TTG Plus > FAQs > More on FAQ #1502


On the reversal over the past two decades in the acceptance of “combined exposure” photographs

  • 1. Why does TTG allow for combining exposures when news organizations traditionally did not allow it?

    Because millions of non-deceptive photos are now made every hour with smartphones that automatically combine multiple exposures. (The goal is improved picture quality without any reduction in how realistic the photograph appears to viewers.)

    Almost everyone who deals with a wide range of photographs — including TTG and news organizations — has to accommodate that new reality.

    (These are not your grandfather’s “double exposures”; see #1408)

    NOTE that this discussion refers only to photographs made without repositioning the lens or camera between exposures (that is disqualified by P3) and without depicting more than one arrangement of the scene (that is disqualified by P4).

  • 2. In the 1800s and 1900s, it was fairly uncommon to deliberately combine two or more exposures in one photograph.

    • Many of the combined exposures in the film era were accidental.

    • Photographers who deliberately combined exposures usually aimed to create a result that looked different from a normal, single-exposure photograph.

    • Combined exposures in the film era were usually immediately apparent (they were usually called “double exposures”).

    • In news reportage, “combining exposures” was largely of unheard in the film era.

  • 3. But in the 21st century it is very common to combine two or more exposures in one photograph.

    • It happens many millions of times a day on smartphones, usually without the photographer even being aware of it.

    • In other words, the majority of photographs made today are recorded with devices that by default combine exposures.

    • Because of these changes, in the digital era — in contrast with the 19th and 20th centuries — “combining exposures” is no longer synonymous with “depicting multiple arrangements of the scene.”

    • Nowadays almost all exposures that are combined on millions of smartphones look just like a normal, single-exposure photograph.

  • 4. The public is still largely skeptical of combined-exposure photographs...

    . . . which may explain why smartphone manufacturers don’t make big deal out of how extensively their devices combine exposures to make photographs.

    • There is little general awareness of exposure-combining technologies like HDR, pixel-shifting, and other computational actions.

    • Since those actions are routinely performed without making the photo look any less realistic, the popular perception lingers that “combining exposures” is typically done to make the scene appear differently in the photo than it would have appeared to someone at the scene.

  • 5. But in years to come, as increasing numbers of citizens’ smartphone photos will be used for spot-news reportage...

    . . . and now that most combined-exposure images on smartphones often look the same as the scene would have appeared to someone at the scene—

    — news organizations will for the first time have to identify which “combined-exposure” photos are trustworthy.

    Setting out clear parameters for making such photographs is part of TTG’s role (see link at the bottom of #6 below).

  • 6. One thing hasn’t changed:

    Combining photographs has always provided numerous additional ways to make images less trustworthy.

    That’s why in exchange for allowing combined images, the Trust Test imposes strict limits on how exposures may be combined in a TTG photograph.

    Those limits are all gathered into one list here