this moment justice” in recording what I saw, perhaps that “correctly exposed” image would have been just as “fake” as this one. So, is it this image “real” or “fake”?
(The photo was taken on 9/5/2020 overlooking Lake Superior, from Port Wing, Wisconsin).
National Geographic and most news agencies set the standard that the digital equivalent of analogue film and darkroom techniques (push and pull negative while developing, burning and dodging, choosing film stocks that are hyper saturated for landscape such as Fuji Velvia or desaturated for skin tones) is acceptable. Ansel Adams did heavy manipulation including dodging and burning to create many of his most famous images to get an ideal exposure of each different element in his images, however everything was still captured in a single exposure. Bracket shooting a still life or landscape and compositing or even focus stacking is still honest as there is a single moment being captured in the equivalent of a long exposure. Everything really is captured in the same frame and was all there in real life at that same moment. Still falls within the scope of a real photo. When elements of photos shot at different times or in totally different scenes are combined, it is not a real scene
Photographers should be upfront and honest when presenting work that could be real but is a composite. Their audience and potential buyers are also judging the skill of the artist’s ability to capture an image or to judge their digital illustration ability in Photoshop. Many digital illustrations that use photographs and are flawlessly realistic do display great artistry of digital manipulation and illustration in Photoshop.
One image that really pissed me off because it was dishonest was one that a customer at a famous online Photogear store posted in their customer review of a macro lens. Obviously they chose the photo to show off their skills as a macro photographer rather than honestly showing other people considering the lens how it draws a macro image and renders the background. This was obviously a composite as the immutable physics of light passing through a lens makes it impossible for any, even a completely over-engineered multimillion dollar lens for NASA to be able to sharply focus on a close macro subject while the moon framing the flowers at 283,900 miles away is in tack sharp focus. Inevitably this photographic lie will influence someone looking to buy the lens even if the reviewer was trying to defraud to gain reputation rather than money from the len’s sale. (posted below)
Too many of us try to impress too many of us. If you like what you're doing, then don't give a rat's behind what others think. The exception is if you're being paid for the photos. Then it's what the client likes.
Or, as in my case, I sell prints. Some of my best sellers would get nothing but thumbs down from many members here (over the top, gawdy, tone mapped stuff). Doesn't matter whether or not they like it, as long as my customers do.
In the end, it's all subjective. We like what we like, as it should be.
I think we all agree with you comment. Except that's not what this article is about.
In a way, you can argue that everything in photography is manipulation. Even the choice of your lens can alter the way the viewer experiences the shot. Think about the discussions earlier this year with telelenses used to look as if people are packed on each other in a social distancing world.
I think manipulation isn't bad, and it's not someone's task to call you out on it. Of course, if you would enter a highly manipulated image in a wildlife contest for example, that's a different type of situation. But if you sell prints or just post to Instagram, it's about the look and feel of the image, not the truthfulness.
Anyway, nice photos!
There's a fundamental difference between merely altering the way you capture what's in front of your lens and deeply manipulating a picture to show something that wasn't there. In my opinion, the latter isn't photography, it's digital art (which is fine, as long you don't explicitly or even implicitly pass it off as photography).
There is a group of photographers in SE Asia that glue animals into unnatural poses. They are constantly praised for their "cute" shots, but I think they are horribly cruel. I'd rather see a good "fake" image than one like that.
So composites are called real photos now ? I agree with Bjorne Solvik, “we are drowning in fake images...” But Fstoppers is a website for retouchers with endless images made using computers.
Let’s not kid ourselves.