Ethics of Photoshop

Photoshop is a powerful tool for photo editing. It gives you the ability to make wonder works of art and edit you own photos. However, this software also allows people for unethical, deceitful, and even illegal use.

Unehtical

The photo to the left is my attempt at retouching a  photo of myself (for lack of a better subject haha). Don’t  the two look different? I don’t think I’m a bad looking gal  but I must admit that the second one does look better.  What do you think?

What is considered unethical use of  Photoshop? Well  ethics is a controversial topic – what may be unethical to  one person, would be ethical to another. Would is be  ethical for check personal email or facebook while at  work? Ethics are based on what a person finds right or  wrong. But what are some ways Photoshop can be used  in unethical ways?

The Photoshop Effect is a series on Youtube about  retouching in magazines. How much is too much? Tim  Lynch, the photographer and retoucher interviewed  in The Photoshop Effect Pt 1, says  that magazines often just assume that readers already  know that the photos in the magazines are retouched.

Think about it:

• Should magazines have a disclaimer saying that the photos are retouched?
• Is it right that magazines retouch their photos to a point of impossible perfection?

You can view the first part of the interview here.

Illegal

More then half the users of Photoshop is illegal! Most people download the program or find product keys online. But how can the program itself be used for illegal use? Well it’s simple, people can pass other people’s photos and artworks as their own. Any signature or watermark on a photo can be removed with a well experienced Photoshoper.

Deceitful

This rolls the ethics of Photoshop and the legal aspect together.      Some examples of false representation using Photoshop was back  when Lance Armstrong was on the cover of Outside magazine back in  2010. Mr. Armstrong posed for the cover  but then the logo “38 BFD”  was advertised on his shirt. It was added via Photoshop and Lance  wasn’t happy about it. Here is the full article.

Not impressed? Well try this example of deceitful Photoshop use:  back in 2009, to prove his theory of global warming, Mr. Al Gore  turned to Photoshop to “enhance” a photo to make people believe  more hurricanes were occurring throughout the world. That’s pretty  dishonest if you ask me! You can check out the full article here.

I love using Photoshop! And I’d like to think that I’m pretty good at figuring out the tools to edit images for myself or for whoever requests something. However, giving credit is crucial! Like if you use stock photos in a photo manipulation, say where to from whom you got each photo from. It doesn’t make you any less of an artist for using someone else’s photos, especially if that person uploads them specifically for other people to use!

Remember: Use you Photoshop powers for good, not evil!