When is Editing CHEATING?

[@TonyAndChelsea]

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[@benthompson9717]

The house with the added lights seems to have another issue. If you look at the scale of the window lower level, distance to the interior front right corner, distance from the unlit lower porch windows and distance from those windows to the same interior front right corner, I don't see how that could be two different rooms. So, how is the room pitch dark through one window and brightly very lit in the other? I would have suggested low light levels, such as on the house you didn't like the composition and doing it to all the windows to look more typical.

[@mauiholidayinformation4656]

Unless you're shooting for Reuters or Associated Press news agencies, or entering a photo contest that has specific editing guidelines - you're good. It's fine art photography.

[@SmallSpoonBrigade]

TBH, I think it's going to depend a bit on what you're saying you've done. In this case of that first photo, that seems fair enough. The majority of the image is a real photo and even the window could have been lit like that had the photographer been lucky enough. I wouldn't personally do it, as that's now how I work, but it's fully legitimate.

[@bngr_bngr]

I see some photography editing is just to much. It goes beyond reality.

[@jbr84tx]

@@SmallSpoonBrigade Exactly. As long as you don't misrepresent what you did, it's OK. If you used AI to enhance it, you should say so. Things like removing power lines or signposts is OK in my opinion.

[@jeroenschoondergang5923]

As long as the photographer is happy with it, who are we to judge? I see wildlife photos where some post editing would have really enhanced (my opinion) the picture. But if you made the photo and are happy, that is all that matters.

[@bobhendrick1175]

Cheater ,,,,,,,,😢

[@cmflyer]

We've been in our house in a river canyon for almost 30 years, and there's been a power line between our backyard and the river this whole time. I've gone to great lengths to keep them out of my photos, and perhaps edited them out a few times. Well, miracle of miracles, the power company decided (after storms and fires here in the west), that they were dangerous and antiquated, so they took them out! Cut down all the poles too! Never thought I'd see the day...

[@tstanley01]

That has to be a good feeling...enjoy your new and improved view...It probably made your property value go up as well! LOL

[@JZTechEngineering]

@@tstanley01prop value just doubled

[@john2000l]

I was lucky enough to see Ansel Adams twice in the 1960's, and this exact question came up. His comment ended with "as the photographer and the artist, I can do anything with my photograph that I want to create what I want people to see". "I believe that anything the photographer wants to do is perfectly alright and cannot be considered inappropriate" ......He is right, and so is Chelsea. The addition of the room light was a choice to increase the pleasure of the photograph and Chelsea has that right and ability. Remember, photography in its basic form is ART, that the opinion will be in the eye of the beholder.

[@openskyphotography]

I agree. In the end, it's art. Great quote from Adams, thanks for sharing that.

[@jg1007]

I completely agree. Photography is art just like a picture created with with pencil or paint or anything else. You wouldnt dream of telling a sculpur he is cheating because he used too much clay would you? Of course, the viewer of the art always has the ability and right to say they don't like your art because your edit ruined it in their opinion.

[@25Dzone]

Chelsea being effortlessly stunning in every thumbnail is always amazing to me

[@theonlyredspecial]

oh you charmer you 😂

[@KNURKonesur]

cause they CHEAT with the editing ;)

[@davidleonhardt5907]

If it’s art, then it’s not cheating. If it’s photojournalism, and you add something, that’s cheating.

[@The_SUN1234]

Whenever you edit a photo you are cheating. I mean why not call spade a spade. The problem is when you inster morale into the context.

[@royayersrules]

Or take something away

[@davidleonhardt5907]

@ exactly, good point.

[@tezkyflex7304]

@@The_SUN1234then every photo is cheating, so there is no cheating if its everywhere. Checkmate purist.

[@robertocolucci4069]

I was lucky enough to photograph the Aurora twice here in Dublin in the past year. The first time, yes, the aurora looked like grey wispy clouds to the eye. But the second time I went to a different location where there was much less light pollution. (It was on a cliff walk overlooking the Irish sea) and the colours - magenta, red, green - really were visible to the naked eye. It was absolutely stunning.

[@arkansasoutpost]

I'm envious. I managed to get a short timelapse of the aurora in New Mexico a few months ago. It wasn't visible to the eye, but a long exposure (10 sec iirc) brought it out. It was still dim in the video, so I tried to edit it to be a bit brighter. I ended up leaving it as it was, but I wondered at the time if that would be considered cheating.

[@grjlynch]

As an amateur photographer in his sixties, I love that the 'art of photography' now includes both the pictures you shot, and any editing applied in post. When I used film and early digital cameras, having a dark room or owning editing software was beyond the budget and skills of most amateurs. As a result, I was often disappointed that the images I saw through the lens was not what I captured in the camera. So now, I do make ‘lighting’ corrections in post and (because I have a Leica Q3) I do a lot of cropping too. Occasionally, I also use the new AI powered removal tools in Lightroom to get rid of 'distractions’ that I feel detracts from what I was trying to get from the picture. I accept of course that if I was a better (more ‘professional’) photographer, I would probably need to do less in post. In mitigation however, I usually factor in the cropping and subject removal I will need to do in Lightroom when I press the shutter release. Unlike a photojournalist, I am not always trying to capture an exact ‘photocopy’ of what I am taking a picture of, but what I want the image to look like or convey in a story. For me, photography is more of an art than a science and if I and others get joy from looking at the final images, I don’t really care what other people think. Am I cheating? I don’t think so, but then I drive an automatic sportscar and many car enthusiasts tell me that it’s not real driving unless I drive a manual car!

[@ShadowProductions94]

For me, cheating begins the moment you hide something you're intentionally keeping from others. As a digital artist, I use photography as a medium to express my vision and make statements. This often involves extensive Photoshop work and CGI, tailored to the concept and themes I'm exploring. If I were to conceal those details, then it would feel dishonest. I believe we should be transparent and unapologetically proud of our creative processes-whatever they may be. It doesn't matter if others approve or not; what matters is owning your craft with integrity.

[@jbr84tx]

Yes, transparency is the key. Don't misrepresent your product.

[@thierryhoornaert9950]

I don't get it: you don't conceal anything -- like litter, litter boxes, power lines or building works -- in your digital art too? Then what is your extensive Photoshop work and CGI about ?

