Those permitted edits you mention seem to all preserve the pixel-level integrity of the image. The fact that intentional blurring does not do this seems to be a distinction to me. I think that the fact that the blur layer must be synthesized heuristically indicates that not all of the information of the final image was really captured from the real world.
I suppose that resizing (resampling) an image might be said to not preserve the integrity of the original pixels, but I think it does if you consider the original pixels to be a reflection of the continuous field at the sensor.
Question for professionals -- how are noise reduction, masks (unsharp), etc. treated?
>Those permitted edits you mention seem to all preserve the pixel-level integrity of the image.
Curiously, you're allowed to convert color to black and white, which in my opinion is not preserving the pixel-level integrity. An algorithm is making a guess at what level of black to convert a pixel to.
> Question for professionals -- how are noise reduction, masks (unsharp), etc. treated?
I'm not a pro yet, but my understanding is it's a big no-no.
> Curiously, you're allowed to convert color to black and white, which in my opinion is not preserving the pixel-level integrity. An algorithm is making a guess at what level of black to convert a pixel to.
In the sense of pixel integrity I had in mind, a b&w conversion wouldn't be a violation. Each output pixel would be directly effected by the corresponding input pixel (Bayer interpolation notwithstanding). Image data wouldn't be moved around from one region to another.
>That's why at the start of this whole thread I reference photojournalism.
I saw it, but it's not that clear cut.
What you write, "an artistic shot to fill space" implies to me generic illustration pictures, which the above isn't an example of.
I think the restrictions to editing are mostly contrained for photos about stuff like politics, world affairs, crime etc -- stuff that is presented as 100% dry news.
But the term photojournalism covers other stuff too, right? Isn't, say, a travel article written by a journalist with a photographer photojournalism too? Or the images taken by a photojournalist for a piece on dance culture, the burning man, stuff like that. Or for a sports feature.
> But the term photojournalism covers other stuff too, right? Isn't, say, a travel article written by a journalist with a photographer photojournalism too? Or the images taken by a photojournalist for a piece on dance culture, the burning man, stuff like that. Or for a sports feature.
I agree, and as I understand it, anything beyond some basic level/color adjustments and cropping is a no-no in those areas if you want to keep your integrity.
>algorithm is making a guess at what level of black to convert a pixel to
Can you not just average the RGB values? Perhaps adjusting a bit for relative intensities of those values (I'm just guessing but red is probably less bright than blue or green). It's not really a "guess" is it unless it's a sophisticated algorithm. It's more akin to rotating or skewing an image.
Or you mean it's a guess compared to how non-colour film would actually record the light?
I suppose that resizing (resampling) an image might be said to not preserve the integrity of the original pixels, but I think it does if you consider the original pixels to be a reflection of the continuous field at the sensor.
Question for professionals -- how are noise reduction, masks (unsharp), etc. treated?