How much do I tweak nature?

nicholasgross24 February 2008 · 21:19

G’day guys,

I’m working on a newspaper with a whole bunch of photos from a variety of sources and so quality varies greatly. Often I wonder if I should leave people alone or whether I should help nature out a bit: removing pimples, whitening teeth and generally make things look a bit more presentable. Is there an unspoken industry standard along the lines of, we do pimples but don’t whiten teeth, we remove stray beard hairs but we don’t take off kilos etc?

It’s probably important to point out this is a pretty straight newsy newspaper
very curious,
thoughts?

—N

Ricardo Cordoba24 February 2008 · 22:45

Whatever happened to good old veritas, eh? Did it fall down a manhole? ;-)

If I were you I would ask my supervisor. But, after all, you aren’t working for Vogue, or Us Weekly, right? :-)

Will Stanford25 February 2008 · 05:15

On a personal level i would have thought that the better you make the people in the pictures look the more likely they are to be amenable to a repeat performance if you should ever need it!

Wil

blank25 February 2008 · 05:31

Usually I only tweak photos if it’s something absolutely garish that stands out because the photographer/makeup person botched the shoot. A little foundation/concealer and good lighting is what makes a photo work, retouching is just the last step in that process.

But if a big zit is particularly distracting, spot healing brush it.

Don McCahill25 February 2008 · 10:08

If it is a newspaper, you must not alter news photos. More than one designer has been fired for doing so. The news is what happened. Someone has a zit, God can remove it, not you. Remember the photog that was fired for adding an additional missile to a photo of an attack in the middle east. He no longer works there. Another controversy was when TV Guide used Oprah’s head and another model’s body ... dunno if heads rolled for that.

nicholasgross25 February 2008 · 18:40

Fired really? Wow. I take your point and it’s totally fair enough I want to know that when I get news it all happened as is. Hmmm... I’m not talking about making people beautiful in a vanity fair way just removing... hmmm

OK good one, thanks

nicholasgross25 February 2008 · 18:47

I’d love to hear if everyone who worked on newspapers worked on this principle. Or maybe people would prefer not to say... I’m a newbie at this area of design. It’s probably worth pointing out that it isn’t really hard news like current affairs, international conflicts. that kind of stuff but more community news/newslettery kind of stuff
thanks again guys

Ricardo Cordoba25 February 2008 · 22:32

I’ll say it again... When in doubt, ask your supervisor. Surely this newspaper you work for has a policy on the matter, and if it doesn’t, maybe they will start one because of your question. And you don’t own the newspaper, so the decision is not up to you. Also, don’t forget that this forum is called

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