[@qazwer001]

@@thierryhoornaert9950 the argument is if you remove those items from the photo and you are transparent that it was edited you are not covering up that it was edited, ie you do not present it as a depiction of reality. I go back and forth on it, I have a photo I want to print really large that has a distracting element I did not see when taking the photo, arguably my eye edited it out, but cloning it out also feels like cheating as there is no good way to say "I lightly edited the background" without giving the layman the impression it is purely a work of photoshop. At the same time other people depict edited photos as a reflection of reality so if one tries to be a pure photographer and get it right in camera, they will look less skilled to the layman that assumes most photos are as they would have seen were they there in person.

[@Holtenstein]

In addition to Photojernos, the other field for which you have clear rules for editing is Real estate photography. For instance, you can't just edit out those powerlines in the background.

[@RandumbTech]

Yet many people do...😢

[@naughtyskweet6]

Disagree. You're trying to get attention and attract customers. Only a tool buys a house without going to look at it in real life.

[@ddgyt50]

Ugh, this should not be a debate. Photography is a visual medium which encompasses a range from pure realism to fantasticus.

[@jeff_williams]

I once wanted to enter a photo contest a few years ago, but the rules said no noise reduction was allowed. I thought this was absurd considering that noise in my image was actually added by my camera to the scene I was shooting. It also seemed a wee bit elitist considering that photos taken with the most expensive cameras were less likely to have that noise in them than mine.

[@k34561]

That is funny considering just about every camera does noise reduction. Even raw images are not guaranteed to have no noise reduction.

[@qazwer001]

Agreed that is absurd. As it was a few years ago you can't even give the excuse that it was out of concern for AI noise reduction hallucinating detail that was not in the photo.

[@ziggggy53ify]

Even some photojournalism platforms allow some 'distracting elements' removal in post-production, but most still do not allow elements removal. Some photojournalism platforms allow minor contrast or curves adjustments, minor clarity and saturation adjustments, etc. If you're shooting for photojournalism sites then definitely learn their particular rules about post-production editing. There was a time when newspaper and magazine editors were 'very' particular about post-production editing, and you had to add a disclaimer/notation of, "This is an illustration", to such edited images. I do not know of any great restrictions on cropping, however. In fact, publication editorial staff would often crop images to fit a column size.

[@JesseRedmanBand]

I love you guys! Great topic! I've been around the business for more than 50 years. Very thought provoking. It seems cheating may be a personal evaluation rather than a universal one. We probably each have our own definition that conforms more to what we are trying to achieve and is therefore subjective much more than objective. Fifty photographers and 56 definitions! Keep up all the great work!

[@phila3884]

I just posted a comment on one way to judge it- but yeah, just an opinion among a sea of interpretations. I think a baseline is plain willful misrepresentation.

[@mandypockets8818]

At 23:04 Chelsea remarks that " We're going to have a generation of people that have really weird ideas" That is so much the point of the whole discussion. I'm afraid that’s here and now. The wide use of AI generated "junk" is already distorting reality so much, fake and reality walk hand in hand.

[@deloceanophoto]

I’m with Chelsea on this! Unless you’re doing photojournalism or entering a competition that has rules - in which case you should obey the competition rules. And I agree that too much editing in fashion photography can be a problem with unrealistic beauty expectations, although some retouching is always going to happen.

[@TigaWould]

actually, you're makeup artist, hair stylist, designer and crew are supposed to catch a lot of things in fashion photography. I think you also have to think about lighting and so many other things in fashion photography (especially high end or couture), that you shouldn't be editing a ton. You can make a lot of the mistakes go away simply by lighting your subject correctly.

[@jbr84tx]

@@TigaWould I don't see much difference between adjusting the lighting, makeup, hair style, etc. before the shoot and doing the same things in postprocessing the photos.

[@TigaWould]

@@jbr84tx Depends on how you shoot. I clearly see a difference, but that's what I am trained in, so we might have 2 different experiences (I mean no offense when I say any of this). I will mess with lighting until I get the effect that I want and have the makeup artist touch up the model after I pose to get the desired effect. I will use Gels on strobes, adjust the models angles, use a negative fill technique to reduce the flash impact, use filters on my lenses, etc... I do a lot of work before taking the shots. So we might have 2 different styles of shooting and we might be talking about 2 different types of "fashion photography" (once again no offense). but all modifiers and different methods can drastically effect the outcome of an image in a what that photoshop and others post editing software can't do yet! if you're just taking a picture and editing everything in post, there isn't anything wrong with that, but... I make sure that my photos are as close to post ready as possible in camera, that way when I get to the editing process or have my editor take care of the photos, there's not much that needs to be cleaned up and it's as close to depicting the model and the designs as possible.

[@jbr84tx]

@@TigaWould I agree - do everything you can to prepare the model, background, lighting etc. but there will always be need for some editing later.

[@TigaWould]

@@jbr84tx agreed

[@rknevt3530]

Whenever I encounter someone questioning the ethics of intentionally manipulating an image for effect, I want to ask: "If we were painters, would anyone question the colors, composition, techniques that we would use to create an image? Or would it simply be judged by the experience of the person viewing it, and NOT by the method used to create it or its fidelity to the original scene?" For me it's a matter of intent, and some confuse the purpose of photography by journalists, scientists, archivists, etc. to record the reality of a scene or object as accurately as possible, with those for which photography is simply a medium for their artistic expression.

[@modelcitizen1977]

If you're adding something that wasnt there, whether its a hot air baloon or a lit window, its cheating. Changing the color balance or sharpness or CA or barrel distortion, that's all fine.

[@jbr84tx]

Unless you say you added it.

[@Tarets]

How is changing the colors to the ones that were not there not cheating by your own rules?

[@klartext2225]

Sorry, makes NO sense. The light IS there, perhaps 15 minutes later. A hot air balloon that NEVER was there is cheating.

[@jbr84tx]

@@Tarets Sometimes you are making up for the deficiencies of the camera -- lack of dynamic range, color fidelity etc. Sometimes you see a sunset in glorious reds, oranges and yellows, and when you see it on your monitor, it looks much duller. You have to increase the saturation and maybe contrast to make it look like your eyes saw it.

[@jg1007]

​@@jbr84txThe problem is that once you start making judgements as to which edits are ok because you are making up for deficiencies, you make it subjective. And once you make it subjective, then you cannot judge whether one photographers opinion. About what needs to change is right or wrong.

