Surely you can just photoshop that out?

From an era in which dark room manipulations were an almost unknown wizardly competence of the professional photographer, to decades of public outrage over excessive model retouching (“real” vs. “fake” photos), we have arrived at the now extended expectation that virtually anything posted on social (and many non-social) media has been digitally altered prior to publication.

From an interior photographer’s perspective, this sometimes presents a bit of a conundrum when clients who have not made their properties “photo-ready” drops the so often heard line: “surely, you can just photoshop that out, can’t you?”. (See my blog post on “What do I do Before the Photographer arrives”)

Well, as a matter of fact, often it can be just that easy. Stains, cracks, yellow grass spots, night table lamp cables, and straightening the odd painting are pretty quick fixes which a professional photographer should attend to in post production without even having been asked.

I always shoot with the editing process in mind, and will take care to arrange the scene in ways that will help reduce unnecessary and time consuming retouching. But I will admit to having had to “photoshop stuff” both in and out of images due lamentable oversights of my own whilst on location. Opening up the picture on my computer only to find a piece of my own gear sitting in a corner would not be my first. As the song goes: “We’re all human, after all”.

But there are other things for which the request to “just photoshop it out” will make a photographer start to cringe. Whilst not impossible by any means, removing anything partially concealed by bars, plants or wicker furniture, cleaning up textured surfaces or fixing dirty windows are some examples of things that will make the editing clock start ticking quite fast.

At the end of the day though, a skilled photographer will be able to address any digital alteration required. Which brings us to something of much greater importance than the technical difficulty, namely the lines of ethical responsibility. Is it OK to remove a power tower? To conceal the construction site next door? To fix paint peeling due to a water damage? The key question to ask here is what the purpose of the image is. If the photographs are used to sell or rent the property, the ethical standards regarding what can be altered are rather strict. However, if the purpose is to showcase the work of an architect or interior designer, more retouching latitude is available.

Whenever there may be some doubts about any of these sorts of issues, I will always confer with my clients prior to delivering the final images.