How Much Image Manipulation Is Allowed

Estimated reading time: 5 Minuten

Photographers—amateurs as well as professionals—sometimes clash quite fiercely when it comes to the question of how much image manipulation is acceptable and how much is not.

Broadly speaking, there are three factions:

The purists, who frown even upon scaling;

the image editors, who regard the pictures straight out of the camera merely as raw material from which something entirely new is created on the computer;

and the group in between, who essentially leave their images as they are but do a bit of development, e.g., with the contrast slider or the tone curve, or apply filters to their photos.

Naturally, there are all conceivable gradations in between.

There are, however, photographers who indeed try to dispute members of the other groups the right to call themselves “real” photographers. They often justify this by saying that all of this has nothing to do with photography anymore, that reality is being distorted, that reality was not as shown in the (manipulated) image. Although this argument is correct, it overlooks the fact that every photo alters reality. Always has! Anyone who believes that photos don’t lie is fooling themselves.

It starts with the transfer of a three-dimensional reality into a two-dimensional photograph. This alone changes lines and proportions. The choice of focal length and framing also alters the depiction of reality: they determine what is brought into relation with what—and exclude other relationships.

The use of different developing chemicals changes contrast. Different agitation rhythms during development do the same. And the Zone System… does it not serve to shift brightness values from one zone to another at will? Where is reality then? And what about darkroom techniques: a bit of dodging here, a bit of burning there… not to mention graded photographic paper! Doesn’t it serve to work out differences in contrast in the image according to one’s wishes? What about bleaching and toning? Even Ansel Adams, one of the two founders of the Zone System and something like a patron saint of photography, manipulated his photos—i.e., worked on them using darkroom techniques. Nobody would want to doubt that what he did was photography. And truly excellent photography at that!

I think these small examples are enough to show that “reality”—whatever one might take it to be—has always been altered in photographs. And inevitably so, by the very nature of the process! Sometimes more, sometimes less. Anyone who believes that before the invention of color film people walked through the cities exclusively in black, white, or gray clothing is mistaken. And cropping has existed since the invention of the knife. Why should I leave a not-so-good photo as a not-so-good photo if I can make a good one out of it by cropping? That would be a shame!

So: As long as editing benefits an image, it should be done! That is, after all, the whole purpose of analog darkroom techniques and digital image editing. There are no limits to this—only personal preferences and differing tastes. The photographer’s feeling—or, if you prefer, the image editor’s—sets the limits. If I feel that this is right and not otherwise, then it is finished—my image. And every single step taken to get there is also permissible.

However, this does not apply equally to all areas of photography: In photojournalism, the limits are very narrow. Here only exposure and contrast corrections are acceptable, nothing more. Even though brightness and contrast adjustments are not really “manipulations” in the strict sense, but procedural necessities to create an image in the first place. And these “settings” may be a bit stronger in one case and more restrained in another. Essentially, it’s like breakfast eggs, which you can cook soft or hard. But you have to cook them either way. And just as a hard-boiled egg is not a “manipulation” in the sense of “falsification,” neither is a photograph developed with more or less contrast, or one developed a bit lighter or darker.

But more on that in other posts.