[@stew_redman]

There are a few photographers that "never crop" and say so as if it somehow validates there images and makes them a better photographer. I just see it as them choosing to limit how they present their images. It doesn't make them or their images better.

[@romiemiller7876]

The intended use makes a difference. Most news publications don’t allow any editing. The photos have to be trusted. Some of my landscapes have sky replacements, etc., because they’re art, not news.

[@ricodeco2139]

Older amateur photographer here with two cents worth. My favorite subjects are everyday female humans and critters of all kinds. The former tend to love a little extra retouching, the latter ask for none. After over-capitulating to pressures probably real and imagined in earlier years, I've settled on a target that seems to work for me and my human models... "how that person really looks on a good day to a loving eye." Our eyes tend to naturally accentuate the most appealing features in the people we like, but we all know cameras can and sometimes will do the exact opposite. Echoing some of Tony's point, since I tend to be fond of the subjects who make my pictures possible, I'm really just aiming to display them the way I saw them in the viewfinder. The finished product may be embellished to some, but they are reality to me. The good news is, there's plenty of room for everyone to do the work that pleases them. The only photos I often wish there were fewer of... 1. The overcooked HDR images that look more like illustrations than photographs. 2. The mannequin like, zero"imperfection" beauty shots that sadly contribute to many millions of natural and beautiful girls and women feeling not beautiful enough. Thanks for the consistently good content you provide, wishing you both continued success.

[@coolerdaniel9899]

Maybe I'm imagining it, but Chelsea got really good at this video format in like the last year. She's so good now at making entertaining conversation on camera.

[@paristo]

Four different levels. 0) File is from the camera, only having adjustments the camera body can do or what can be done optically with filters or other means manipulating camera. 1) Corrections: Rotation, cropping, contrast, brightness, white balance, exposure and dust particle stamping away (like from surface of negative etc) and of course colors adjustment to maintain right color for final image via printing or display technical differences etc. 2) Editing: Keystone correction (tilting buildings etc), local exposure adjustments (darkening sky and brightening ground ratio etc), color altering (more yellowish flower, greenier foliage, bluer sky, blue dress to golden...). 3) Manipulation: Removing objects/subjects from the frame, a trash, a tree, a car, a building, a rock, a cloud, a moon, anything really. Changing the mood of the photo more unlike what you can see on-site in reality. Shifting objects positions. Making someone thinner, or fatter, whitening teeths, removing greace spot on tie etc etc.

[@Kellysher]

The conversation is interesting, but this will be moot very quickly. We will have no idea what is real and what is not very soon with AI. Photography or digital art lines are going to be gone soon. I’m not a professional. I do nature photography for my own personal enjoyment. I use all the tools Lightroom offers to make my images satisfying to me. If you are competing with others, this topic will drive you nuts. I can just imagine the day when I hang a gorgeous picture in my house and when someone admires it, saying… Ya, it’s actually a real photo!”.

[@GonkThePowerDroid]

I live in the south of Norway and get the occasional chance to see the aurora (I can count on one disfigured hand how many times a year). And it's only because I have been alerted to a potential high kp-index. Even with eyes slightly attuned to the dark any real color can be difficult to see. You see something that you suspect might be aurora and so you take a several seconds long test exposure and inspect the screen for color. A few times you can see the greens with your own eyes and sometimes also reds. You can get a faint glimpse of billowing curtains lasting from seconds to a few minutes. And then it might go quiet for hours. Now... in northern Norway it shouldn't be uncommon to clearly see colors and curtains even with eyes not attuned to night and probably pretty vivid too.

[@richardbedford3244]

-- I started in the '60s as a newspaper photographer. Photos were always cropped to fit the space allotted. When I became a medical photographer, photos were also cropped by myself or the publisher of the medical journals for the same reason. This did not change the essence of the images. Publicity photos such as headshots were either dodged and burned or cleaned up in post!! I never did weddings, but I know that many of my fellow photographers who did would also dodge/burn, and sometimes remove distractions from the photos. Never added "stuff" that wasn't there. I take a variety of photos today --anything I see that I like--but mostly motorsports. I continue to do many of these things in digital. But, I have never added anything that wasn't in the original image.

[@TheShockwave44]

Looks better without the lit window. Makes you wonder if anyone is home. Plus with the lit window it's difficult to look at anything else.

[@IanAllans]

kahma AI fixes this. Editing by Tony & Chelsea Northrup.

[@mikaelwester]

I was thinking about the aurora. I talk about the fact that the camera sensor is more sensitive than the human eye in this case. But nobody is listening……..But all of us living in the north know it. But in someways it’s better in real life. If it covers the hole sky,the dance, sometimes the sound. So the overall experience is better in real life. But every single moment is stronger in photos.

[@WilliamSullivan-h8o]

I live in southern Minnesota. We do not get the frequency nor intensity of aurora much further north. This year, 2024, We had a number of chances to see the aurora due to solar eruptions. I found that looking at the aurora, I saw a large irregular gray area. When I put my camera on a tripod and set the exposure to 30 seconds or 1 minute, the photo showed color. In post this color could easily be intensified to the normal intensity of driving 250 miles north. It's a choice.

[@mikaelwester]

@ Yes, it’s a choice. One thing I haven’t been thinking about. Is that not only is the camera sensor more sensitive. It’s also a matter of exposure time. For an example. 1s adds up a lot more light than the live thing for the human eye. But sometimes they are almost as strong as seen in photos. Sunsets and sunrises I sometimes decrease effects in edit from the originals. Because otherwise they look over edited/unreal. No need for that with auroras. I live at 60°N so it’s often strong.

[@ElGuajiro48]

Ansel Adams took a picture of Mt. Whitney from Lone Pine, California. I've been the exact place where the image was taken. Today as it was when he took the image, there is an LP in the hill in the middle ground of the image. Mr. Adams did a lot of manipulation of the image in the darkroom but he did not completely remove the "LP" in the image the presented. If you were to get a recent print of that image, the "LP" will have been cloned out. Perhaps Mr. Adams would have cloned the "LP" out the image if the had the tools at the time, or perhaps not. I don't know what constitutes "cheating" but I find that manipulating an image after a photographer is dead very upsetting. Specially when it is marketed as an original work.

