Sunday, January 29, 2012

How Much PhotoShop is Too Much?

BARACK OBAMA AND MITT ROMNEY did not have an actual fight and chances are, they've never looked as bruised and battered as they did on this recent cover of New York magazine.

Is it wrong to represent them in this way?

Clearly, it is a photo manipulation. But are they taking too many liberties with the truth? Should a media outlet manufacture an image to represent the emotion of a story? Or should they rely upon reality, even though it may not appear as visually striking?

Would you publish the PhotoShopped image?

3 comments:

David Allen said...

I think it all depends on the publication that is running the Photoshopped images. New York has plenty of those tabloid like magazines that like to make a "splash" with their creative front pages. I wouldn't expect this from the New York Times or even the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Minjia Yu said...

I think it’s inappropriate. It’s very eye-catching, indeed, but not journalistic. Because media has the responsibility to show the audience the truth, using a manipulated picture is definitely a not sensible or innocuous way. This cover can be rather misleading, especially to those who know nothing about the event. Actually, I was once introduced the case about Kerry-Fonda composite by my home university’s teacher (I’m a new exchange student from China) and I remembered that many experts or scholars in industry had pointed out the danger in the doctored images’ circulation. And now we see the president be “punched” like this. So I’m really curious about why this cover can come out. Is it similar to caricatures? Or did the editor think that it can also reflect a certain reality?

Sakinah Muhammad said...

I think that no photo should be altered as much as this one has. I would not publish this photo shopped image because it is actually quite rude and disappointing in my opinion to portray political figures, let alone our President in such a gory way. Not only that but it then makes me question the integrity of the journalists work because technically they are lying, by producing false images of people who are widely recognized in America and all over the world. An image should never be transformed to show the emotion of a story the way this one has, especially if the image is not an true portrayal of reality.