Thanks to PetaPixel for republishing Time Travel and Ethical Photojournalism by Utah-based photojournalist and chief photographer of the Salt Lake Tribune Trent Nelson, a piece that originally appeared on Nelson’s own web site Trenthead.com on June 15th.
This is a discussion which applies a great deal of common sense to the discussions of the ethics of post-processing of photographs, although I think it says little if anything that I and many others haven’t said before, it does so very clearly.
His final sentence: “Remember, reality is the goal.” is perhaps a good summation of both what is and what is not acceptable in terms of image processing (though perhaps I might sometimes put in a word for clarity too.) Certainly we should not be bound by the limits of what was possible in the not so good old days, and be ready to take advantage of the powerful corrective tools that are now available in software such as Lightroom 4.
It’s worth taking a look at the rest of Nelson’s Trenthead.com web site too. How many photographer’s web sites have a section on Polygamy? And as it says there are some Amazing Links.