[@cdmc2]

I used to work at a high quality coffee roaster and the problem for roasters is overtime they like darker and darker roasts. There's a slow drift to more intense. I see the same in photography, notably landscape photography, where editing images has become so powerful, even without AI, that final images are more intense, deeper darks and brighter whites, more refined and perfect but completely removed from reality. You'd never see that lighting in that scene in real life. I think in decades to come this look will seem artificial and be rejected.

[@al_in_philly5832]

Photographs exist on a continuum between "capturing" and "creating." And, like most continuums, few, if any objects occur fully at either end. A photographer alters "reality" by his/her choices of lenses, position, framing, etc. What is important is the honesty which the photographer employs with his/her audience. Ansel Adams was correct to manipulate his images because he made no bones about doing so--his audience was aware of where, in the continuum between capturing nature and creating the manifestation of an idea about nature, his photographs stood. Chelsea's addition of a lit window was problematic as it was, at least initially, presented as a view being captured. Did the light in the window make the image more aesthetically pleasing? Absolutely! But at the same time, it robbed the viewer of seeing what really existed. And, if the latter was what the viewer thought they were being presented with, then a serious rift of honesty has been created between the photographer and his/her viewer.

[@JohnDrummondPhoto]

Enhancing something that was in the composition is not cheating, but adding an element that wasn't there (like a window light) is cheating. To which I say, so what? The photo works way better with the lit window. You're not doing a documentary. As long as you're up front about what you did, who the F cares other than navel-gazers? I mean, who "cheated" more than Ansel Adams? P.S. Moose Peterson is a joke. @16:45: "This woman" is Brooke Shields, one of the hottest supermodels of the time. Respect her name!

[@dave8210]

Midjourney does generate pictures. It doesn’t generate photos…right?

[@SecureSnowball]

So all photos are images but not all images are photos?

[@mikebrownhill4662]

I photograph wildlife, and my take on this is that adding elements to a photo is wrong - unless you declare what you've done and leave it to the viewer to decide. Personally, I don't do it. Removing elements can be OK if it's just distractions like branches, but for me it's a last resort, done to rescue an image. Tone and colour correction is not only OK - it's absolutely necessary if you shoot RAW because a camera doesn't record these in the same way as our eyes work. If you shoot JPG then your camera has already "edited" the tone and colour in the image so there's nothing you can do about it - that image has been edited according to the settings in your camera. As for cropping - absolutely fine. I can't understand why anyone would have a problem with this. If you're printing the image then it''ll probably need a crop anyway, to fit the size and aspect of the frame... are we supposed to print the full image and then take a pair of scissors to it, just so we can say we didn't crop in Photoshop? Anyway, that's my take - I know others will work differently and I accept that my "rules" would be a bit different if I was working in other genres.

[@andrass.2842]

I just had an argument about this under an instagram post. I think it also depends on what genre we are talking about. If you photograph for customers or marketing purposes, then nothing is cheating, however when it comes to nature photography, there are some things I can not tolerate. When I take a photo of a bird and change the complete background color, add warm color, that's cheating. If I want warm colors, I should get out the right time in the right conditions and get the warm colors in camera on the field. This is why I'm a photographer and not a painter. A photograph is showing what I captured on the field, but if I add extra things, then how can we call it a photograph? The problem is not that we use lightroom or photoshop or even ai. These are just tools so we can create more and more unique stuff. The problem is that we still confuse it with photography and we still share these images as photographs. But if we look at a final result where I changed the colors to something else than what was on the field, then it's only 80% photography and 20% digital painting. And the more things we change and edit, the less we can call it photography. In my opinion, photography happens on the field with a camera. Of course. we need to edit raw images, but everything else that we add (that was not on the field) does not belong to photography.

[@GlennSchultes]

The days of shooting RAW means almost every image will be edited. Even loading it into Lightroom, Adobe will apply a template - and is technically an Edit...

[@TheHutchMusic]

Jpegs (and other digital formats) are totally a lossy process... is that an edit?

[@GlennSchultes]

@ yes, because the camera has applied the manufacturer’s colour science and sharpening- which is an edit

[@lilguilty]

Specifically on the window light vs powerline debate. I would have to agree with Tony, just because I feel like the light in the window becomes the main point of interest in this specific photo. While removing a power line is not taking away from the main subject.

[@bryantwalley]

Regarding adding the light in the window. The light looks like it would have if you had called someone in the house and had them turn the light on. No one would say that was cheating. So, adding the light was not cheating. If you were to add or change something that would not be able to be done "in the real world" then you have moved to another area of photography

[@waltermayr339]

Long before the invention of digital photography, I read an article in the German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. It was about a drawing by the painter Albrecht Dürer that showed a mill mountain near the city of Nuremberg. The article praised Dürer for walking around the hill and condensing the various visual aspects into one image. At that time I thought how lucky painters are because they have this creative freedom. Now with the possibilities of digital photography, I am not convinced that it is a blessing. Extreme self-discipline is probably required.

[@Sedifet]

For me, it is not photography if something is added or taken away from the image as it was captured by the sensor or film. I think exceptions can be made for stuff that is temporary, such as a spot or bruise. but if you're going outside of what was present in the moment, then you're no longer capturing a photograph, but instead making a comp or collage made with parts of a photograph. The final image is no longer photography though (as in made with traces of light), but a artistic interpretation. I think it is ok to tweak an image, as you are still working with the tracing and light that was originally captured, but if you're adding things that were not present in the scene, then it was not recorded with light from that moment and therefore not photography

[@sylvaindupuis5595]

Personnally, I would not use Photoshop. I just take pictures and tries to recreate the feeling I had when I took it with Ligthroom or DxO. I will adjust contrast, lighning and may remove dust on the lens, do some crooping to remove unwanted things on the border or redress the horizon, but I limit my edit. Maybe because I'm not that good at it. I have notting against people who use photoshop or make lot more adjusting, but it's not what I aspire to do.

[@oldguy1030]

I think of three categories: 1. Photos to show what you saw. Minimal changes to just fix things so that you present what you actually saw. 2. Photos to show what you wish you saw. More aggressive editing. 3. Photos to show what you want others to see. When you are done editing the image may have little to do with reality. Cheating? Well, sure - and no. Even if you are trying to show what you saw it's using a bleeding digital camera which (especially in JPG) alters the photo. You have a system which is killing hot pixels, you may be changing the white balance, you may be using artificial lighting, de-noising, etc. And even printing the photo will likely change the colors - and it certainly won't be a true 3-D image.

