How much photo editing is too much? A quick search on Google will yield hundreds of results of photo editing techniques to avoid or risk mockery of you beloved photo from internet “professionals”. Photo manipulation is as much part of photography as the camera itself. But how do you know when you’ve edited a photo beyond what is publicly acceptable? After all, posting your photos publicly on the web instantly puts that photo up for critique whether you asked for it or not. A quick look at the photo below of the iconic Willis Tower in Chicago; to the left is the edited version and to the right is the original. The left side of the photo was done using Photoshop CS5 adding a layer of Hue and Saturation adjustment with added coloration and then painted the the blue sky using the brush tool. Now that you see both edited and original, do you think the left side over done?
Photography is very subjective and quite often, the photos I love are the ones least liked by others. People attach and expect certain level of social responsibility that photographs *should* reflect reality accurately. When a model is ‘photoshopped’ to look 10 years younger and 15 pounds lighter; unless the public at large sees the original un-edited photo, the final product of that photo shoot and model are generally accepted as “reality” and more often than not, you expect the model to look good.
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