Ethics guidelines for digital imaging

DigitalCustom Group on Thursday announced the publication of Release Version 2.0 of the “DigitalCustom Model Ethics Guidelines to Protect the Integrity of Journalistic Photographs in Digital Editing.”

DigitalCustom’s President, Jeff Makoff said, “The power to edit a historical image brings with it the ability to manipulate history. Archivists and digital artists should discuss, and ultimately agree on, what is appropriate — especially because the digital artist and the person responsible for historical preservation often are different people.”

A copy of Release Version 2.0 of the model journalism ethics guidelines is available here.

Here’s the interesting section:

News/Editorial Images (Impermissible Procedures)

The following digital image editing procedures generally are not permitted for news/editorial purposes:

3.0.1 Adding, removing or moving objects in such a way that the context of the event is altered.

3.0.2 Age progression or regression (e.g. adding gray to hair).

3.0.3 Changing a subject’s facial expression, gestures, clothing, body parts or personal accessories.

3.0.4 Retouching that enhances or reduces the apparent quality or desirability of an item, or the aesthetics of a place.

3.0.5 Using “motion” to create a misleading impression that the subject is moving at a different speed than he/she/it was moving during the events.

3.0.6 Using effects or color changes in such a manner that it is unclear whether the effects or color changes were applied through digital editing or were part of the original event that was being covered.

3.0.7 Using any other digital editing procedure in a way that creates a misleading impression of the events, participants or context.

3.0.8 In nature photographs, special care should be taken to represent animal and plant life in its actual environment, habitat and context (e.g. do not lighten a background to make it appear that a nocturnal animal is diurnal or place an animal in fabricated geographical settings).

3.0.9 It is impermissible to manipulate a nature photo so as to create a false appearance that animals were associating with other animals (including humans), to group animals together in a manner that did not naturally occur or to increase the number of animals in a group.

3.0.10 The enhancement of nature images for the purpose of investigation or viewability is permissible, provided the manipulation is incidental, obvious or specifically disclosed to the viewer.

3.0.11 It is impermissible to represent a fabricated phenomenon as natural (e.g. adding a shooting star or rainbow).

3.0.12 These procedures are impermissible whether accomplished through digital editing or physical editing (“mortising”) of images.

JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.