[@bmwohl]

This is one of your best photography discussions ever. Thank you. It is cheating if you cheat or lie or deceive and you don't come clean. An optical illusion can be entertaining and educational or it can be deceiving.

[@FACTUALITY-1]

Yes, it has been done for a long time, but not everyone could do it. What once required a lot of skill, time, and money can now be done by anyone with a smartphone, no skill and little to no money.

[@nickditoro]

I'm more in line with Tony that it's okay to, say, expand the canvas to add the tip of a bird's wing as that doesn't change the reality of the bird. I did this very thing while in a fast-moving boat. The bird was in focus, but I missed getting the tip of its wing in frame. Similarly, if I somehow miss the very top of a prominent tree in a landscape shot, I'll expand the frame to let AI generate the last few inches. Finally, when I see that my too-wide aperture captured bushes or a solitary tree branch, I'll edit these out in Photoshop. To the good, I always resolve to try to be a better photographer the next time so that there are fewer things to change in post. (I probably wouldn't have added the lights in the house, though, but I didn't mind that Chelsea did.)

[@brucetrue]

Tony's on the couch tonight! That was my thought on his initial answer. he may have saved himself later. Seriously though, it is great to listen to them talk to each other.

[@kimdangtrong1940]

I think it is a very good discussion. Today it is more important than ever that we tell the truth. I agree with most of the posters that you can edit your images with all your tools like adjusting brightness, color and cropping but never add or erase any objects in the final image. If you do you should call it a fine art image or illustration or whatever but not a photograph.

[@WesternAustraliaNowAndThen]

To my mind, minor adjustments to get a photo close to what you saw in real life isn't cheating but anything more is.

[@jasonschaeffer3677]

That creates a problem because everyone's definition of minor is going to be different.

[@careylymanjones]

If I'm shooting/editing landscapes, I ask myself, "What would Ansel do?" In other words, anything my technique is capable of to make the image look "better" goes. Cropping a wildlife shot? Of course. Not everybody has a 1200mm f/4 lens, or the endurance to schlep it and a big-ass tripod 20 miles out into the boonies. But a high-resolution body and a 200-600mm lens with a teleconverter and a smaller tripod might be feasible. Noise reduction? Absolutely, on any shot that needs it. Critters don't always come out in bright mid-day light. If you're shooting in blue hour, with enough shutter speed to freeze motion on a long lens, you're gonna get noise. I loves me my DxO PhotoLab and its noise reduction. I know a guy who shoots an OM-1 mk II. It's a 20MP MFT body. 2.0 crop factor, with a pixel density equivalent to a 70MP full-frame sensor. He gets wonderful bird photos. Is he cheating? I think not. He's just cropping the crap out of his pictures in camera. For anything other than photojournalism, making interesting images is the object, and if it makes the image "better", go ahead and do it. And given the news media's willingness to bias their coverage, I question whether photojournalists' pictures are as "honest" as they would have us believe. The photographer might send in an "honest" image, and the editor crops out anything that conflicts with the outlet's narrative.

[@Bladeclaw00100]

We have to remember that all photographs that are captured with a camera are rendered into pixels or printed into dots. It's all a 2D Illusion to begin with. If you look at it up close the illusion disappears and reappears when you back up. A camera is simply a tool that acquires data which is represented as an image to be perceived as a subject. When you're looking at a photo it's not really there. The person in the photos is not a real person, its simply bunch of dots that creates the illusion of a person. Essentially, all pictures, and images are illusions our mind creates. So, all imagery is not real to begin with. Here is a simple example. Use a fisheye lens on your camera and take pictures of a person up close. The image is manipulated to appear a certain way right from the start before the light even enters the camera. Furthermore, when we are editing on the computer, we are essentially, manipulating the pixels to change into something different. Weather it is luminance, chrominance, select pixel changes, cropping's, or any pixel manipulation, including pixel aspect ratios, color profile changes, or compression. If there are any editing changes done to the file after image acquisition, it is different than the original captured image. The grey area is the human judgement of how different the changes are compared to the original counterpart in terms on the content and context. If there is authentic photography, there needs to be very specific rules laid out for the methods used in the workflow. Even though it's still an illusion, at least there will be some consistency with what you see and present in your rendered image. But remember all camera images are already illusions to begin with.

[@alagazam]

To me this is very easy: A photograph captures what is. An image can be anything. It can be a photograph with things added and/or deleted. It can be a composite. Considering this, adding a light in a window is changing what was actually happening. That turns a photograph into an image. Is it cheating? Yes, but only if you call it a photograph. Making an image can never be cheating. Cropping a photograph is not changing what was there. Cropping is only changing how much is captured/shown of what was there when you took the photograph.

[@jungmen]

Nice explanation, I agree

[@klartext2225]

Just commented. Please read. The "image" term is helpful. With this picture, the "cheat" is minor. If a caption said: 18:25 hours, you could say: no, the person using this room would not have been at home and in the room! Cheat!! But there is no caption. If someone calls cropping "cheating" the discussion should end. Mindless blabla. Because photography IS cropping.

[@Surfing_Extra]

Tell that to Astrophotographers !!!.....You MUST use software or else your photograph might be all black.

[@alagazam]

@@Surfing_ExtraTell what?

[@friartist]

And a 2 minute exposure of crashing waves is what? A polaroid filter adds blues in th esky that were not there to the human eye. It removes blue reflections in leaves of plants.... so cheating?

[@Original_Old_Farmer]

I'm a retired Licensed Broadcast Engineer with over 42 years in broadcasting. I started with film, but learned photo photography from analog video. This is where I stand about editing photos or video in this digital age. If I am taking a photo for news, I have no problems removing or modifying the photo so that it is obvious what I am taking (telling a story.) This does not mean that I alter what I took to create a different story. Think of taking the book "War and Peace" and turning it into a twelve page picture book for children. I won't put an alien into a photo, but I may take out a stray dog to declutter the photo. It may be that I must blend several photos together in order to tell the story in the picture, this would be to step outside of the limitations of the media. The difference for me is not to tell a different story, but to enhance in every way so that the public can see the story in the photo. Now, outside of news, it doesn't matter to me except for competitions where there are rules to the process used. If it is something for sale, to me it doesn't matter. I remember once my mother liked a painting that a local artist did. She didn't like the colors because it didn't fit our living room. The artist did the same painting using colors that would fit into the room. It looked like the artist changed the hue in a digital editor, although digital cameras systems were not yet invented. I've changed the hue in video because the camera operator forgot to white balance the camera. I had no problems doing this to the video. If you are adding different things call it art and don't worry about it. What's the difference between multi-exposures in film to create an image or using a computer or AI if it is denoted as art. Just be honest, but vague about what you did and how you did it, if it is for art, or for more formal presentations Arthur. Be safe.

