But, the question does remain what would be acceptable?

The judges should understand that without digital post processing pictures would have to be controlled pre-photographing. This, IMHO, would create an even more fake effect. So let’s accept that honest is not perfect, but perfect is not honest.

Essentially a completely new image, certainly in they eyes of the viewer, has been created in post production. Maybe the rule should revolve around whether the image is editorially true to the original shot.

I wonder though David whether you can really construct an objectively enforceable set of rules?

Tricky but interesting.

Paul – I think ‘manipulation’ has become some part of the ‘art’ (as my various posts over the last year on this topic discuss), but the issue is where the bounds of acceptable versus unacceptable manipulation of still images lie. I don’t, though, follow your reference to multimedia in this context. There are important ethical issues in that domain, but in so far as it employs still imagery at its core, the same questions of how much post-processing is acceptable apply.

On a different note, it looks like digital photography has in many ways freed the aesthetics of photojournalism as a result of of easier post-processing. Most post-processing is of course within the accepted rules, but in my personal opinion it can often look pretty brutal. One of the most common examples is adding strong vignetting, which can for instance be seen in the World Press Photo 1st Prize stories winner (http://bit.ly/awCAxt). Sometimes, when I see these heavily vignetted images, I cannot but help to think whether the vignetting is hiding something in the image. If you hide something by adding vignetting, it is not necessarily all that different from removing something from the frame by other Photoshop methods. (N.B. please do not read this as me accusing Gihan Tubbeh of anything. Just using his photos as an example).