Photoshop

We spent a good deal of time in class learning about photoshop. It is a tool used in nearly every picture we see in magazines, whether its through airbrushing or just editing things in or out of the original photo. It is both fascinating and terrifying how realistic edited photos can look. For instance in class we looked at photos that have appeared in the news, such as current event photos, as well as older famous iconic photos. We compared the original photo with the one that had been tampered with. Personally because I don't have prior photoshop experience, so it took me a while to figure out what had been edited into the photo. The more we looked at these pictures it became slightly more apparent what had been changed, but it made it obvious that the average person could be easily fooled.

Shortly after talking about this in class, we got to try out photoshop on our own. While it was fairly basic, I learned a lot and was shocked at how easy it is (once you've learned of course) to manipulate photos. The scary thing about this is anyone can access the software, if they're willing to pay for it, that is. In class we also learned how important it is for people, particularly young children to be monitored while online, because many pictures are so believable, that a child might mistake them for being real.

This is a topic that is important in my field of study, because when you are dealing with television, visual literacy, and news reporting it becomes that much more important to make sure your sources are legitimate.