[@risetteconsul5402]

Great discussion. I enjoy and learn very much from your show. I am a dentist from Mexico and I take pictures of the mouth, teeth, surrounding areas if needed. And the problem I´ve had was to obtain a true to life, exact color of tissues and teeth. This is very important for dental follow through or referral. This problem is due to the automatism of the camera which has to be dealt with. Gee in the days of film, I used slide color reversal film - very precise and demanding.

[@rphandler]

Delightful video with wisely chosen subject and well researched. Let's clarify why digital photographs of auroras show brilliant colors not seen by the naked eye. Our eyes in low light sacrifice color detection for high sensitivity black and white (cones for color with low sensitivity, rods for panchromatic B&W with high sensitivity). This is like film photography where we had high sensitivity Tri-X and Ilford HPS in B&W, but lower sensitivity Kodachrome for color. Neither our eyes nor film emulsions can detect color in the low luminosity of a night sky. Aurora columns of red light from excited oxygen above 120 miles altitude (which is mostly what we see coming from the northern horizon at temperate latitudes, searchlight-like shafts of dim white) appear pale white to the naked eye, yet with a digital photo, even from the tiny sensor in a phone, monochromatic red is revealed . The waves of green from lower altitude oxygen also appear white to our eyes. But digital sensors reveal the green, while amplified to extraordinary ISOs. Since when is it kosher only to show in a photograph what our eyes can detect? Maybe photography, and visual arts, should show us more than we can appreciate on our own. A parallel is white balance in underwater photography. To our naked eyes, at depth the corals and fish are dull shades of green-blue, while bright reds become dull brown, because long wavelength red in sunlight is filtered out by the water column. Overcoming this with lens filters or with strobes is well accepted, yet I was once questioned regarding using sliders in post to achieve the same corrections. (Is artificial light cheating??) But my point is to explain why the aurora is so different in digital photography than in our eyes and on film emulsions.

[@simonmeeds1886]

You can only "cheat" if there are rules and in general when creating an image there are no rules. An image may be presented as fine art in which case there are definitely no rules, but if it is presented as applied art that may introduce rules depending on the application. You have discussed photojournalism and natural history photography, and you touched on travel photography. The problem is that even in these fields the rules or the existence of rules depends on exactly where and how an image is applied. For example if an image is used as editorial in a news outlet then it better be faithful (sometimes difficult given that every photograph is at least a crop of reality). A natural history image or a travel used in certain contexts (including certain competitions) will need to be no more than lightly processed in specified permitted ways. But even these images, if used in more informal contexts may perhaps be more heavily edited... you get to the sort of question "when is an image of nature not a natural history image"... and conversely, if we are too free with the term "travel image" then almost any image taken outdoors and many taken indoors could be classed as such and therefore inviolable; surely this is not what we want. It's always down to how it is applied and in what context. Without context there are no rules and therefore there can be no cheating.

[@jiridvorak]

Love your energy and chemistry still working between you both :) Hello from Prague !

[@Bullebongen]

Having grown up north of the artic circle I can say for sure that very intense northern lights that actually looks like the pictures are quite frequent. Frequent enough that I even disliked them as a kid because I wanted to see the stars. Once half the sky was covered in a burning red northern light and that is one of the spookiest things I have ever seen. So give it another go, one can see some pretty damn amazing northern lights if one is lucky.

[@donhagner4845]

Framing, cropping, choice of lens (field of view) are all editing choices. As a High School photography student I used to think that National Geographic photographers just naturally produced exceptional “grab shots” of reality that I was never good enough to produce myself. As a cultural anthropologist the debate was over focal length, 35mm (full field of view) vs. 50mm (center of field of view) vs. 90~100+ mm (close up on details, portraits).

[@CanditoTrainingHQ]

I think it is cheating to have a light on in the house. If the viewer new that's fake, then it immediately kills the intrigue of the picture. I think that's the simplest rule. If your changes make the viewer lose their trust in you, and nothing is for sure real, then you lost them. The house goes over the line because it creates a false narrative. Textures for example are all fine because it doesnt.

[@RobtJMooreII]

Not only are you two the most handsomest couple in this videos-of-photography niche, you are also the most endearing, given the ways you interact.

[@StarLightDotPhotos]

I started my career on the photojournalism side so this really hit home for me. I need to remember I am trying to be an artist now and the rules are different.

[@markwardonwords]

I like thoughtful, gracious, knowledgeable people. Well done.

[@SoSaMin0524]

Photography is supposed to be fun, creative, and reflective…Adding light to me does not equal cheating…it reflects a slightly more cheerful mood than the original scene…glad you had fun in Norway…most people would have returned with a blurred photo with the light that low…

[@JasonMcMullen]

If you add something that was not there, that's going too far (imo). If you use camera techniques to bring out something that is there in frame, that is being creative. If you use editing to clean things up then its not the same as adding things that were never there

[@MikeLikesChannel]

It’s absolutely cheating, but if it’s not a contest or news journalism, you’re fine to do whatever you like.

[@MightyCraicDJ]

Great topic and interesting discussion, thak you. When it comes to editing is there a difference bewteen removing (eg power lines) and adding (eg a light)?

[@eavilev]

I think there's two elements to this discussion that need to be emphasized. 1) What is the intent of the photograph? If it is to create a visually pleasing object that will evoke emotion and thought for the viewer, then there is no such thing as "cheating". But 2) if the intent is to capture and present a real time event that informs, there should be a "line", a standard that allows me to know the truth without "distortion". One of my favorite photographs for discussion such as this is Robert Capa's "Loyalist Militiaman at the Moment of Death, Cerro Muriano, September 5, 1936". The photographer's claim is that he snapped the shutter just as the soldier was shot. The naysayers say "no way, no photographer is that lucky". This is not a question of photoshopping, but rather of staging an event. Capa passes the #1 of my comments above, but it is generally felt that he failed in #2. Thanks Northrups for a good discussion.

