manipulation

Photo Editor

A Plea to Manufacturers: We Need the Definitive Photo

The Africa Geographic 2019 winner "Tim in Amboseli National Park, Kenya is a great photo. It shows Tim the elephant majestically backlit against a dramatic sky. Except, it didn't win: it was later disqualified for excessive manipulation.

Real or Photoshop: How Much Photo Editing is Too Much?

There is a lot of discussion these days about the pros and cons of post-processing. Is it good or bad, why do we do it at all, shouldn’t photography be representative of reality? Authentic? Isn’t the image out of a camera the real thing? Isn’t editing cheating?

Is It Time to Redefine Photography in the Name of Art?

When an article critical of excessive photo manipulation (such as replacing the sky or adding fake reflections on water) is posted on photography news websites, it often generates a flood of comments, both in agreement and disagreement.

These Photos Show How Easy it is to Create ‘Fake News’ with Photography

A Danish photo news agency recently tasked two of its photogs with creating a series that shows how easy it is to lie through photography. By shooting before and after photos of the same scene, they showed how angle and perspective can, consciously or not, manipulate viewers and lead to accusations of fake news.

This Microbiologist Can Spot Your Fake Photos

When National Geographic published Beth Moon’s images of “the world’s oldest trees by starlight,” seasoned astrophotographers like Adrien Mauduit cried foul. Not only were sections of the sky cloned, but specific stars were appearing in portions of the sky that were physical impossibilities.

10 Photoshop Hacks for Portraits

Photographer Irene Rudnyk made this 22-minute video to share her top 10 Photoshop hacks when working on portraits. These are tips and tricks Rudnyk says she uses all the time on all of her photos.

How to Do a Realistic Sky Swap in a Photo Using Photoshop

In this 9-minute video tutorial from Serge Ramelli, learn how to easily swap out an unattractive white sky from a photo for a more dramatic one using Photoshop. Utilizing the power of the multiply blend mode, it's possible to convincingly change the sky in the shot in minutes.

Indian Police Couple Fired for Faking Everest Climb with Photoshop

In September 2016, an Indian couple made international headlines after it was found that their photos "proving" they had reached Mount Everest's summit had been faked using Photoshop. It turns out the husband and wife were both police officers in India, and they've just been fired after an investigation into their deception.

Don’t Mind the Gap: Why Are We Now Photoshopping School Portraits?

There is something amiss with the photo above. I’m not talking about the missing teeth on the left -- that’s the correct photo. The problem is the photo on the right. Surely we have lost the plot when we start Photoshopping an 8-year-old’s gappy grin.

Why Does Controversy Follow World Press Photo?

Another year and another controversy for World Press Photo. This year, photographer Ramin Talaie raised questions about the authenticity of Hossein Fatemi who took 2nd place in long-term projects with his An Iranian Journey.

Add Surreal 3D Objects to Your Photos with Matter, Free This Week on iOS

Every week, Apple selects an application from the iOS App Store and makes it available for free to anyone with an Apple ID. This week’s app is ‘Matter’ by Pixite, which is normally $2. It allows you to add surreal 3D objects to your photographs. With only a few taps, you can add three-dimensional effects to your pictures with realistic shadows and reflections.

The Do’s and Don’ts of Photoshopping Wings Into a Surreal Portrait

Ok, let's just be honest for a second here: everyone and everything in the world looks drastically cooler with wings. Period. It's just the way it is.

In middle school when I was heavily into my "drawing magical fantasy creatures" phase (it never ended by the way... just ask my sketchbook), I used to check out this "how to draw animals" book from the library all the time. Really they should have just given it to me, I had it checked out so often.

Jewish Newspaper Photoshops Female Leaders Out of Charlie Hebdo March Photo

Millions of people -- including many world leaders -- took to the streets of France this past weekend to show solidarity in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack. The gathering in Paris, the largest in the history of France, made the front pages of major newspapers around the world.

One ultra-orthodox Jewish newspaper decided to cover the story a little differently, though: it's front page photo was a manipulated one that left out female world leaders.

BTS: See How Andy Warhol’s Amiga Photo Illustrations Were Recovered

Late last month, we shared with you a story about a team of computer scientists, archivists, artists and curators who recovered photo-manipulation work by famed artist Andy Warhol that had been trapped on 41 ‘lost’ floppy disks from the introduction of the Amiga computer system.

Today, we dive further behind the scenes with a fascinating followup video, provided by the Hillman Photography Initiative of the Carnegie Museum of Art, that takes a look at the incredible amount of work and dedication that went into actually recovering these files.

Izitru: A Service that Helps You Prove You Didn’t ‘Shop that Photo

As digital photographs become easier and easier to create, edit, and share, it's also becoming easier to doubt the authenticity of photos. There have been quite a few stories in recent days of photojournalists, news organizations, and contest winners throwing their reputations away by using Photoshop to manipulate the truthfulness of photos.

Izitru (pronounced "is it true") is a new free service that aims to make it easier for honest photographers to prove the authenticity of their images.

