Single-exposure, undoctored photographs

Single-exposure, undoctored photos are the reference point for TTG because they are by far the most-widely trusted kind of photographs worldwide.

How viewers decide which photos to trust

Each viewer’s assessment of a photograph’s trustworthiness is based on that viewer’s “photographic literacy” — what they have learned from years of experience “reading” and interpreting countless single-exposure, undoctored photographs.

No matter how a photograph was made or what it depicts, viewers are much more inclined to trust a photograph if it looks like it is a single-exposure, undoctored photograph than if it does not look like one.

That’s why smartphone makers try to ensure that regardless of how many exposures are instantly combined to make a photograph, the result looks as much as possible like a single-exposure, undoctored photograph.

As the combining guide makes clear, the Trust Test list is written so that even when a TTG photograph is made by combining exposures, the result always looks like a single-exposure, undoctored photograph.

See #1401–1403 for more on how TTG ensures what is described above.

See also the background brief on what the public knows about how photographs “work”