Read the story in the link below, and then tell me what you think…
www.sacbee.com/2012/02/01/4232790/setting-it-straight-photo-manipulated.html
There is a fine line in professional photography, and that line is drawn with Photoshop. Commercial photographers are expected to use it. Fashion photographers would get fired, if they didn’t use it! Wedding photographers get paid extra to use it on their brides. However, it can end your career, if you use it as a photojournalist.
I don’t mean that a newspaper photographer can’t use Photoshop at all… I mean that newspapers only expect the basics from the imaging program – crop, resize, color adjustment and contrast. No cloning, copying, pasting, joining, deleting, etc… If you alter a photo to add or remove people or things in a newspaper, it goes against everything journalism is supposed to be about.
But, what about those obvious manipulations you see in the paper? Chances are you are thinking about a “photo illustration” used for an editorial piece. When there’s a factual story being covered, the image has to be factual, too. But, editorial pieces with more abstract ideas can use a Photoshopped image to “illustrate” the idea. It’s an illustration, because it no longer represents factual reality. Some newspapers won’t even use them… they’ll use an artist to render an illustration from scratch, so that a “photo illustration” doesn’t confuse the reader.
So, put your Photoshop skills to good use, unless you are a photojournalist!