It may be how they received the photos and they may not do those alterations. It's really just a guess. The photo at the top of this thread would look like total garbage if it was printed. Frankly, it's a bit of a dog of a photo, anyway.
Darkening of journalistic photography
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It may be how they received the photos and they may not do those alterations. It's really just a guess. The photo at the top of this thread would look like total garbage if it was printed. Frankly, it's a bit of a dog of a photo, anyway.
OP
OP
I agree her photojournalist images are completely normal, which makes me think the image I shared was not manipulated by her, but instead by someone else, or perhaps by one of the accidental technical reasons that several people have pointed out.Here's the photographer's portfolio for photojournalism. Her shots seem normal. Why not contact her and ask her why the publication messed up? Her phone number and email address are on her website.
I have seen the same issue at NYT, where certain images appear unnaturally dark. It's unlikely to be because of cell phone use, as any modern cellphone will deliver properly exposed images after a few minutes of practice, or indeed no practice at all.
I think this picture looks this way because it was not reworked, but brightness set for not loosing highlights.
Also it is possible that cell-phone pictures no longer are accepted by some newspapers, because there is quite some software in the smartphone. These tiny digital cameras actually are very bad. Someone managed to get the raw output of a smartphone camera and the picture was bad. It showed a lot of digital noise, even dead pixels, drifted colors, inadequate contrast etc. . He put the picture aside after the smartphone software had worked over the picture and it looked a lot better - but also as if all of the subject was made of plastic.
The newest thing is that the software will replace certain parts of your subject. If you take a picture of the moon at night, the software will insert a "nice" picture of the moon - and you will not see the part of the moon you just took a photo of.
You know a "nicer" picture of the moon is better for romance.
In the world of journalism this was picture manipulation, so maybe some newspapers won`t accept smartphone pictures any more - but pictures not having had the makeover by a software, making these pictures look "less good" though they`re more accurate/closer to truth actually.
Also it is possible that cell-phone pictures no longer are accepted by some newspapers, because there is quite some software in the smartphone. These tiny digital cameras actually are very bad. Someone managed to get the raw output of a smartphone camera and the picture was bad. It showed a lot of digital noise, even dead pixels, drifted colors, inadequate contrast etc. . He put the picture aside after the smartphone software had worked over the picture and it looked a lot better - but also as if all of the subject was made of plastic.
The newest thing is that the software will replace certain parts of your subject. If you take a picture of the moon at night, the software will insert a "nice" picture of the moon - and you will not see the part of the moon you just took a photo of.
You know a "nicer" picture of the moon is better for romance.
In the world of journalism this was picture manipulation, so maybe some newspapers won`t accept smartphone pictures any more - but pictures not having had the makeover by a software, making these pictures look "less good" though they`re more accurate/closer to truth actually.
However hasn't someone said that her other pictures are fine so one wonders why she set the brightness for not loosing the highlights?
My son has taken and shown me many pics of the grandkids in various settíngs and all the pics when sent to me for viewing and in some case reproduction from a mini-lab have been a faithful reproduction of what I saw when sent I received them from his digital phone
Of course all the above suggests that she is either using an inferior digital phone, assuming she does, but is this likely?
Which phones or cameras, if it applies to cameras, have software that literally decides what picture it will take, irrespective of what you take- it decides what constitutes a better picture?
I must admit that there were times when an i-phone taking a "nicer picture" would have been helpful. I am thinking of the times when I send my portrait to dating sites and the camera substituting a portrait of, say, George Clooney would have been helpful
Yes I appreciate I have injected humour but the whole idea of an i-phone deciding to take what sounds like a different picture is something I fine incredible. I'd like to know more if you are able to share what you know
If on the other hand it decided that her let's call it "altered picture as shown to us, then in this case it appears the software is flawed and has not produced a nice picture
Thanks
pentaxuser
Yes, it is a crap picture, but isn't it somehow more dramatic this way??
Newspaper photo editors have never been afraid to alter a photograph in the past. They would crop at will, adjust contrast, even retouch the image to isolate the subject. Just go visit the archives of any major newspaper where you can see the original, marked-up prints. Hell, Magnum makes a point of selling images that show how they have been altered, sometimes severely, in that manner. This is all because of some silly new ethics that have come about because of sophisticated retouching software and AI. I for one would not consider adjusting an image's histogram alteration that would exclude it from being used.
However hasn't someone said that her other pictures are fine so one wonders why she set the brightness for not loosing the highlights?
My son has taken and shown me many pics of the grandkids in various settíngs and all the pics when sent to me for viewing and in some case reproduction from a mini-lab have been a faithful reproduction of what I saw when sent I received them from his digital phone
Of course all the above suggests that she is either using an inferior digital phone, assuming she does, but is this likely?
Which phones or cameras, if it applies to cameras, have software that literally decides what picture it will take, irrespective of what you take- it decides what constitutes a better picture?