Anna Hill’s Photoshop Project Pokes Fun at Overly Manipulated Beauty Advertisements

Photoshop takes a lot of flack in this day and age, especially when it comes to the beauty and fashion industries that consistently publish overly manipulated imagery. Often that 'flack' doesn't give us much to laugh at, but a recent project by East Carolina University student Anna Hill does.

She put together four mock Photoshop ads that poke fun at just how far the beauty industry often takes photo manipulation.

Creating an Awesome Photo Manipulation from Sketch to Final Product

Swedish photographer and retouch artist Erik Johansson creates amazing photo manipulations -- in fact, we've actually featured his work before. This, however, is the first time we've had the opportunity to get a behind-the-scenes look at how these manipulations come together.

In the video above he gives us a glimpse at how he created the manipulation Drifting Away, all the way from the first sketch to the final 123-layer manipulation.

Beyonce Photoshopped Into Starvation for Latest Ad Campaign

Mystery solved: Beyonce is so riled up about restricting photographer access because she's hell-bent on projecting an image somewhere between "Photoshopped" and "impossible."

That's the impression from the the pop star's latest ad campaign, in which she sports body proportions that make her look like she stepped straight from a U.N. refugee camp into a Paris couture salon.

Dove Speaks Out Against Retouching by Releasing an Anti-Photoshop Action

Skin care company Dove is speaking out on the issue of "fake beauty" being promoted in photographs through Photoshopping. Rather than address the issue directly at first, the company decided to speak out directly to those responsible for "fake" images by doing some clever guerrilla marketing. It essentially pranked retouchers through the Web by releasing a fake Photoshop beauty Action that undoes manipulation rather than creates it.

Fantastic Imaginary Buildings Created by Splicing Together Found Photos

Portland, Oregon-based photographer and visual artist Jim Kazanjian is like the M. C. Escher of architectural photography. His art pieces appear to be photos of some of the strangest looking buildings found in the weirdest locations, but the reason the images are so dreamlike is because they came from Kazanjian's mind rather than the real world.

Tutorial: Creating a Photo of Syrup Being Poured on a Pancake Lens

The vast majority of my photographic work is environmental portraiture, corporate and editorial photography, and interiors, some of my commercial photography does include product photos. Quite honestly, some of this stuff is pretty straightforward, take a nice representative image of the product on a clean white backdrop so it integrates onto a website (also white) seamlessly. Sometimes a client gives me a bit more artistic license, and sometimes I get to do a shoot that's just for me.

Amazing Surreal Photomontages Created Without the Use of Photoshop

Upon first glance, artist Thomas Barbèy's surreal photomontages may seem rather amateur when compared with all the highly-polished photomanipulations that are floating around on the Internet. However, one simple fact will make you see the pieces in an entirely different light: Barbèy shoots film and uses in-camera and darkroom techniques to create the works!

That's right: he eschews Photoshop and digital trickery in favor of analog processes.

Headless Portraits From the 19th Century

It's not easy to remember life before Photoshop. When we do, we think of a world where picture were straightforward, always showing exactly what happened to be in front of the lens when the exposure was taken. But that's not entirely the case.

Trick photography has been around for centuries, and even though the folks in Victorian times weren't nearly as concerned with artificially slimming down, they did like to have some photographic fun once in a while. This set of headless photographs from the 19th century is a great example of the kind of 'fun' we're talking about.

How Fake Photos Are Messing With Our Perception of Reality

When Hurricane Sandy struck the East Coast back in October, the photograph above was widely circulated by people who believed that it showed the storm bearing down NYC. It doesn't. The image is actually a composite photograph that combines an ordinary photo of the Statue of Liberty with a well-known image by weather photographer Mike Hollingshead.

How to Create a Surreal Self-Portrait That Shows You Holding Yourself

Here's a step-by-step tutorial on how to create a photograph of you holding yourself up. I hope it will give you a good idea of how I create this type of image so that you can create a similar image yourself! Obviously, this is not the only way to create this type of image, but it is the way I have found most believable, as the connection between the two subjects actually occurs in real life. Enjoy!

Sports Illustrated Magazine Accused of Manipulating College Football Photo

Last week, Sports Illustrated magazine published the above photograph by US Presswire photographer Matthew Emmons. Found in the "Leading Off" section, the photo shows the Baylor Bears football team celebrating after their upset victory over the #2 ranked Kansas State Wildcats.

The image has many people talking, not because of the unlikely event that it captures, but because it appears to be heavily manipulated. And it's not just the fact that the picture looks like it passed through an HDR program, but that the Baylor football players didn't wear green jerseys during that game. They wore black.

Landscape Photographer of the Year 2012 Stripped of Title for Too Much ‘Shoppin

The winner of this year's Landscape Photographer of the Year contest, photographer David Byrne, has been disqualified and stripped of his title for violating contest rules regarding digital manipulation. His winning image, titled "Lindisfarne Boats" and shown above, is a black-and-white photo showing beached fishing boats with Lindisfarne Castle in the background.