[@jamesmlodynia8757]

Going back to my film days, i photographed my parents on the steps of the restaurant that they celebrated their 5oth wedding anniversary in, at the time i had my photos printed in 5x7 inches, i wanted a larger print to frame and give to my parents so I had a 8 x 10 inche print made. When I got the print back I noticed that the name of the restaurant was cropped partially, it was then that I got a lesson about aspect ratio and that a 5 x 7 inche print would be slightly different than the 8 x 10 inch prints. Today I print most of my own work, the exception is when I want a print larger than 13 x 19 inches.

[@R.Hogarth]

I will typically edit my pics to represent how I remember the scene. This means I will adjust tone & contrast and will remove most distractions such as power lines, people "photo-bombing", or cars /people in the background. If I am shooting astro where I shoot the foreground and the sky separately, then of course I will composite the two images, but I will be honest that it is a composite. I will state something along the lines of: "The foreground was shot during the last light of "Blue Hour" and the Milky Way/sky was shot using a star tracker from an unobstructed viewpoint a few feet away about an hour later."

[@ffl2609]

Adding something that wasn't there. Removing something that was. No longer photography. Call it anything else. It is creative art, and nothing wrong with it. Just representing it as photography is cheating.

[@TheFrogmanTV]

That is an absolutely unenforceble, nonsense opinion. I add things. I remove things. I call it photography because that's what it is. "i removed a branch, please check out my landscape creative art." Nope, I'm calling it photography and you are free to try and stop me. But I don't think you'll have much luck.

[@GM8D79]

Cheating is defined as any additions or deletions made to the original picture. While certain tasks may be accomplished using the original content without any changes, others may require some tweaking. Photographic manipulation has existed since the invention of film. Remember that the camera has limits and is merely a tool. Controlling light and dark sometimes requires considerable adjustment. Thanks for sharing an interesting topic.

[@epp]

When editing turns to compositing, and you are adding things that aren't there. Then it's not a photograph, rather it is Digital Art.

[@lloydbligh5601]

Every different camera product renders the photos differently you choose which one pleases your eye. When you start questioning a photo taken for its authenticity then it’s on you to decide if it pleases.

[@Bashe1965]

i was a artist first then got into photography as a sophomore in high school we only shot black & white at school . We developed our work film and prints for our given assignments our artistic expression was captured in camera. Fast forward to today I have never edited a photo added to or taken away content. I still shoot a lot of B&W film and digital, to me a photo unedited is a photograph anything edited is simply art.

[@3DEditor]

I've been taking photos of landscapes, nature and wildlife since I was a kid during the 1980s. I have also painted mostly wildlife, nature, seascape and landscape scenes. I have also worked extensively in digital art within photoshop and Premiere pro for story telling in videos. No matter what tools I use to bring my imagination to life, it's art and that's all that matters. Too many photographers without imagination, get too hung up on only photographing what's real, while being so anal about sharpness, clarity, realistic scenes etc etc. While there's a specific audience for certain genres of photography, the same goes for fine art, digital art and artistic photography. People are allowed to express their creative genre any way they choose. Some people need to stop being arrogant gate keepers, and open their small minds to other ways of doing things, think outside the box. You may learn something with an open mind.

[@nilofido411]

Been taking pictures for 4 decades, photojournalism and wild life zero tolerance, anything else is fair game as long as it fits the original vision for the end result. I will never forget 30 odd years ago when my mentor showed me the original model that he build for the spaceship in the first Alien movie, then the 10x12 transparency used to project it onto a wall to be filmed panning to give the feel of a huge ship passing close by.

[@geopapa80]

Any chance for the live episodes to make a comeback?

[@envyss2572]

I personally only make edits like cropping, brightness, contrast, saturation. I don’t believe in adding or removing things. I’ll edit out scratches or tears in scanned photos if I don’t have the original negatives. But I’m not getting paid for my pictures, so I don’t see the point in wasting time in extensive modifications.

[@sarahneedham]

My rule is, I will crop, adjust levels, adjust colours and white balance, darken/lighten part of a photo and clone. I just would not add anything that was not there in the first place. Each to their own though 😁. Oh and I also think cloning yourself is kinda better than using AI as it shows some skill at least.

[@GenX_in_the_wild]

Fake

[@mikebartow9415]

I draw the line at, “if it cannot physically happen” then it is “art.” I saw a wonderful picture of the solar eclipse this past April of it positioned beside an iconic building where I live. Knowing the layout of the area and the position of the eclipse in the sky I thought this photo was physically impossible. It was a beautiful scene but not possible without composite manipulation. So it is like finding a hair in a bale of hay. If you don’t see the hair, it’s not present.

[@echotube2000]

For me in landscape photography, many images captured in camera could be classed as cheating. A waterfall captured with a fast shutter speed to stop the water flow - I did not see this in real time. A time exposure to smooth rippled water on a lake - I did not see this in real time. Seeing under the surface of water by using a polarising filter - I did not see this. As soon as you change shutter speed to change how the image is seen, change the aperture to knock the background out of focus, or even use a telephoto lens to compress the image. All of the above could be classed as cheating. We all aim at making our images look ‘warm and fuzzy’ so that people like it. I would consider adding things to the photo as pushing it a bit far but removing clutter is acceptable unless you are portraying the clutter as the main subject. If a photo looks good and it makes you feel good, then be happy 🙂

[@pshulins]

Great discussion! With regard to the Northern Lights: I think we need to remember that the film (or chip) records more detail than the eye can see. So a human would not experience the same colors or intensity that is depicted in a photograph. So I would argue that in the end the photo of the aroura that is presented to the viewer while not being "modified" presents another sense of reality, not what the photographer saw or experienced, but rather a representation of what the laws of physics did to the chip by allowing photons to excite CCD pixels instead of what those same photons do to a human retina.

[@mikaelwardhana2839]

chelsea, your final edited image looks like more of a stereotypical "serene" photo you'd expect from such scene. I actually think that leaving the car there and other "distractions" tell a little more story to the picture. Like. oh there's a car there, so there are people living in this house or visiting this house. It makes the scene more alive.

[@phila3884]

I figured it out- if the picture would essentially be "the same" without the addition or deletion of the offending "element", and disclosed, then no cheating. So removing a power line, or adding a (small) light-ok. If the element you are changing actually "makes" the photo, then it's cheating, unless you clearly state it's a composite.

