Tuesday 24 March 2015

Blog fourteen - legal & ethical

When I has decided what I was going to base all of my ideas on I also thought about the legal and ethical side of using other peoples images and manipulating them to look how you would like them to look.

There are many different opinions on this, some are good and some bad. An area in which images are very highly manipulated and changed to "improve" the look of people and enhance features is in areas such as newspapers and magazines, including television adverts. 
Images of people in everyday settings doing everyday things are manipulated to make them look more "appealing". 

Take for example the 'Norwegian hand cream' advert the hands in the advert have no signs of lines, wrinkles or any other markings on them. I believe this hard to believe as nobody has hands as clear and unmarked as that. Companies that are trying to sell a product will go to any lengths to make their products look as good as they can. By using program's like photoshop companies are lying and deceiving honest paying customers by making them believe that they can have hands like the ones shown in the adverts. 

Ethics are whether something is good or bad. Ethics decide if what you are doing will benefit people in anyway. When you manipulate an image there are always going to be legal and ethical repercussions. 

It is important that you ensure you have agreement from the person who's image it is originally as if you don't you could possible get in a lot of trouble. When you are looking at changing another persons image depending on the purpose you might have to make sure that you have copy right permission, however if you are going to use the image for messing around or a purpose where it will not be going online or for anybody else to see then this is okay, however if you are going to publish it then you must make sure you have all the correct permissions. This can be a lengthy job however at the end of it will be worth it.

If you have taken/created an image you can legally copyright it, to make it yours and solely yours meaning if anybody else wishes to use it they have to contact you. Take for example when you hire a photographer to take images of a wedding, christening etc. they will have the proofs which have there logo/writing all over this is to ensure copy right. If you wish to have the images with-out this on them then you have to contact the person who took them. By ensuring that you follow correct procedures means that you will not have any legal issues to deal with.

Fortunately I do not have to worry about any legal implications as I will not be publishing any of my work.   

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