Image Editing

It has always been possible to edit images - using scissors, paste or the dark-room - but computers have made it much easier to "improve" images and to create images of events that never occurred.

Editing

	So you spend lots of money sending a photographer to portray the Polly Woodside and the picture is "spoilt" by an intrusive shed (left) and tree (right).
This picture altered by computer.	With a paint program, such as xpaint, you cut out a few clouds and paste them over the tree and the shed. This leaves a troublesome hole on the left so one of the low buildings is cut out and duplicated. Finally a piece of sky is captured as a 16x16 pattern and, zooming to 3x magnification, the pen is used to tidy up any of the loose pixels on the new skyline.

Manipulating images raises ethical questions. Australian newspapers seem to observe a code of practice under which they acknowledge manipulation of images. There is a range in the degree of manipulation:

• "Enhancement" - e.g. sharpening, changing contrast.
• "Improvement" - e.g. removal of troublesome highlights.
• "Manipulation" - e.g. the fashion model's eyes are changed from brown to blue.
• "Fabrication" - e.g. cut and paste with several images, removal or addition of "evidence".

Some cases to consider:

• We paint out the noisy freeway in an advertising photograph of a hotel.
• Melbourne's cloudy sky is "enhanced" by replacing it with a blue one "borrowed" from Queensland.
• A person is painted into a situation they were never in.
• The gun in a photograph of a murder site is moved, deleted, or added.

	The main control panel for xpaint. The 2nd row allows areas - rectangles, curves, polygons - to be selected for image editing, cutting and pasting.
	Left: an image window (half size) in xpaint. Multiple images can be open at one time, also new canvases - see [File]. Selected areas can be cut, copied and pasted between images - see [Edit]. Fine pixel work requires zoom - see [Image].

Copyright

Remember that the original artist holds the copyright to a photograph, drawing, painting etc. The fact that it may have been displayed on the internet only gives an implied right to view it for personal use, not a right to republish it in your own web pages etc. Processing the image in some way, or changing its form or the media that it is stored on does not get around copyright law. If in doubt, ask the (real) copyright holder for permission.