This thread should actually probably be in the media board.
Sorry.

Forgive me if I'm being dense here, but what exactly is the significance and consequence if indeed the photo has been doctored? I read the article you linked but I'm still not getting it with regards to the opening post.

Thats a Marine from 1/8 (1st battalion 8th Marines) picture was taken during operation phantom fury, nov. 2004.

it got a lot of press during the clearing, prob. due to his cammie paint, which the other 3 comapnies of the battalion werent wearing.

we had inbed reporters, most notably from the BBC.

ill try to find the link to the videos but he kinda got got his wrist slapped for some of the things in it.

I suppose if it was decided that the image was doctored than it would imply that the publisher is trying to convey a message. I posted it here because I know ATS has many members who are skilled in image analysis. I guess I was just curious, I acknowledge that it isn't significant.

its all about the 1000 yard stare

The cigarette and smoke is photoshoped in. It's a pretty obvious job. I wonder why they would bother doing that. Maybe they are trying to get people to smoke?!?!?!?

Definately played with. Look at the patters in the smoke and how they tried to blend it in with his cammo paint. The smoke is not smoke. I don't know what they'd benefit from when photoshopping the image though. This seems pretty harmless apart from if the marine pictured is married to a woman with lung cancer.

The Awful Truth...

...is that most photographs appearing in the media are altered - not with intent to manipulate public opinion, but simply for practical purposes such as to improve colour balance and overcome other faults in the original photo, as well as to make the image reproduce more vividly. This can shade over into image manipulation for less benign purposes - in fact it does all the time - but it's naive to ask whether a given image has been manipulated. Of course it has. They all have.

In this particular case, any manipulation was evidently for aesthetic reasons, because the photo itself isn't saying anything very profound. It's just a sexy, iconic photograph of a GI with a cigarette, an image that has lots of historical and romantic resonance, especially for Americans. The only 'ulterior' motive behind it was to get people to pick up the LA Times.

If the media goes too far in manipulating images and does it frequently, it can cause people to lose touch with reality. If everything 'we' know comes from the media, and the media fabricates the truth with calculated precision, then something as mundane as touching up a photograph is part of a larger problem.

Not on our screens, but in ourselves

Originally posted by wingman77
The media goes too far in manipulating images... everything 'we' know comes from the media... the media fabricates the truth with calculated precision...

It's easy to blame the media, but that's not where the real blame lies.

It lies with the consumers of media.

Commercial media only give people what they want. They spend vast sums of money on audience polling and market research to find out you want, then they give it to you. This is the inevitable result of competitive commercial pressure.

Until there exists a viable audience for reality, you can whistle for reality in the media.

Originally posted by greeneyedleo
Amazing that so many people think that is what those women really look like

Amazing that so many people think that is what women really look like.

Not least women themselves - hence all the surgical alterations, firming creams, anti-ageing unguents and all the rest.