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REUTERS HAVE BANNED RAW FILES


Paul Crespel

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I can think an easy way to fool Reuters and such.

1 - shoot RAF + JPG

2 - process RAF the way you like

3 - copy back all exifs taken from the out-of-camera Jpg to the newly processed version.

4 - you can even change the file date/time to the original shot date/time.

  ( Exiftools can do every sort of things , and more )

 

I challenge everybody to spot an image made  this way as being processed by Camera Raw.

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The “ ethics” of photographic objectivity and reality representation argument is very poorly made and I would suggest the reading of the works of  Roland Barthes or Susan Sontag all within the general querelle about whether it is possible to achieve, at all, camera objectivity.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_claim_(photography)

 

The “ camera never lies”statement is a lie ! Photographic objectivity is not only a myth but a dangerous one used by those who will abuse this erroneous perception to prove things because they are on camera.

 

As Susan Sontag wrote, a photograph is as much an interpretation of reality as a drawing is, but, my words, unlike a drawing, it cam be used to support a lie because some viewer could assume the it is the absolute truth.

 

Having said this on the philosophical aspect.

 

The technical aspect is also ridiculous.

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Ok... let's say it in the words of the greatest author of all times, Thomas Bernhard:

 

Every photograph—whoever took it, whoever is pictured in it—is a gross violation of human dignity, a monstrous falsification of nature, a base insult to humanity. […] Photography is the greatest mockery in the world, the ultimate mockery of the world

 

So, photography is not something "objective". And especially when you shoot RAW (ergo: use photoshop), you can make a "mockery" out of every picture.

 

This is not necessarily a bad thing, since "everything outside is illuminated from a light that comes from inside" (J.S.Foer), so I can manipulate the pictures, to acutally get closer to what my feelings and perception was in that moment (an impressionistic approach). Therefore I don't think that there is anything bad in post-process images.

 

However, Reuters does not have to show how world is perceived, but how the world is... so JPEG only sounds like a good thing to me.

 

(P.S.: never drink two glasses of white wine before lunch, or you'll start talk weired things ;) )

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I doubt that RAW restriction really makes sense. What can one correct in RAW and cannot correct in JPEG to lie in the image? RAW just gives the ability to achieve optimal image quality and that's all.

The most powerful instrument to correct the image is crop. That's why Magnum photographers have a credo not to use cropping. But Reuters permit to use cropping. I can't get this.

Using in camera JPEGs can really speed you up. But when you make news you try to speed up anyway so news agency doesn't need to control this part. It's photographer's choice to make faster or to make better. If I were a news photographer I would shoot RAW+JPEG in order to have backup and the ability to upload pictures immediately via wi-fi at the same time.

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I've seen some PhotoShop tutorials... I saw, how a relative banal image is turned into an spectacular one, just thanks to terrific PS skills of the photographer. When I saw what they did, I almost thought that PhotoShop is actually more important than taking the picture. I can tell you, if my local used-car dealer would manipulate his cars the same way as some photographer manipulate their images, he'd land straight in jail! :-) Now, I believe it's perfectly fine to stay hours on PS and do with an image whatever you can do. I've nothing against things like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U but when it comes to photojournalistic activities, maybe the JPEG limitation is not that bad. Images have to be as realitstic as possible and represent the moment, and not the PS skills of the photograher. And when you shoot RAW, and you're a good with PS, then the "temptaions" to manipulate too much is big.

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If  Reuter is so obtuse as to think that what they do is not providing an interpretation of the world as the photographer sees it, but that they are showing the world AS IS, I suppose they have never studied any aesthetic philosophy and they are just trying talking politically correct nonsense.

 

If two people photograph the same thing they can, and probably will, provide two different interpretation of what they are part of ( because they are in it and they are not  being outside of the reality but part of it) so the visual reality is not en “ ding an sich” and “ a priori” reality but a relative one.

 

Each person sees , evaluates, judges and reports reality according to his personal history, culture and convictions. Even when attempting to do this in the most objective of the way.

 

Objectivity is a myth.

 

In a photographic frame, reality  appears in a certain way rather than another, and even just composing is a choice that changes the perception of what you see and a choice of the photographer, hence, and by definition is an interpretation, to say nothing of the fact that the presence of the photographer, in itself, changes the way things are going.

