(The number to the right of each item is the question number below)
Change #1. Format — #801 (below)
Change #2. Downsizing — #805 (below)
Change #3. Surface flaws — #811 (below)
Change #4. Lens/camera — #821 (below)
Change #5. Reverting — #831 (below)
Change #6. Cropping — #851 (below)
Change #7. Rotating (none)
Change #8. Sharpening (none)
Change #9. Combining — #861 (below)
Change #10. “Light”-related — #881 (below)
The gaps in numbering are to allow room for adding questions in the future without renumbering existing questions.
Category 1: Changing the format
-
801. Are there any format changes that disqualify an image from TTG?
No, assuming the result meets P7, any of the usual photographic formats can be used in TTG photographs.
-
805. Why is downsizing allowed but not upsizing?
Downsizing is allowed because it is routine in the news industry,* on whose standards TTG is based.
Upsizing, on the other hand, is not allowed because it is increasingly performed using AIFI, which disqualifies any image from P1.
More
-
811. What is meant by the term “Surface flaws that were not part of the scene that was photographed”?
-
812. With regard to “surface flaws,” is there any scenario in which various blemishes, freckles, scratches, wrinkles, graffiti, dirt etc. that are part of the scene could be removed without disqualifying the photograph from TTG?
No, that is impossible. More
-
813. And yet if freckles or pimples are covered by makeup — or specks of dirt are removed from an object, or wrinkles on a bedspread are smoothed out — before the photograph is recorded, the result is eligible to qualify as TTG?
Yes, that is correct: the photograph would then show what the camera lens saw (as opposed to what anyone wishes the camera lens had seen).
For more on this, see the brief on “seen vs. simulated”
Note, however, that if any “changes to the subject before the photo is recorded” are something that viewers would feel deceived not knowing about—
—then a photographer using the TTG label must add an “IC” alert in order to meet P8.
-
814. What’s to prevent a photographer from using the excuse of “correcting a surface flaw” to doctor the area where the supposed flaw was, and then labeling the doctored photo as TTG?
Nothing at all. But the “surface flaw” excuse isn’t really necessary if one wants to deceive viewers.
More
-
821. Where does TTG describe the allowable changes to lens/camera anomalies like banding, chromatic aberration, and barrel/pincushion distortion correction?
Those are discussed in Category #4 of the Allowable Changes.
-
822. What is meant by “corner/edge darkening”?
This term refers to rendering the corners or edges of a photograph proportionally darker than the central area compared to how those areas appeared in the scene photographed.
(Photographers often call that darkening “light falloff” or “vignetting,” but those terms aren’t familiar to much of the general public.)
-
823. If the edges and corners of the actual real-world scene that was photographed are not darker than the middle of the scene, doesn’t allowing corner/edge darkening in a photograph “misrepresent the appearance of the scene” and thus disqualify the photograph from P7?
Lens-induced corner/edge darkening is allowed in TTG photographs because that darkening is an unavoidable result of how lenses transmit light.
The darkening is regarded as a limitation of the medium, just as most of the other things in the list of lens/camera anomalies are regarded (see Allowable Change #4).
-
824. But then why doesn’t TTG allow post-exposure darkening of edges and corners?
Because unlike with routine slight corner- or edge darkening caused by the lens (see #823 above), adding post-exposure corner/edge darkening is completely avoidable and misrepresents the appearance of the scene (see P7) in a manner that rinairs would disqualify.
See also the brief on “seen vs. simulated”
-
825. What if the post-exposure darkening of edges and corners is done in the darkroom instead of on a computer?
The result is still disqualified from P7.
TTG makes no distinction between disqualifying manipulations that are performed on a smartphone vs. on a computer vs. in a darkroom vs. any other way.
A photograph either meets the Trust Test or it does not.
-
831. What is meant by the allowance for “Reverting”?
It simply means that a TTG photographer can try to “go back” to an undoctored version of a photograph they took.
Photographers do this after they realize that something that had been done to the photo after it was recorded would disqualify the photo from the Trust Test.
Smartphones make it easy to Revert to an undoctored version of the originally recorded photograph, at least when the photograph was recorded and saved on that particular smartphone.
-
832. Why does this website mention so often undoing “bokeh” blur on smartphones?
Because the instant addition of “bokeh” blur is probably the most common way that smartphone photographs are disqualified from TTG.
#2 in this guide explains how to make the image eligible for TTG
-
833. Can a smartphone pano photograph be “Undone” or “Reverted” to extract a TTG-qualified photograph?
(A panoramic photograph is made on a smartphone by sweeping the device around while it makes and combines numerous exposures of the different views.)
No, it cannot.
The overall panoramic image is expressly disqualified by P3, and there is no way to have just a section of the panorama qualify as TTG because it isn’t possible to separate individual exposures from the overall (combined-exposure) image.
See also #854 below.
____________________
This website uses the term “panoramic” to refer to the kind of photos described in the italicized paragraph above.
But old-fashioned “panoramic” photographs made using a single exposure of a wide-angle view — made without moving the camera at all and typically presented, often cropped, in a long length-to-height ratio — are of course eligible to qualify for the TTG label.
-
834. Can photographers “undoctor” a photograph that they had doctored on a computer?
It depends on how and when the photo was saved (and closed), how many steps backward can be undone on a still-open photo, and whether there is a way to undo actions after the photo has been saved and closed.
The safest thing for any TTG photographer to do is to save a completely untouched copy of the original photo. (That is good practice for any photographer who might later be asked to prove how much they did and did not change a photograph.)
See also the FAQ on proof and see the page on convincing the viewer
-
851. Why do respected news agencies allow cropping?
Because there’s nothing inherently “deceptive” about cropping, especially when it is not done to an extreme.
