Digital Manipulation

Amanda Franklin

Frances Nicholson

What is digital manipulation?

• The process of altering the existence of a digital image or video.

• It can include any level of change.– Cropping, color enhancement, removing

objects, altering the setting, combining two or more images

ARGUMENTS

Digital manipulation is acceptable as long as the content of the image is not altered.

The public should be sophisticated enough to realize that digital manipulation is occurring.

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Examples of Content Altering Images

British politicians Ed Matts and Ann Widdecombe

The Other Side

• Photo manipulation has been around almost as long as photography itself.

– Hippolyte Bayard (1840)– Civil War– Abraham Lincoln (~1860)– Joseph Stalin (1920s)

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Joseph Stalin and Propaganda

Joseph Stalin and Nikolai Yezhov, 1940

Famous Examples

John Kerry - Peace Rally, Mineola, NY (June 1971)

Jane Fonda - Political Rally, Miami Beach, FL (August 1972)

• In 1982 National Geographic used a horizontal photo of the pyramids in Egypt and created a vertical cover from the picture.

• In 1994 Time Magazine used a picture of O.J. Simpson on the cover of the magazine in which his face had been darkened.

Errors in Digital Manipulation

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Video Manipulation

• Splicing, speeding up

• Video insertion and deletion

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What can be done to solve this problem?

• Identify which images have been altered– Watermark– Caption– Hologram on IDs