 

Photographers like to think they are objective reporters but they are not, most modern aesthetic philosophers know it.

 

I don’t have a problem with someone wanting jpegs the problem is the artificial wall of smelly taurus waste around it.

 

a little of basic education ( again) read it.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_claim_(photography)

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It's correct. Objectivity is a myth. You always filter reality thourgh your eyes/senses/feelings/ideas/etc...
But Journalist, and especially photojournalist, have the responsiblity to tell/show us the world. And they also have an incredible power to create a "public opinion" through their work.

And therefore, maybe, it could be useful to put some limits, or rules. These limits/rules might never make a photographer/journalist objective, but they might help to contain his own vision, at least in part.

That said, there will never be something like "objectivity". Objectivity is a term, which we can only approach to, but never get to.

And now back to Reuters: it happened several times in the past, that due to heavy use of photoshop, Reuters got in trouble. for esample 2006, the bombs-smoke over Beirut (after bloggers discovered the photoshopped image, the Reuters photographer had been fired)

Other informatinos channels also got problems due to heavy use of photoshop, see the war in Syria off 2012, Syria (when Assad was still our enemy)

It's about credibility.... adding sharpness and vignetting is ok, but heavily manipulate images via photoshop.... you can't do that for journalistic work

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I am sorry, entertaining the idea that journalism photographic or otherwise is anything else that a vision of the world, and that it is in any way “ the objective truth” is only not only an illusion but a dangerous one.

 

Dangerous because people who want to manipulate the truth are going to use it exactly pretending that  “ IT” is an universal truth because they are showing it on pictures.

 

Much better to understand that there is nothing that can be classed as objective truth.

 

In my university years I studied among other things sociology with a major expert of sociology of the media , Giovanni Bechelloni.

 

Back then I held a seminary on photojournalism and the object of my seminary was precisely the relativity of any event and the absence of absolute and universal truth.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Falling_Soldier

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1201116/How-Capas-camera-does-lie-The-photographic-proof-iconic-Falling-Soldier-image-staged.html

 

 

 

This picture is probably a staged fake... so what?

 

This two other pictures were staged as well, this doesn’t mean that they don’t express the situation, as the photographer wanted to represent it

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I was a photoreporter for many years, until 1997, when I gave up photography.

 

Photoshop did not exist then.... we had to submit the entire original negative to the newspaper / magazine picture editor or to the agency.

 

The agency would syndicate the original, unedited image.

 

The picture editor would usually use the entire negative, but would crop at his discretion.

 

No tricks were ever used for editorial news photos in those days.  The photo had to be as truthful as the photographer had produced it.

 

The photographer made the decision on how to best exploit the scene, within the time frame available to grab the shot.

 

Any political or sentimental bias on the photographer's part would inevitably influence the story that the image would tell, as is still the case today with digital.  However, today, photographs are now influenced by the photographer's bias, AND by photoshop, which was not the case in the world of negatives.

 

Perhaps Reuters is just the first to wake up to the reality that Photoshop is turning possibly biased views into outright lies.

 

Photoshop is popular because photographers these days are becoming very lazy.... they just take shots at up to 10 or more frames per second with the attitude that they can pick the best then edit them in Photoshop.  That is a recipe for laziness and poor photography, and also for photographs that are not always an entirely honest view of what actually happened.

 

If you all read the article carefully, it doesn't say that Reuters are refusing RAW images; it says that Reuters are refusing images converted from RAW files.  I think you will find that Reuters will accept, and even welcome the RAW file of an exceptional image, but that means the original, virgin, untouched RAW file, not a frankenstein hatched from the RAW file.

I see Reuters' move as an admission that things have gone very wrong in the world of press images, and a serious step to righting those wrongs.  I am sure that the other agencies will soon follow suit.

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Milandro, you are correct.... but convention says it is the picture editor of an agency or publication that makes the decision, not the photographer.

 

The photographer must always be as "honest" as possible.

 

On the few well-documented occasions that a photographer has been less than honest, it has always cost that photographer his reputation when he was found out.

 

Robert Capa, the soldier being shot in the Spanish Civil War... once people found out it was staged they distanced themselves from Capa, and he struggled to get his photos published after the truth was discovered.  He only really regained fame after his death.

