#19 in a series of background briefs


“Before” vs. “After”

On the dividing line created when light hits the recording surface

  • 1. With non-TTG photos, when the light hits the recording surface, the process of shaping what the photo will look like is often only beginning

    Non-TTG photos are completely “malleable” after the light hits the recording surface. They can be made to look like anything (more so than ever now with AI-fabricated imaging).

    Everything in the photo can be changed, moved, enhanced, erased, resized, replaced, reshaped, recolored, or blurred.

    As the public is quickly learning even from smartphones, there are no limits to what can be done to a non-TTG photo.

  • 2. But with TTG photos, when the light hits the recording surface, the process of shaping what the photo will look like is largely finished

    TTG photos are quite “set” after the light hits the recording surface.

    Very little can be done to a photo after that point if it is to qualify for the TTG label (as it says elsewhere on this site, “The simplest way to make a TTG photo is to take a normal picture and then leave it exactly as is”).

    The phrase “I'll fix it in post” is largely irrelevant to TTG photographers except for light-related corrections (“tones and colors”) and TTG's few allowed changes.

  • 3. The line itself between “before” and “after” is as clear as ever

    Every depiction in the image either was present in the light before it hit the recording surface or it was added to the image after the light was recorded.

    Nothing is “on the fence” between the two.

    That matters because viewers are much more suspicious of visual effects resulting from changes made to a photograph after the light hits the recording surface—

    — than those same viewers are of visual effects that were present in the light before it hit the recording surface.

  • 4. But in recent years digital cameras have blurred our awareness of the line

    Over the first two decades of the digital era, the line between “before the picture was recorded” and “after the picture was recorded” became steadily more blurred because of one development:

    Image processing that in the film era had almost always been done after the photo was removed from the camera could now be quickly performed inside the camera.

    In fact, it is easier than ever to program devices and cameras before the shutter is clicked so that they will doctor photographs instantly after the light hits the recording surface, before the photo even appears on the device’s screen.

    (In P2 of the Trust Test, “A” lists three of the TTG-disqualifying manipulations that are most easily programmed into devices before the photograph is taken.)

  • 5. All of those in-camera manipulations have changed the mindset of the photographer

    The more automatic an action becomes, the less likely the photographer is to manually undo it.

    A. Photographers (particularly smartphone users) are increasingly led to believe that they are changing lenses’ optical settings when they make adjustments on their screen before taking the picture — i.e., that they are affecting the nature of the light before it hits the recording surface—

    — when in fact they are merely changing the software settings (so that the photo is instantly doctored or aigmented after the light hits the recording surface).

    B. When the pre-shutter “preview” picture on a device’s screen shows what the photo will look like after it is doctored or aigmented, the photographer is already getting comfortable with the “wished-for” image rather than what the camera lens actually sees.

    It is easy to imagine a device’s screen image feeling more “real” to the photographer than does the “real-world” scene in front of the camera.

    C. When — after taking the picture — the first thing the photographer sees on the device’s screen is an already-doctored or aigmented image (never seeing the undoctored version), the photographer is unlikely to dig up the image of the scene as the camera actually saw it.

    __________

    With sophisticated in-camera processing, it can be difficult for the photographer to distinguish between “what the camera lens saw” vs. how the image was instantly altered to depict “what the photographer wishes the camera had seen.”

  • 6. From the public’s perspective, “Before” vs. “After” will always matter

    That distinction is key to understanding which photographs people trust—

    — which is why TTG repeatedly reinforces the line between the two.