Much of the ground that gets covered in Chapter Five, "Image Editing" from A Short Course In Digital Photography deals with all the possibilities that are made available in photo editing software programs. This comes as an advantage for digital photographers because it allows more time to be spent creating an interesting image without the fear of not being able to go back a step. Furthermore, photo editing software programs allow a digital photographer to easily and swiftly make an adjustment to a photo and be able to print it moments later. However, despite the convenience of the features available in these types of programs, a thoughtful photographer will make sure to look at every photograph they take and see if they are worth editing and ruminate what can be done to enhance the visual quality of a digital photo.
Adjusting the levels of the red layer, blue layer, and green layer in a photograph allows a photo editor to see how much of each color is in a picture if more or less of a certain color layer is changed. Using this feature is a simple edit in digital photography. Typically, these values are represented by a graph called a histogram. Another way to edit a photo is using Curves. Curves allows the user to adjust the shadows, midtones, and highlights in a photograph. Curves is also represented on a graph like histograms. There is a diagonal line on a graph where the upper part of the line corresponds to the highlights of the photo; the middle part of the line correlates to the midtones in the pictures; and the lower part of the line closest to the axis represents the shadows in a photograph. The user can move the different line parts up or down which creates curves in the line while simultaneously changing the highlights, midtones, or shadows in a corresponding photo. A popular feature of photography editing software is that a photo editor can take separate images and mesh them with each other. In the editing software knows as Photoshop, a user can use a program called Layers which can take elements from other photos and put it into another photo via overlapping. This is also an aspect of making composite photos which is when a photo editor can take parts from one image and put it in another image to create a composite of different selections from a photo creating something entirely different. Photo editing software allows photographers to flourish and use photography to show more than what is realistically shown in the world. Composites allow photographers to use their images as words, sentences, or complete stanzas to make poetry with visuals.
It is important to remember that with photo editing software comes with the potential to manipulate a photo in a way that will not only show how much the user knows but also may send certain images to the audience. For the sake of art and to comment or critique the world in which we live, (or to sell something that looks interesting or different) copyrighted photographs may get edited and then even sold at the expense of the owner. The popular store Urban Outfitters is known for stealing artist's work and using their art on clothing apparel without permission and then selling the clothes*. It is important to be respectful of others' work but it is just as important to question art's place in a consumerist society; when does a piece of self-expression get a price tag and what is the measurement used to determine its worth?
Urban Outfitters' stolen artwork displayed on their website for sale; also seen: objectification of a woman
The artist Spires' website. Note the similarities and how much cheaper it is to buy their work from their website instead of Urban Outfitters' version.
*http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/28/urban-outfitters-spires-copyright-infringement_n_5403244.html
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