-
852. Why do rinairs and TTG allow “cropping” but don’t allow “deleting” things?
Because trusted photographs show viewers “nothing that the camera lens did not see”—
—and “cropping” meets that criterion but “deleting” does not.
More
-
853. And TTG treats “deleting” things from photographs the same way it treats “adding” things?
Yes: both are barred by P2 (except for effects of TTG’s Allowable Changes, which include “cropping”).
There is no difference between “adding” and “deleting”
-
854. Can a cropped portion of a sweep panorama — like the “Pano” on a smartphone — qualify for the TTG label?
No, because there’s no way of knowing whether the camera was moved between the exposures that make up that section, so it wouldn’t make it past P3.
-
855. If cropping to any non-rectangular shape disqualifies a photo from rinairs (and thus from TTG), what about photographs that were recorded as round because the recording area was larger than the image circle?
-
856. What about photographers who never crop their photos?
That is a valid artistic choice, but it doesn’t affect the trustworthiness of a photograph any more than does opting for a longer focal-length lens (which provides the same result as cropping).
More
-
861. Why does TTG allow for combining exposures when respected international news agencies have not traditionally allowed it?
-
862. How does a TTG photographer remove artifacts that smartphones create when they combine exposures of some subjects, especially moving objects in night photos?
There usually aren’t any TTG-Allowed ways to remove those artifacts apart from cropping them out.
(Most of those artifacts will be some form of SMP effects, which disqualify the image from P4.)
__________
Sometimes the photographer will just have to admit that a photo is ineligible to qualify as TTG.
Obviously not all cameras and devices can make TTG-qualified photos in every challenging photographic situation, and most photographers will be fine with that.
(Tradeoffs of “ease of use” vs. “capability” have been a routine consideration in photographic devices since the 1800s.)
TTG was never intended for every photograph, and no one will ever object to a photographer being honest about when a photograph does not qualify for the TTG label.
-
863. If news organizations increasingly publish ordinary citizens’ smartphone photographs for “spot-news” reportage, how will those news organizations treat smartphone photos that have the artifacts described in #862?
This is not likely to be a common problem — smartphone cameras get better every year — but when it does happen, the treatment will be up to each news organization. (TTG does not speak on behalf of any other entity, including news organizations.)
In a situation when the only spot-news photo of a particular incident had been taken on a smartphone, a news organization might publish the photograph even if it had various smartphone-generated artifacts, explaining the artifacts if warranted.
“Not qualifying as TTG” does not mean that an image is unworthy of publication in every “news” setting, especially if a news organization deems the photograph to be significant and the disqualifying factor(s) to be insignificant or easily explained to prevent deception.
-
864. So there could be instances where a news organization would publish non-TTG-qualified photographs?
Yes, that is possible in some situations, for example in the probably-rare scenario described in #863 above (TTG does not speak on behalf of any other entity, including news organizations).
More
-
865. Why does TTG require that all combined exposures be started within the same single second? Why not some other length of time?
Because anything longer than 1 second (11 seconds? 23 seconds?) would be arbitrary until reaching the next shortest “universally familiar time unit” — the minute — which was judged to be too long to ensure trustworthiness.
Almost all of the most-widely trusted photographs in the world (descriptions here; examples here) are recorded in a very small fraction of a second, typically 1/60th of a second or less.
-
881. Why does TTG distinguish between changes to “light”-related aspects of photos vs. changes to non-“light”-related aspects?
Because the two aspects behave very differently, in ways that affect viewer trust.
For more, see the background brief on light.
-
882. Why doesn’t TTG limit how extensively post-exposure “light”-related aspects can changed be in a TTG photograph?
Because TTG is about “what the camera lens saw.” When it comes to tones and colors, “what the camera recorded” can be pretty far from “what the camera lens saw.”
In other words, some photographs need extensive “light”-related corrections in order to meet P7.
The most extreme corrections are the complete inversion of all tones and colors, an action that is necessary when a photograph is recorded on “negative” photographic film, as billions of photographs have been.
When discussing allowable “light”-related changes in TTG photographs, what matters is not the nature or degree of the change but whether the result meets P7.
See also #10 of TTG’s Allowable Changes and see the FAQ on light.
-
883. Do TTG photographers have to be more careful than other photographers are about finding perfect exposure settings?
No.
The automatic settings of most cameras and devices will instantly deliver a TTG-qualified photograph in most situations most of the time.
(That is assuming that no special effects are turned on like added “bokeh” blur; see FAQ #1210-1214.)
-
884. It is not always possible to depict well both the lightest and darkest parts of a scene, especially in a single-exposure photograph. Does TTG allow for the limited dynamic range of photographs compared to the human eye?
Yes, TTG allows for the limits of photographs’ dynamic range.
More
-
885. So “blown highlights” and “inky shadow areas” don’t disqualify a photograph from TTG?
They do not automatically disqualify photographs from TTG, but they can when their lightness or darkness has been selectively exaggerated compared to contrast levels in other areas of the photograph.
More
-
886. What about tonal rendering when converting colors to grayscale?
When converting a color photograph to grayscale, darker colors obviously have to be rendered with darker gray tones and lighter colors with lighter gray tones.
To reverse the tonality of a photograph is to disqualify the result from P7.
More
Category 2: Resizing the entire image
Category 3: “Surface” flaws
Category 4: Lens/camera
Category 5: Reverting
Category 6: Cropping
(There are no questions about Categories 7-8)
Category 9: Combining exposures
Category 10: “Light”-related changes
The numbering of the FAQ questions will not change — any new questions are given new numbers — so users can safely make a link to any specific question.