 

Robert Doisneau, the kiss in front of the Paris Town Hall.... once the story came out that he had paid two actors for a day's work, and used about 30 rolls of film to get that single "spontaneous" shot, he never managed to get another photograph published... all is peers distanced themselves from him.  Doisneau only really regained fame after his death, when his two daughters decided to publish books of his photographs.

Giovanni Troilo, who recently won a World Press Award, rightly had his prize revoked for having used Photoshop, and for having lied about the location, AND for having set up a shot that he said was spontaneous.  His reputation is now in tatters, and rightly so.

 

The decision to "edit" must remain, in most cases, the responsability of the publication that is using the photograph.  If they want to lie and cheat, that is their problem, but the photographer must always produce what he saw in front of the camera, if he doesn't want to end up like the three cases (and many others) that I have just mentioned.  It is not right that a publication that uses photos in good faith should have their reputation destroyed by a dishonest photographer.

Reuters are simply moving to protect their corporate reputation from less than honest photographers.

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I simply consider any picture an allegory and these days, an illustration, at best.

 

I don’t trust anyone who pretends to be the bearer and the keeper of any absolute truth.

 

I am VERY cautious to form my opinions based on information that I cannot control.

 

“ Propaganda works the best when those who are being manipulated are confident that they are acting on their free will”  Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Public Enlightenment, Nazi Germany

 

If you follow the links below you will se why things appear to be rotten nowadays, but, trust me they were always rotten... even before digital photography!

 

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/16/staging-manipulation-ethics-photos/?_r=0

 

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/in-an-iranian-image-a-missile-too-many/

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2544662/Pulitzer-Prize-winning-photographer-fired-admitting-doctored-Syrian-war-rebel-picture-photoshopping-camera-original-image.html

 

http://www.americanphotomag.com/interview-fred-ritchin-establishing-standards-digital-manipulation

 

http://www.zombietime.com/reuters_photo_fraud/

 

 

Ask yourself how much of the news that you thought were true, revealed themselves to be less than true, only in the last 25 years?

 

I know I was fooled more than once and I felt disenchanted and angry about it.

 

But if you take anything with a substantial grain of salt and ask yourself “ Cui prodest?” ( Who benefits from this?) and be skeptical of any easy to reach conclusion, maybe you won’t be wrong as often as I have been.

 

There is NO need to photoshop things to alter their visual message!

 

 ( From the Daily Mail UK... and they too know about these things firsthand, nobody is perfect,  ;)  here is how you don’t need to doctor the picture to manipulate the picture )

 

 

 

 

“...(Left) The photo was not doctored, but was misconstrued when it went viral on the internet, with people claiming it was a Syrian child 'sleeping between his parents'. (Right) A later photo revealed the first as a staged statement rather than a piece of photojournalism, taken in Saudi Arabia..."

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Milandro, your examples show the photographer allowing his lack of professional integrity to create a misleading image - exactly what Capa, Doisneau, Troilo and Co. did.  The people who used their images were exonerated because the truth was discovered, and the photographers were ostracised.  Such creations are impossible to completely avoid.

 

Photoshop alterations are now easier for agencies and publishers to avoid, and by avoiding them, Reuters are reducing their risk of losing their reputation by being duped.

 

Adding Photoshop to biased photographing has doubled the risk for the agency / publisher, and this agency is now simply reducing its risk exposure.

 

If a photographer wants to lie and cheat, in one way or another, he or she will eventually be named and shamed, and rightly so.

You are right that the photographer can create any bias they want to, but those who do will eventually find themselves outcasts in the photographic world.

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As someone who still takes photojournalism assignments on occasion (but not from Reuters) I can say that this is, well, basically being lambasted as one of the most backward initiatives (aside from eroding pay and increasingly awful contracts) in news photography this year. Reuters is trying to get itself closer to objectivity in a world where that is simply not possible. 20 years ago your film choice manipulated the scene, now your raw curves do so. Or, now your curves layer on your jpeg does. Or now your in camera processing does the work. Whatever. Ridiculous. 

 

No photograph is truth. If you think that you're not already manipulating things by blurring out a background with a telephoto lens instead of in photoshop, well then you're already drawing totally arbitrary lines in the sand. Sure, that's the rule but the only reason it stands is because of tradition. 

