Just because we can doesn’t mean we should. That pretty well sums up Photoshop ethics. Your job as a photojournalist is not to create the moment or the story but to capture it. To that extent there really isn’t a lot required if you have captured a great image to begin with. My general rule of thumb is that minor cropping, color correction and dodging are about all that is necessary. The photo should accurately and truthfully tell the story by itself.
Steve Elliot from Cronkite News Service created this great presentation for the Reynolds Institute that illustrates some of the ethical challenges confronted by our media.
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