[@360PictureUK]

As a property photographer I'd argue that it's almost impossible to deliver a photograph straight out of the camera, post editing is essential to get the shadows and brightness how the agents expect them to look. Of course blurring and blue skies are required too. Sometimes the property owners request thinks to be removed, but i always refuse if it's going to falsely represent the property.

[@ChasWG]

To say nothing of exposure stacks to be able to see out the windows and have the exposure of the inside spaces work well with the light outside. But editing out a pair of socks that you didn't notice under a table is just fine as had you noticed them there before, you would have picked them up and moved them. To me, simple things like that are way inside the bounds of being legit. As opposed to some major things that I have seen people do to property photography.

[@360PictureUK]

@@ChasWG The agents wont pay a high enough fee for tripod setup for exposure stacking, i shoot hand held! Yes i'll edit out anything that helps improve the photo but nothing that would change the actual condition of the property.

[@Olivyay]

I agree with Chelsea even if it's difficult for me to write a definitive rule on what I find OK or not. To add other examples: I would not consider it cheating either to take a photo of the same house where one of the blinds is shut and then photoshop the blind shut on another window, because the house is an object and having lights on in a room or the blinds shut or not does not change its identity or expression. I would consider it cheating to change the color of the blinds, or to add a blind to a window that does not have one in reality, or to add a window, or to add the car if it wasn't there.

[@davidb9682]

This was a really good discussion. Not that I agreed with everything, but I do agree with the importance of this conversation at the current time. We are all beginning to realize we can't trust any photographs we see to be as the subject actually is. It was true for fashion, but now it's true for landscapes and tourist locations and so much more. Nobody tells you they've cloned out wires or poles or even people from scenes. I personally don't know what conclusion I've come to, or what it means for my photography.

[@pmenzel86]

It's all about intention for me. Photojournalism: no editing except maybe cropping. Other than that, so long as you're not trying to deceive people, just making the image look better, I think it's all fair game, and I don't even think disclosure is necessary.

[@michaelkissane6138]

Digital camera sensors are more sensitive than eyes in rendering the Auroras. This helps exaggerate them in photography. As a guide in Iceland I've had to urge photographers to take the shot despite what they saw. Invariably they were pleasantly surprised with their results.

[@scottplumer3668]

As primarily a film shooter, I try to only edit only to the point of what I could do in the darkroom. I don't want to misrepresent my photography. So, for example, if I take a picture at night, I won't add, say, the Milky Way to the sky. I see it a lot with places I recognize, and since I know which direction the Milky Way is, I can tell it's been added in post. THAT kind of stuff is cheating to me. But I don't think there's any hard and fast line. For my senior picture when I was in high school, they airbrushed out my zits, so I appreciate some editing.

[@guyjordan8201]

1:27 - editing has always existed, but so has cheating. Adding things that aren’t there and even removing things that were there is cheating. It’s no longer just a photo. You’ve turned it into an art project and a collage. Own it. Call your image what it is, art not a photo. Since a “camera” detects and processes a scene differently than our eyes do and the output medium is very limited, compared to the natural world, there is a lot of latitude in manipulating contrast and brightness to fit in the picture. That’s not cheating. What is cheating is if you misrepresent what you did.

[@camaxide]

The Aurora can actually be very intense and vivid - but more often it's a weak and less intense Aurora one gets to see. So while very many photos of Aurora is indeed strongly enhanced by the camera and edit, you can actually get these wow-vibrant Auroras in real life, if you are in the right place at the right time. I've lived my entire life in Norway and only seen the stronger vivid Aurora 2-3 times though - but those living further north see it more often.

[@peterfritzphoto]

Photography CAN BE art. It’s up the photographer to make that choice. If you make that choice, then cloning distractions out or emphasising various elements of a scene are just fine.

[@rjcavalli9202]

Cheating. It depends upon the intention of the photograph and what the photographer is presenting. In some professions like journalism or real estate less is better. The intention is to show what 'actually' happening. Adding or removing details changes the scene and can alter what the observer sees. As an art. The resulting photograph is up to the artist. The final product reflects the photographers eye. Therefore, adding a lit window adds a story to the scene. It is a work of art. Looks great Chelsea

[@paulcooper8818]

Sometimes individuals who want everything done in camera, just don't want to do post processing, because that is not their creativity or they're lazy. When you press the shutter you can decide, am I taking a photo or creating an image.

[@amateur.photographiemichel6094]

We always look at photography as a process. We should look at it as a result. What you see is what I want to show you. My version of the reality! Most people complaining about editing or not are most of the time simply not capable of doing what you are doing. So they say you are cheating. When you look at the pictures that are liked on social media you will notice that the most liked picture are the one that are out of the ordinary. Ordinary pictures, strait out of the camera usually are not appreciated. When you see thousands of pictures per day you look for something different, extraordinary. Ordinary does not make it anymore!

[@NicolasAlexanderOtto]

20:16 - Aurora can absolutely look green and red to the naked eye - it is a matter of intensity. I've seen Aurora at their best many times guiding photography tours in the north - but it can look like white whisps as well. But you CAN see it clearly and colorful without the camera if you are lucky enough. That said it's easy when it comes to editing and cheating. If a person that stood next to your camera or comes to the place after seeing you image and he or she feels betrayed by the image (removing permanent objects or adding them) its fake. At least for landscape photography that is my opinion. ;-)

[@afan.pasalic]

This topic reminds me of the debates around PC vs. Mac or iPhone vs. Android. In my view, photography has different categories for different styles, with a lot of overlap between them. What might be considered "cheating" for one person is completely acceptable-or even essential-for someone else. Some photographers advocate for untouched photos as the only acceptable standard. Others believe minor adjustments are fine, as they help emphasize the photographer’s intent. For some, adding or removing objects in a photo is acceptable, while for others, only removing elements might be okay. It’s a bit like perceptions of beauty. For some, a woman’s natural beauty means no makeup at all. For others, applying just a little makeup to subtly enhance features-like mascara to emphasize the eyes-is still considered "natural." Or, like Chelsea, perhaps just eyeliner and lipstick! 😄 The point is, if you belong to one group of photographers, anything outside of that group’s practices might feel like cheating. If you belong to another group, the same applies. Interestingly, both perspectives are valid. Maybe, instead of framing this as a debate about right or wrong, we could consider these groups as different genres of photography?

[@Jerrysworld23]

I’m here just in case Chelsea says “buh-on”😂