Digital enhancement to be illegal in France

Will it also be illegal to run a print ad that refers to a noticeably grubby Parisian coffee shop serving slightly stale, non-flaky pastries brought to you by a slow, surly waiter as "a charming bistro?"

Because it's the same damn thing.

I'd also like to know if models wearing some variety of delightful French undergarment capable of re-arranging their torsos into mesmerizing new shapes will require a fine print disclaimer. Or the ones wearing wigs, or veneers on their teeth, or ... makeup. To say nothing of photographers using flattering light, carefully chosen lenses, and wind machines to make models look more exotic and appealing than they would when doing their laundry or cleaning up after their little French dog after a night out drinking.

Because retouching some love handles after the shoot is deceptive, but spending a month at the gym (or an hour under anesthesia) and getting rid of them the painful way isn't?

Sacre bleu contact lenses, Batman!

I suspect the primary effects of such a law will be to 1.) severely damage the status of Paris as a fashion capital, and 2.) lead to the use of illustrations rather than live models in French advertising.

It would be nice if the lawmakers would pass a law fining politicians (and their PR people) for lying or "spinning" the facts.

As much as I would like to see politicians being called out for being deceptive, I think there are a lot better places to start than photoshopped love handles.

It also brings to mind Rolling Stone's alleged enhancement of Al Gore's...*ahem* features. And I'm not talking about his stance on the environment..

Just when you though California had all the crackpots :-(

Digital enhancement to be illegal in France…under the proposed law, all enhanced photos would be accompanied by a line saying…

So will it be illegal or not? The headline doesn't match the content.

Interesting comments. But when you consider the power the French fashion mags have (Vogue etc), the issue, for and against, is getting a lot of publicity. And I gather its no idle threat. The politicians think they are on a winner, and if it gets up in the French legislature, then that means the EU has to comply. I have a friend who works in the industry in Paris and she says its going to be bigger than the size zero model issue which is also polarising the main players as well.

The implications for photographers are vast. Just what does one define as "enhancement" and how does one know? Is changing the contrast or bringing out the shadows, in or out? A practised eye can spot a retouched photo a mile away, but who will be the arbiter? Will all original images submitted to photo editors have to be in RAW, and that these RAW files must be saved in an archive for future reference? Possibly.

The issue is full disclosure/disclaimer of enhancement, not an outright ban on enhancement. Read the text of the legislation, OK?

Same concepts apply, Gary. Are cleverly placed "genuine" shadows that sculpt someone's mid-section also going to require text on the photograph?

This goes back to the old issue of does a photograph show "truth"? By now, in the 21st century, the concept that most in the photography field have come to realize is that, especially in this age of digital photography, all photos are accurate but none of them are true. If there is any truth to a photo at all, then some small part of a larger and changing truth lasted for but a fleeting moment and further that this truth was perceived by only one: to the person (read photographer) who recorded that instant. Everyone else who was present at that moment perceived some variation of that truth. It is impossible to take a photograph without altering reality. The camera is an instrument to record light in 2 dimensions only and cameras can record only a very narrow band of light - nothing like a humman eye can preceive. The dichotomy arises when we consider that we live in a four - that's right FOUR dimensional world: height, width, depth AND the temporal component; for how can something exist unless it exists at some point in time? The photographer chooses the subject, the lens, the aperature, the shutter speed, the point of vue or angle from where the subject is to where the photographer is, the time of day, whether to use digital or film, if film, what type of film, what speed, black and white or color, should he use flash, what are the flash characteristics, etc? If he uses digital flash, would that be considered digital manipulation? This line of thought persists through capture, process and print and is amplified when a digital image is brought into the computer for further manipulation. Every one of these characteristics could be subject to the interpretation of "retouching or modification".
Lets really examine the line"all enhanced photos would be accompanied by a line saying: "Photograph retouched to modify the physical appearance of a person."
Lets assume a full frame 35mm sensor. To record this person on a digital negative, that person must first be "enhanced" to such an extent as to make them as small as a postage stamp and to be only 2 dimensional. Now there's retouching and physical appearance modification for you!
So ------ the idea that some narrow minded and uninformed politician or group of politicians can come up with a law that is inconsistent with the laws of physics is, at once, laughable and tragic. Let's assume they pass such a law. How and who will make the distinctions? The devil is always in the details and when such a case comes before the courts, the logic will be so full of holes it will fall apart.