Post-processing in the digital age: Photojournalists and 10b Photography

Careful

It is a slippery slope to adjust images for news purposes unless you are okay with the constant complaint of media bias.

no problem

i do not see any problem with these images . The truth of them has not been altered in any way. you could argue by making them more appealing to the eye they will gain a bigger audience therefore he is doing his job by spreading the news!
W. Eugene Smith(arguably one of the greatest photographic journalist of the 20th century) used to spend days in the darkroom prefecting a print,then he would make a copy neg of the final one then always work from that copy neg.
Henri Cartier-Bresson never printed his own pictures. where do draw the line and who draws it? noting has been taken out of these pictures and nothing has been added they tell his truth as he saw it. with the help of good post work. to me its the same as printing b/w on grade 5 paper ! great pictures ,great photographer.

Call me old fashioned...

Call me old fashioned, but isn't this what good printers have always done...interpret the neg (or these days, file) for maximum impact within the technical capabilities of the medium to be used for its dissemination.

over-stylised

I have no ethical problem with what's been done to these images, but I do think they look far worse as a result. To my eye they look over-stylised. It's a look which is quite popular with some photojournalists but it really doesn't do it for me at all. The photos were great in the first place. I think some people need to lay off the dodge/burn tool - for me they've gone over the top in some of these (i'm thinking the 2nd and 4th image in particular)

VERY INTERESTING PIECE

As more and more photojournalists shoot Raw this is a very pertinent article. I have (almost) no problem with the treatment of the images here, nothing is added or taken away; the blind man's eyes are emphasised and the image is editorially stronger as a result. The truth is that when we shot B&W we spent hours in the darkroom to get the best possible prints and we all had our individual styles. There is no reason why the same should not hold true in colour - as long as that "style" is not pushed so far as to be a real distortion of the original scene. My tiny reservation is about the grey smoke being so blackened, it looks a bit unreal as a result.. Finally I think it would be really useful to have an international code of ethics covering what is or is not acceptable for digital treatment of photojournalism..I think ironically this would give photojournalists more creative freedom once the boundaries were agreed..

A little overhyped

I'm not entirely convinced by this companies great skills. Apart from the first image which appears to be skillfully done all the others look like a simple click on the auto curves button! As usual the images and their subjects gain on clarity but lose on atmosphere and photographic texture. Sometimes its more interesting for areas in the photograph to be obscure.
Was impressed though that Barthes 'punctum' was given a mention, though I think he would have rolled in his grave at the context - he would have refered to this as 'studium' surely?

Halo in image 4?

Further to ciara's comment, to my eye, image #4 looks as though there is a slight halo around the main subject's head in the processed version, reminiscent of poorly-rendered HDR or careless use of Photoshop's Shadows & Highlights command.

I found it quite jarring - anyone else see it or is it just me?

Not sure what this is about...

I think this is an article about nothing! There were no limbs chopped off, or positions changed or perceptions altered. The printers art is alive and well and we can all do the alterations here without difficulty.
Next topic please...

perfectly acceptable

I would be perfectly happy with the level of processing here. As other commenters have said, nothing added nothing removed. And I've seen that halo effect often in old black and white photos where the background or sky has been burned in. It happens in my own photographs.

I doubt they're using auto functions in photoshop personally. The retouching is done to too high a standard for that.

They do make the images look a bit like fashion images - high contrast, desaturated skin etc.

Personally i think they know what they are doing.

Ethically fine, but questionable result

I see nothing here of questionable journalistic ethics, but the post-processing itself is overdone, if not badly done.

For instance, I'd say there's a haloing effect on the first image, between the foreground and the sky. Generally just oversharpened and contrast-boosted.
Which is too bad, because it looks like the basic file just needs a little boost in the blacks in ACR or LR3 to have a strong, punchy image.

Finally!

Finally, some common sense!

Print

I thought the images looked much better in print in the December issue of BJP.

Mostly OK except one

Most of the correction is pretty understated - a bit more contrast, less saturation, lightening faces...
Except for the photo on p63 - not shown online - of evening prayer in Tahrir square, which has had all of the warmth taken out and lost focus on the woman centre left .
Its here in a Time slideshow (it looks a bit darker online):
http://lightbox.time.com/2011/12/14/person-of-the-year-2011-revolution/#6

A Hair's Width

As someone who started in B&W documentary and now resides in broadcast advertising, it's a line thinner than a layer of emulsion between routine and "focusing adjustment" and what's going on here. Editorial now needs a "look" to be good? We're nearing "music video telecine" type adjustments in some of these examples, in their secondary colors plain as day, which isn't needed by any of these images. Sign of the times? Just sad times if that's the case.

Same as printing B&W

Whether you like any particular look or not, this is no different than photographers or their printers have always done. Just because you couldn't do much with a 'chrome after the fact is no reason not to try to optimize your image as best you can.
The idea that you can't dodge or burn or adjust contrast is just absurd!

Basic tweaks

These edits look like what i do on a daily basis using lightroom for 5 minutes per image.

Contrast reduction
Blacks increased
Saturation dropped
Clarity set to max

Seriously a lab is not needed for edits like this unless you have no time in your work flow to accommodate them.

And another thing, all images are representation's know matter how their treated, so what does it matter how their edited?

They look better

There is nothing wrong with these examples except they look better.

No thanks

So that is "pro"? I dont like it, sorry. Looks better unprocessed for most samples.

If you call this world's best - God save the customers

To devote an article and hype it by saying that it is worlds leading post production unit would be a fallacy here.

The quality of work is quite unsatisfactory and the sort that any stumbling neophyte on Photoshop can handle in 3 days time.

Seems more like a media exercise for unsuspecting new business.

If you call this world's best - God save the customers

To devote an article and hype it by saying that it is worlds leading post production unit would be a fallacy here.

The quality of work is quite unsatisfactory and the sort that any stumbling neophyte on Photoshop can handle in 3 days time.

Seems more like a media exercise for unsuspecting new business.

Originals better

Are they kidding? That's terrible "processing". Way overdone, for originals that didn't need it in the first place. I see nothing in these that couldn't easily be done with just a simple, free image viewer and clicking one only one of its editing menu items.