Hasn't this crossed over into being a philosophical question? You want to attest to reality or provenance. But then you start making lists of "acceptable" changes: file format; compression; color-correction; size; taking "medium" into account... It then slowly slides into "average human perceptibility"; "irrelevant details"; keeping the "spirit" of the image intact; judging the intention or motive of the user or of the viewer; aligning the image with "values"; appropriate/legal use... etc. Not sure what the end-game is?
We are trying to make images in the AI era be as reliable as they were pre-AI? But they were not reliable pre-AI, it was just more difficult to intentionally doctor them.
I think for photojournalism it should be original raw image, as captured in camera — zero edits for colour correction/cropping/filesize etc — platforms can link a digital sig from a postprocessed version but you keep the provenance proof tied to a published original.
jamienk · · focus · HN ↗
We are trying to make images in the AI era be as reliable as they were pre-AI? But they were not reliable pre-AI, it was just more difficult to intentionally doctor them.
another-dave · · focus · HN ↗
Gigachad · · focus · HN ↗
Provide the raw original, and the exact processing steps used to get the presentable one.