OCA BA (HONS) PHOTOGRAPHY COURSE

Exercise 4: Digital Manipulation

1. Instead of using double exposures or printing from double negatives we now have the technology available to us to make these changes in post-production, allowing for quite astonishing results.
2. Use digital software such as Photoshop to create a composite image which visually appears to be a documentary photograph but which could never actually be.
3. To make a composite image you need to consider your idea and make the required amount of images to join together.
4. Upload the images and decide which image you’ll use as your main image and background. Use the magic wand to select sections of image from the others you wish to move into your background image. Copy via layer and drag into the background. Do this repeatedly until you have all the pieces of your puzzle in place. In order to make it more convincing, use the erase tool on each layer to keep the edges soft and to create a better illusion. Be aware of perspective and light and shadows for the most effective results.
5. Search YouTube for Photoshop tutorials; there will probably be a suitable upload. If not, ask your tutor or your fellow students for advice or find a digital technique book in your library for more specific instructions.

 

Photographs are malleable and can be read many ways and also can be manipulated. An endearing facit of the photograph is our willingness to accept it as a historical document of fact-in some innate way its authenticity runs deep even when we know that an image can, or maybe even has been manipulated. With advent of deepfake technologies (Deepfakes are synthetic media in which a person in an existing image or video is replaced with someone else’s likeness.) the manufacture of realities challenges the image as a document that can be trustd.