Recently there was controversy at Reuters after it was discovered that one of their freelance photographers altered a picture of Beruit. The photographer darkened the photo and added more smoke to it to make the Israeli attack on the city seem worse than it actually was. One someone discovered the alteration, Reuters cut ties with the photographer and removed all his photos from their database. All this trouble brought to light the fact that modern technology has made it extremely easy to alter digital photos.

Maria Aspan wrote in today’s New York Times:

The case also increased pressure on news photo editors, who select and edit thousands of photographs under deadline pressure each day, to detect digital alterations.

Then there is the other problem, the fact that:

many photographers use Photoshop or other programs within the standards allowed by newspapers to clean and clarify their work.

So then photographers are left to wonder how much they can clean up the picture before it is actually considered “altered”? Do they have to divulge even the smallest corrections to a picture? Just another one of those sticky situations created by the ease of modern technology…