Pictures that LIE!

I choose a picture of a zebra bending over eating grass as my original picture. I choose to manipulate the picture because I wanted to illustrate how unique the animal truely is. The orignal picture was taken from an individual photographer who takes pictures of these distinctive animals. Originally the zebra was eating some grass, so i decided to feather alot of the background out to make the zebra the "center of attention". I added humanly objects such as sunglasses and a spinning hat to validate my point. When adding these objects i had to use the magnetic lasso tool in addition to the quick selection tool. After move the objects over to the zebra i had to mess around with the opacity to make it blend in. In addition i had to adjust the colors, for the glasses i had to make them darker because the original picture had a slight glare on it. I also changed the hue and saturation for both items. Lastly, I added a text layer with a "unique" type of test to demonstrate my point better.

Zebras are known for their distinctive black and white stripes; each individual stripes come in different patterns unique to that individual. The unique stripes and behaviors of zebras make these among the animals most familiar to people. However, various anthropogenic factors have had a severe impact on these zebra populations, specifically hunting for skins and habitat destructions. These animals should not be pinpointed because of their uniqueness just for pleasure. I believe that this picture does not put a harmful vibe to the public because it isnt much of a controversial issue, it's more of my opinion. The reason I added those objects was to illuminate their uniqueness. The picture relates to the article i choose in several ways. The article states that the" retouching of photographs to produce images may be sophisticated or crude". In my case, I retouched this picture to paint a more clearer view of what I think about this distinct animal. The article states how easy it is to manipulate a picture from"the click of a button". The article also discusses the growing fact that pictures are constently being altered and this is taking away from the genuiness of the picture.I agree with the article. I feel that photographs should not be able to be doctored and publsihed in such an accesible way, the computer. There should be laws that inform the viewer that this photograph has be doctored--and state the reason why.

MALCOLM W., BROWNE. "Computer as Accessory to Photo Fakery." New York Times 24 July 1991: 6. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 11 Apr. 2010.