TTG Brief #32: Making a less-strict standard

#32 in a series of background briefs

On creating a TTG-like standard that is less strict

What are these 11 items about?

Photographers who are unhappy that TTG doesn’t allow their favorite manipulations might wonder whether an “alternative,” less-strict standard could be created to allow their favorite manipulations.

This page lists some considerations for creating an alternative standard, based on lessons learned from creating TTG.

1. What is the goal of the alternative standard?

• Is the goal to preserve a particular way of making photographs?

If so, it is worth bluntly asking how much viewers will care. (The wider public has not shown a keen interest in how photographs are made when it comes to film vs. digital, for example.) See also FAQ #115.

• Is the goal to designate photographs that are more trustworthy than some other images?

If so, and if the new standard is described as “Like TTG, but less strict,” then viewers might regard the resulting photos as “Like TTG, but less trustworthy.”

TTG reflects a worldwide consensus and is based on the standards of the world’s largest providers of trusted photographs.
2. Will the standard identify “undoctored” photos?

• If so, the first priority is to fully define the word “undoctored”: which specific manipulations can and cannot be done to the photographs?

TTG’s definition of “undoctored” is here; it is further discussed in FAQ #5 and FAQ #12.

• If not, see question #1 above, because when viewers encounter a remarkable image that looks like an undoctored photograph, their first concern is often whether it actually is an undoctored photo.

Most viewers will not trust photographs made using a definition of “undoctored” that is less strict than their own definition. That’s why it is desirable to make the standard the strictest common denominator.
3. Will the standard incorporate all 9 characteristics?

• If the standard leaves out even one or two of the 9 characteristics of the most-widely trusted photographs, critics of the standard will point out the omission — and then a proportion of viewers won’t trust the resulting photographs.

• But if the standard incorporates all 9 characteristics but the standard is less strict than TTG, then some redefinitions of TTG’s 9 characteristics will be needed.
4. Will a different time limit replace P5’s “one second” rule?

P5

For photographers who are accustomed to combining exposures that begin and end over the course of several seconds, P5’s “one second” rule will be the most frustrating aspect of making TTG-qualified photographs.

But there is no “natural” longer interval to use instead of “one second.” (TTG experimented with lengthier limits during its development and found them problematic from a trustworthiness angle.)

Any alternative standard will have to make strong case that a longer limit is either intuitive (e.g., one minute, one hour, one day, one week) or non-arbitrary (if choosing fractions of a minute or an hour or a day).
5. The biggest challenge: Avoiding arbitrary limits

When there is no respected reference standard to turn to for making “judgment calls” (TTG relies on rinairs through P7)...

. . . then the only choices are setting arbitrary limits or setting no limits at all — neither of which options is likely to foster viewer trust.

More on the problem of arbitrariness
6. To decide early on: Who will be accountable for any claims about meeting the standard?

From washing machines to insurance policies to photographs, any claims about trustworthiness are toothless if no one is staking their reputation on the validity of those claims.

The validity of the TTG label always depends on an identifiable person personally making the guarantee about their own photograph.

But any “label” that anyone can apply to any photo that anyone made would not have any real-world value.
7. The standard cannot be “device-specific”...

. . . if it is to be a universal standard.

Effects like adding non-optical “bokeh” blur , for example, or performing non-optical perspective correction (reshaping things in the photo to change the apparent perspective) have to be considered from the viewpoint of both those who manipulate photos on their phone and those who manipulate photos on their computer.

(Phones typically limit how extreme the built-in manipulations can be before the slider gets to the end of the bar, but those limits disappear when using a program like Photoshop on a computer.)
8. The standard must accommodate smartphones

“Important” photos — including news photos — are increasingly made with smartphones and not with old-fashioned, single-purpose standalone “cameras” that are completely unable to make phone calls or play video games.

So any explanation of the standard should acknowledge that most of the billions of photographs made every day are made with smartphones.
9. Consistency is key

The standard should be so consistent as to be “intuitive.”

In other words, after an initial introduction to the standard, viewers should be able to predict whether the standard prohibits or allows various manipulations.
10. The standard should be obsolescence-proof

Will the standard be just as relevant 10 or 20 years in the future?

If the standard needs major changes every time there’s a new technology introduced, the public won’t be able to keep up with it and it could seem tentative or unreliable — not ideal in a “trust”-related standard.
11. The standard should be tested with a skeptical eye

It helps to adopt the mindset of someone who is skeptical of the standard.

“Testing” the proposed standard would involve performing on a photograph the most extreme manipulations possible that wouldn’t disqualify the photo from the standard—

— whether it is blurring undesirable areas, reshaping items in the photo, deleting unwanted objects or people, or something else—

— and then seeing whether viewers would trust the resulting photograph.