Boundaries of Image Manipulation

Digital image manipulation is the practice of photographic image retouching by electronic softwares through a computer. Images maybe taken from a digital camera or scanned through a scanner and digitally processed through softwares such as Adobe Photoshop. Almost all advertisement commercials and magazine photography pages we see today are professional manipulated.

Technical image manipulation

• Restoration of old or damaged films
• Hue/saturation
• Color rendering
• Flaws enhancement

Creative image manipulation

• Insertion/removal
• Special effects
• Advertisement
• Beauty and fashion

• Cosmetic based: skin blemishes removing, teeth straightening, eye and lip enlargement, figure reshaping, muscle definition, skin tone whitening, leg length stretching.
• Object based: insert object, remove object, change background, merge multiple pictures into one.
• Effect based: 3D, light/fire/bomb/snow, blood/bruises, super natural/scientific/horror (ie. monster, alien, animal, specie, robot).

Digital image first became popular culture during the 1980s when computers first became popular in everyday home and office uses. Also during that time, the entertainment and advertisement culture also flourished heavily. Most digital image manipulation is practiced by professionals for promotion in market products. Then later as the 21st century approached, digital cameras became widely available and more affordable, importing images from camera to computers became very easy and caused photo editing software in non-professional community to spread widely.

As man seek perfection and digital manipulation technology grows over time, what you see is not what you will get anymore. Today, images does not present truth behind art anymore. What magazines and advertisement present to the society is no longer the original content, barely any of that is 'raw'. Many mental and physical victims, especially teenage girls, are chasing unrealistic perfect images brought by manipulated images.

• Magazine photographs have long been a media influence that took active participation in digital enhanced photograph, fashion magazines such as Vogue are reported to be highly associate with women' experience with poor body image and unhealthy eating disorders. Almost all images of teen magazines are Photoshoped to promoting a size-zero culture that is the society's obsession of unrealistic skinny body shapes, giving young girls the false impression of flawless appearances and stick thin body shapes.
• Celebrity images with unrealistic perfect appearance promotes unhealthy body image and cosmetic surgery to the entertainment community and the public audience. Especially the bigger sized celebrities that support a healthy sized image whose photos are digitally enhanced at least two dress size down along with extra skin touch up, and flat figures can add bigger bust and bottom enhancement.
• School picture photo studios and photo agencies also offer extra photoshop service, from simple skin blemishing to changing the shape of ears and jaws. Most of today's year book pictures have been digitally retouched. Parents want their kids to look perfect rather than teach them to appreciate their flaws. Children might get their self-esteem hurt by receiving the message that they are not good looking without makeup and photo editing.
• Photo studios offer great amount of photo editing without any request from customers and some of the finished products differ very much from the reality. Despite the unrealistic portraits, many customers still favors the flawless byproduct. But photography have a meaning which is to store memories, and manipulated images can not bring back real truth.

Many newspapers agencies today are starting to slow down the process of retouching images. There have been the cases of news photographers using digital manipulation to create pictures more powerful than it was taken are caught, subsequent apologies and are fired.