Photo manipulation: Too much wizardry

The Sentinel's Magic Preview section a week ago Friday was fun for roundball fans, but the wizardry of the NBA Preview section behind it left editors wondering.

On the first of those twin sections, Orlando Magic players Grant Hill and Tracy McGrady, dressed as magicians, searched a crystal ball for the professional basketball season's outcome.

On the second, Michael Jordan, who has come out of retirement, stared at readers from beneath a pointed wizard's hat.

In his championship seasons with the Chicago Bulls, Jordan never dressed up as the mascot. Had becoming a Washington Wizard changed that?

Could the photo be real?

Well, no. And it all was explained on Page 2 of the Magic section. The editors and page designers in the Sports division, displaying characteristic skill at illustration, had photographed Hill and McGrady separately, with the players' cooperation, then digitally fused the pictures.

The explanation went on to note that, appearances to the contrary, Jordan hadn't posed in wizard wear for the National Basketball Association section. The editors and designers had captured Jordan's image from the NBA Entertainment Web site without his knowledge and performed a computer-aided head transplant.

That appears to have violated a condition for use of the Jordan photo, which requires that "photographs must be reproduced exactly as furnished without alteration or cropping." Anyone who went straight to the Sentinel's NBA section -- and missed the preceding section's disclaimer -- might have assumed that the photo-illustration represented reality.

But in the newsroom, it also raised the question of how such skillful manipulation of photography might affect public perception of other information in the newspaper.

Did the sleight of hand performed with the Jordan image devalue the work that went into the Magic cover shot? And if you can't believe what you see, can you believe what you read?

In my view, the Jordan shot did detract from the intricate and eye-arresting Magic cover.

Even Van McKenzie, the associate managing editor for sports, acknowledged, "I think we went a little too far."

An explanation of the Washington wizardry in the section in which it occurred would have helped. And both photo-illustrations would have benefitted from disclaimers on the pages on which they appeared.

But I don't think that the Jordan photo implied anything about the believability of news articles. One indication is that not a single reader complained.

Kenny Irby, the visual journalism group leader at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think-tank in St. Petersburg, noted the difference between news photography and an image that is "purely illustrative."

Speaking from South Africa, where he was teaching a class, Irby noted that new technology has created ethical dilemmas. Nearly all newspapers now can perform photographic magic.

That's not always bad. Irby suggested that no one was likely to mistake, for instance, the clearly staged and fanciful basketball illustrations for reality.

That sort of digital distortion would be a problem, though, if applied to news photos. The newspaper's photo ethics state: "The content of a news photograph will never be altered in any way that turns the photo into something the photographer did not shoot or that deceives the reader."

Digitally manipulated photos may entertain readers, but journalists must handle such wizardry carefully -- lest they make their credibility disappear.

Reach Manning Pynn at 407-650-6410 or at public@orlandosentinel.com.