I must admit that there were times when an i-phone taking a "nicer picture" would have been helpful. I am thinking of the times when I send my portrait to dating sites and the camera substituting a portrait of, say, George Clooney would have been helpful
Yes I appreciate I have injected humour but the whole idea of an i-phone deciding to take what sounds like a different picture is something I fine incredible. I'd like to know more if you are able to share what you know
If on the other hand it decided that her let's call it "altered picture as shown to us, then in this case it appears the software is flawed and has not produced a nice picture
Thanks
pentaxuser
I am just putting out some ideas, but on this one i did not mean the photographer darkening the picture but the newspaper editor. There someone could have been concerned about loosing highlights.
About using an inferior phone, this picture was taken with a pretty extreme wide-angle lens - but is corrected for wide-angle-lens distortion, meaning there are no bend lines. This could indicate a modern phone camera software as these do correct for wide-angle distortion (or how this is called correctly?).
I am not saying that any iphone will insert or overly anything, as i have no clue about current iphone picture-software, but shortly i read somewhere else that on some phones you will get an overlay of the moon if you take a picture of the moon.
Dunno if i read it here but here is something about it:
EDIT: for whatever reason the link didn`t really work, but here is an even better article about this moon-thing:
Samsung caught faking zoom photos of the Moon
A photo of a blurry image of the Moon revealed some telling results.
www.theverge.com
I didn`t read through all of that, but seems like someone tested and found out about it. If so there also may be other fill-in/AI/overlay thingies making modern smartphones less suited for journalism.
All just a guess, as i wanted to share some ideas why this picture isn`t that "shiny".
Last edited:
There ya go. All fixed.
The fear of digital manipulation is much greater than the fear of darkroom trickery - not that that was impossible. Who knows exactly why this photo and a number of other examples are so muddy. It could be due to someone not taking much time to assess it.
more dramatic?
OP
OP
Your crop is certainly an improvement, in my opinion.
I did say "somehow." Seems there's more separation between the background and the foreground. But maybe not.
Aren't we threading a very fine line here on copyright infrigement ? It's OK to comment and criticize, but actually altering someone's work seems to me on the unethical side of things. Personally, I wouldn't appreciate browsing a photo forum and running into my photos altered.
But maybe it's just me.
It is certainly not copyright infringement in the context of discussing the image. It is not being used commercially.
MattKing
Moderator
I don't think so - in the context of a thread about the difficulties involved with display of images shared through the internet - in particular when the original problematic display is there for comparison.
It's not as if there is an implied representation that the work is our own, or that we were representing our presentation choice as being somehow authorized by the photographer.
It is akin to sharing photos of how someone else's photography looks when framed and on our wall at home.
Teaching what an appropriately exposed photo ought to look like falls under Fair Use in copyright law.
In fact, copying and posting the original too dark photo also falls under Fair Use teaching us what a photo should not look like.
Oh. I'm not a lawyer. Don't listen to me.
Honestly, Alan, this is just Grumpy Old Men stuff. Photo may be too dark according to your standards, maybe perfectly exposed according to theirs. That you don't like it the way it is is fine. That you question their craftmanship and professionalism from a single photo whose exposure you happen not to like is a bit over the top.
MattKing
Moderator
There is such an immensely long and convoluted journey between what the photographer did and how it appears on anyone's screen - with each step vulnerable to all sorts of technological and subjective errors and/or choices, originating in each case from different individuals and organizations - it is truly impossible to assign responsibility for a too dark presentation to anyone.
Unless, of course, it is the viewer's fault, for turning the brightness down on their own viewing medium.
Unless, of course, it is the viewer's fault, for turning the brightness down on their own viewing medium.
What's noteworthy, and I noted it in my first comment here, is that photo is atypical of the photographer. A quick look a almost all other photos you can find shows properly exposed images. Also, when you do a search and see this image in a field of properly exposed photos,. you'll know that it doesn't meet any subjective standard. Other photos that show up that are equally as murky belong to other recent, politics-related news-stories - so it may be a combination of photos straight from the camera that are not being adjusted by the news agency, where the photos look ok on the camera.
Yeah. And sometimes, things work out this way:
EDITOR — Hey, we're doing a story on the *** school, and we're in a bit of a rush. You got something.
PHOTOGRAPHER — Wait, let me look. Yeah, got one I took when I was doing the piece on ***. Didn't use it that time. Not very good. Composition not great, and a bit dark. You see the entrance, though. So clearly about the *** school.
EDITOR — OK, send it to me. Like I said, a bit of a rush, story comes out in an hour, so I don't have many options.
PHOTOGRAPHER — Usual fee?
EDITOR — Yeah.
Not exactly how things happen in real life, but close.
Believable. But the dark photos started for that photographer with the election. It really could be a new camera, new way of sending in files, or just a completely intentional choice to darken the images for ideological reasons.
... and detail on the highlights is gone. It doesn`t matter as detail on highlights isn`t important, but the original picture was set for not loosing detail on highlights - maybe it just was some sort of auto-setting failure?
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