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This argument against raw is just silly, no one needs raw to manipulate the scene or context.

 

Nice example from today, when in worldwide media Brussels is depicted as being under siege. The video is in Dutch, but the images show plenty.

 

http://deredactie.be/permalink/2.41872?video=1.2504950

 

If they just said it was to reduce filesize and processing speed, that I could understand completely...

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peterh, all photographers have different ethics levels.  Some strive to produce accuracy, but sadly most don't.

 

I have only ever used two focal lengths for my journalism images, 35mm and 50mm (full frame equivalent). 

 

I do everything I can not to blur the background, because the background is part of the scene. 

 

I have been fortunate enough to work with many photographers, some of whom are household names, who have always done the same.  40 years ago, when I started, that was how the majority of photographers worked.  Super long lenses and lenses with huge apertures didn't really exist then, and if they did they were not regarded as usable in daily reporting.  Blurring backgrounds is a relatively recent trend and innovation, which you will see if you look back at photos of even 20 or 30 years ago.

 

Choice of ISO on film is fixed.  You cannot adjust curves on a negative.  You cannot compare film ISO with adjusting curves in Photoshop. 
 

Modern camera JPEGs are already light years ahead of film.  We now have advantages that we would never have dreamed of or imagined even 20 years ago, and yet we coped remarkably well with the comparatively primitive equipment we had, so much so that most modern photographers read books and look at photos in order to try to become more like Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Don McCullin, etc... so if they want to do that, why do they then continue to use Photoshop?

 

Photoshop is not necessary.  I don't use it.  I don't even have it on my computer, because I took the trouble to learn how to take photographs that do not need Photoshop. If there's something in my image that is unsightly I leave it there... if the image is not quite level, I leave it like that... that's how the photo was taken, and many other photographers of my generation do the same.... though very few of us have converted to digital.  Most of the great photographers that we admire, who are still alive, still use film.

 

It may be hard to believe, but it is actually easier to learn how to take a great photograph that doesn't need manipulation, than it is to learn how to use Photoshop, especially with modern digital cameras, that let you adjust the settings for contrast, colour, sharpness, etc., in the camera. 

 

Modern digital photographers have everything that the real pioneers of photography would have given their right arm for, and yet they still want more and more.... but strangely enough, even with all the modern advantages, very few seem capable of producing photographs as good as those produced by the great names of the past, who used film and just one or two short lenses.

 

We now use cameras that are effectively computers, we have amazing advantages over photographers of 20, 30 and more years ago.  These advantages should, theoretically, lessen the desire to "cheat", but instead, for some perverse reason, it's encouraging people to seek more innovative ways to cheat... an interesting analogy would be to compare it with drug use in sport over the last 40 years.

 

Photography - Photo Graphy - means "drawing with light"  -  Photshop means drawing with a computer.  Photoshop is NOT photography.

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This two other pictures were staged as well, this doesn’t mean that they don’t express the situation, as the photographer wanted to represent it

 

The photo of the flag-raising on Mount Suribachi, identified in this post as staged, was not staged. The photographer, Joe Rosenthal, has explained this thoroughly many times over the years. He took the original photo of the flag-raising as an unstaged grab shot. Later, realizing that editors would want the faces to be visible, he staged a photo with the soldiers standing smiling in front of the flag. He then filed his pictures and went on with his work.

 

Later, without having seen which photo was used in the press, he met another photographer who congratulated him on the photo and asked if it had been staged. Assuming that it was the set-up photo that had been used, he said, "Sure." It was only later that he discovered it was the unstaged photo that had become famous… but his momentary misunderstanding has clouded the facts ever since. (Many articles are available that show both photos, making it clear that the photo of the smiling soldiers was the staged one.)

 

Of course this does not invalidate the contention that photographs are selected and interpreted according to the user's desired representation of a situation. But if one intends to take photographers to task for making inaccurate claims, it is important that one takes care to make sure one's own claims are accurate.

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regardless, it shows that a picture, in itself, means not what people think that it should be, that is a representation of “ the truth “,

 

Any picture can easily mean different things.

 

Integrity is what keeps pictures real, not silly rules on the use raw or not.

 

http://www.worldpressphoto.org/sites/default/files/upload/Integrity%20of%20the%20Image_2014%20Campbell%20report.pdf

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