photoshopping

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.

Steve McCurry Says He Will ‘Rein in His Use of Photoshop’

Steve McCurry has responded to the recent hoopla surrounding his Photoshopped photos. The famed photographer explains that he's now a "visual storyteller" rather than a photojournalist, but says he will "rein in his use of Photoshop" going forward to remove any confusion.

Pentax K-S1 Promo Features a Bad Photoshop Job

Ricoh Imaging added a set of 'tasty' new colors to its Pentax K-S1 lineup this past week, but its marketing for the camera appears to be backfiring. Photographers are groaning about a promo for the new camera colors. The ad (shown above) uses a badly Photoshopped stock photo to show off the camera.

Uruguay Footballer Accused of Biting Rival Player Claims Photoshop is Involved

This has got to be one of the stranger Photoshop controversies we've ever run across. Usually, Photoshop in the mainstream news means that some model or celebrity has been poorly altered on a magazine cover, but this time around, it's a football star going after Photoshop, saying it's being used in a smear campaign against him.

Random Request From Stranger Turns Into Hilarious Photoshop Free-for-All

Be careful what you wish for, the saying goes, because you might get way more than you bargained for. Julia Kuzmenko, talented photographer and founder of Retouching Academy, is quite used to coming across Facebook messages from random people, but it's not often she receives requests from complete strangers to retouch a photograph.

Real Beauty Isn’t Retouched

Dove Canada is getting serious about promoting Real Beauty by going after art directors, graphic designers and photo retouchers -- basically anyone who distorts body image in print. In order to fight those who they feel create an unrealistic representation of what the body actually looks like, they created a "Beautify" action that can be downloaded for free from popular editing sites. The action appears to add a "glowing skin" effect when in reality, it reverts the image back to its original, unretouched state, thus driving home Dove's philosophy that "Real Beauty Isn't Retouched."

I don't know about you, but if I downloaded a skin enhancing action only to find it reverted my image back to the unretouched state, I'd be throwing out all my Dove products in protest.

To ‘Shop or Not? The Hard Part of Being a Good Photographer

Pictures like this drive me nuts. I call it Meanwhile, Back at the Supreme Court. It captures the boisterous scene outside that building as right and left wing demonstrators clashed after the contested election of 2000. While all this was happening, President George W. Bush was delivering his first inaugural address in the background over loudspeakers. It was an exciting and historic experience to witness and document, but until now, I’ve never shown this image to anyone. As a matter of fact, it didn’t even exist until last night.

The reason? It’s fake. The moment it depicts never happened.

North Korea Caught Doctoring Military Exercise Photo of Hovercraft

In a recent Photoshop blunder, North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) was caught distributing the above doctored photo of a marine military exercise involving hovercraft. The photo, which was originally distributed to several news outlets, claimed to show the prowess of North Korea's marine force.

It didn't take long, however, for several news agencies to start pointing out some anomalies that all indicated the photo had been doctored.

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.

Award-Winning Washington Post Photo DQed for Excessive Photoshopping

There have been several controversies surrounding award-winning photography of late. First there was photographer Harry Fisch, who had his Nat Geo Photo Contest award stripped for cloning out a bag. Then Magnum photographer Paolo Pellegrin's ethics were called into question when he was accused of misrepresenting the subject of his award-winning photo.

And now another controversy has come to our attention, this one revolving around the photo above, taken by Washington Post staff photographer Tracy Woodward. The above photo was the version that was submitted to and won the White House News Photographers Association's (WHNPA) 'Eyes of History' stills photo contest, but not before it was significantly manipulated in Photoshop.

AP Sacks Photographer for Cloning His Shadow Out of an Image

The AP has sacked photographer Miguel Tovar for "deliberate and misleading photo manipulation" after Tovar cloned out his own shadow from a feature photograph. The Photoshopping came to light after an alert photo editor spotted a strange looking dust pattern in a photo of Argentinian children playing soccer.