Digital image enhancement has received a lot of negative publicity over the last few years. It seems that after the initial period of fascination and excitement about almost limitless possibilities of the modern digital editing software, general public started getting weary of the unnatural looking images that flooded the marketing scene. Reading people’s letters and comments posted online and in magazines, it’s easy to pick up a sense of a backlash against the spotless and perfect –looking images that are often used in advertising and fashion photography.
However, not all images that look realistic can claim to be untouched by the ‘brush’ of a photo editing software (remember, some adjustments actually take place inside the photographic camera and well before the image is transferred to a computer). Also, sometimes it’s hard to distinguish the images that are real and are presented without any enhancement from those that have been enhanced. Obviously, there is only so far one can take an image before it starts looking unreal. Hence, there is even some terminology (often used in derogatory way) that emerged around the photo editing process: people talk about imaged being ‘airbrushed’, ‘manipulated’ and appear ‘artificial’.
The question is: where is the borderline?
I’ve selected this head and shoulder portrait for this exercise and I am setting out to explore this borderline and to find answers.
How much is too much and what level of enhancement is legitimate and natural? Let’s find out!
