The spirit of Zelig lives
and will now be appearing in all your family photos..
Technically the camera still isn't lying, its the post production, but this will increasingly devalue photographs as a source of future historical record
Adobe is updating its Creative Cloud suite to version 2015.5 and including a new Photoshop feature which modifies facial expressions after the event. Called Face Aware Liquify, the feature extends the existing shape-bending Liquify filter with face recognition and tools to tweak eyes, nose, mouth (including smile control), …
>this will increasingly devalue photographs as a source of future historical record
Patented in 1947, may I present this photo-retouching table?
It vibrates the photographic negative that the artist is working on, so that brush strokes are rendered invisible:
http://petapixel.com/2014/10/19/adams-retouching-machine-helped-old-school-photoshoppers-retouch-negatives-hand/
Before we used the term 'photoshopped', we would talk of people being 'airbrushed' from history.
True, but it was a fairly more complex technique requiring specific skills applied only to a smaller subset of photos. Digital editing made it so easy quite a lot of photos are now heavily retouched. And the worst thing is they look more and more quite the same.
True - once upon a time it was harder, so it was only done on a very few photos where the "reasons" were compelling. i.e. likely to be historically significant.
These days almost every snap that is chatted, instagrammed, facebooked or flickr'd is subject to some digital tinkerage. But those are hardly historically significant, so does it really matter ?
No, it wasn't because "historically significant". It was mostly made in portraits or other "official" photos, in advertising, or for propaganda reasons (after all, all forms of propaganda). The skills and the costs of the processes limited its use.
You would have seen far less editing in many other photos - even of very high historical significance. Often made without later access to costly "enhancing" techniques.
To be clear, I have no issues with techniques that could surface details which actually are in an image but would not be visible due to the medium limitations (i.e. limited dynamic range). The issue is when you almost re-create the image digitally, turn it into something that never existed, without telling the viewer. It's just another form of propaganda. Personal propaganda, commercial propaganda, still propaganda.
And could you know, when you take a photo, what will its historical significance be in the years to come?
Photos never told the full truth - the very act of framing (or cropping) lets you decide what's in and what's out, and thereby what the image tells. But now you can broadly modify even what's in. We're back to a form of "pictorialism", just subtler.
Personally I use PS to have everyone be in the group photo they thought they were in, not one of the three I actually took in which at least one person was either blinking, yawning, looking down or impersonating a frightened rabbit. The thought of 'JOKERizing' them after the fact is probably a retouching step too far. This comment may have been tampered with.
Sometimes I am handed such loveliness and asked anxiously 'can you do anything about this?' So I have to take the waiter out, straighten the toupee, take the wineglass out of someone's hand, or the cigarette out of another's, fix the vacant gaze, take off the yellow or blue cast, sharpen and brighten.
It's called making the top brass look good, when they thought their smartphone was all the camera they needed.
Once upon a time, the way to preserve the image of a person was to have a portrait painted. Portrait painters often, shall we say, "improved" the subject. It was fairly rare that anyone really wanted "warts and all" in their portrait. Then cameras mostly ended that, capturing what was really there. Now we're heading back to the idea of editing reality. I suppose someday they may even be able to take a picture with me in it and transform my image from a pissed-off Satan with a bad hangover to a smiling, grandfatherly-looking sort of fellow.
On second thought, there was a fair amount of history revision even in the days before Photoshop.
I recall that about 50 years ago, my mother knew a person who worked as a photo retoucher for a company that specialized in school portrait photos. I remember she told one story of a girl who frantically called the company and begged them to make the pack of cigarettes she'd inadvertently left in her pocket disappear from her high school photo "Because mom will KILL me!" (Told you it was a long time ago. Take a packet of fags to school today and they'll immolate you, of course. Back then they actually had smoking areas in high schools, believe it or not. "When I were a lad...")
The retoucher assured the girl it would be no problem and was as good as her word.
> Permissions, sphermissions. I'm Batman at all company webinars from now on.
You don't need photoshop for that. Just go in costume. I personally prefer the 1960's Adam West Batman costume.
It is really fun to wear it funerals. When people complain about your inappropriate attire, tell them the deceased requested you wear it.
Then count me out. I would have happily paid for a good piece of software (which PS certainly is) to own (OK, own the license), and upgrade when I feel the need. I do not like walking around, somewhere out of internet reach (try quite large bits of Uganda), and have my software tell me:
"Sorry, I can't do that for you Dave."
Because it cannot reach the Adobe servers to verify I have paid my subscription
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And I am not even called Dave.
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Mine is the one with the developer stains in it
Mutters retreating to the proper dark room to develop some proper prints