This week in class we discussed the importance of visual literacy, an abstract term used to describe our ability to take visual cues in place of reading actual words. For instance, if you were to travel to a foreign country outside the realm of Romance languages in which you could sound out the men's room, you could default to finding the stick figure not wearing a triangular dress. The male and female figures that indicate restrooms act as substitutes for words and have become completely mainstream in the worldwide thought process. In order to sharpen our skills to be visually literate, we had to complete an exercise in Photoshop.
One of the most important tools in the journalism industry right now is Photoshop. While the ethics of using it has come under much scrutiny, its usefulness for optimizing photos for the Web and for design has played a huge part in the media industry's success in the 21st century. In every journalism class I've taken thus far in the University of Florida's J-School, there has been at least a few mentions of Photoshop, if not a project or hands-on application of it.
However, like I said, the ethics of using Photoshop in a journalistic environment is a major conflict within the community. Where is the line drawn between enhancing reality and warping it? Lightening an image to increase the quality or to give the illusion that the photographer did a better job than he or she did? What about editing out undesirable background clutter? It's all up for debate. In this video for the Dove Real Beauty campaign, it is shown how Photoshop is often used in advertisements and magazines to edit celebrities and models.
Sara Solano realizes she could've been giving herself green eyes all this time. Stupid color contacts.
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