FAQ 8 • TTG’s Allowable Changes list
“A worldwide consensus”
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800. How was TTG’s “Allowable Changes” list developed?
A worldwide consensus about what kinds of changes do not constitute “doctoring” a photo is what shaped TTG’s Allowable Changes list.
Manufacturers of smartphones and cameras around the world agree on which actions and manipulations should — and should not — be performed automatically in their devices.
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“Light”-related changes
Jump down to non-“Light”-related changes
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801. Why does TTG distinguish between changes to “light”-related aspects of photos vs. changes to non-“light”-related aspects?
Because the two aspects behave very differently, in ways that affect viewer trust.
For more, see the viewpoint page on light.
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802. Why doesn’t TTG limit how much post-exposure “light”-related aspects can be changed in order to meet the Trust Test?
Because what matters for meeting P7 of the Trust Test is avoiding misrepresentation of the scene’s appearance, and some photographs need extensive “light”-related corrections in order to meet that requirement.
(TTG is about “what the camera lens saw,” and when it comes to tones and colors, “what the camera recorded” can be pretty far from “what the camera lens saw.”)
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803. Do TTG photographers have to be more careful than other photographers are about finding TTG-acceptable exposure settings?
Only if they manually set the exposure.
The automatic settings of most cameras and devices will instantly deliver a TTG-qualified photograph in most situations most of the time.
(That is assuming that no special effects are turned on like added “fokeh” blur; see FAQ #21.)
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804. It is not always possible to depict well both the lightest and darkest parts of a scene, especially in a single-exposure photograph. Does TTG allow for the limited dynamic range of photographs compared to the human eye?
Yes, TTG allows for the limits of photographs’ dynamic range, including in single-exposure photographs. Combining exposures to increase dynamic range is never necessary to meet the Trust Test.
Respected international news agencies acknowledge that the range of brightness (from light to dark) that photographs can portray is often less than what humans can see.
Thus those news organizations’ standards — and TTG — allow for photographs’ frequent inability to depict detail in the brightest and darkest areas of the photograph.
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805. So “blown highlights” and “inky shadow areas” don’t disqualify a photograph from TTG?
They do not automatically disqualify photographs from TTG, but they can when their lightness or darkness has been selectively exaggerated compared to contrast levels in other areas of the photograph.
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806. What about tonal rendering when converting to grayscale?
When converting a color photograph to grayscale, darker colors obviously have to be rendered with darker gray tones and lighter colors with lighter gray tones.
To reverse the tonality of any depiction in a photograph is to disqualify the result from P7.
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807. Why aren’t black-and-white (monochrome) photographs disqualified by the Trust Test for misrepresenting the appearance of the scene depicted?
Because “misrepresentation” is judged by the standards of respected international news agencies (as per P7), and black-and-white photographs have been a trusted staple of news photography for more than 100 years.
Many of the most-widely trusted photographs in history have been monochrome/ black-and-white. The public would not accept a trust-driven label like TTG if the label disqualified all of those trusted photos.
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808. But why are “fully desaturated” (monochrome/black-and-white) photos allowed by TTG and yet “partially desaturated” and “oversaturated” photos are disqualified?
Because viewers of black-and-white (monochrome) photographs are instantly aware that the photo they are viewing has had its colors changed.
That is often not the case with partially desaturated and oversaturated photos.
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809. Besides monochrome/black-and-white, are there any other TTG-allowed effects that keep photos from perfectly representing the appearance of the scene?
Yes, photography is filled with things that keep images from perfectly portraying the real-world scenes they depict.
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810. Can a dreadfully color-balanced photo be made TTG-eligible by converting it to monochrome/black-and-white?
Yes, it can.
When the photographer thinks the colors are so far off that they cannot be corrected enough to meet P7, converting the photograph to monochrome is usually an option.
Note that tonal values cannot be reversed when converting color photos to monochrome / black-and-white (see FAQ #806).
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821. Are there any common format changes that disqualify an image from TTG?
No, assuming the result meets P7, any of the usual photographic formats can be used in TTG photographs.
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825. Why is downsizing allowed but not upsizing?
Downsizing is allowed because it is routine in the news industry, on whose standards TTG is based. (Very few news photographs are published without downsizing them from the resolution captured in camera.)
Upsizing, on the other hand, is not allowed because it is increasingly performed using AI-GC, which disqualifies any image from TTG.
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831. What is meant by the term “Surface flaws that were not part of the scene that was photographed”?
See the Key
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832. With regard to “surface flaws,” is there any scenario in which various blemishes, freckles, scratches, wrinkles, graffiti, dirt etc. that are part of the scene could be removed without disqualifying the photograph from TTG?
No, that is impossible. More
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833. And yet if freckles or pimples are covered by makeup — or specks of dirt are removed from an object, or wrinkles on a bedspread are smoothed out — before the photograph is recorded, the result is eligible to qualify as TTG?
Yes, that is correct: the photograph would then show what the camera lens saw (as opposed to what anyone wishes the camera lens had seen).
For more on this, see the page on “seen vs. simulated”
Note, however, that if any “changes to the subject before the photo is recorded” are something that viewers would feel deceived not knowing about—
—then a TTG photographer must use the “TTG-IC” version of the label in order to meet P8.
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834. What’s to prevent a photographer from using the excuse of “correcting a surface flaw” to doctor the area where the supposed flaw was, and then labeling the doctored photo as TTG?
Nothing at all. But the “surface flaw” excuse isn’t really necessary if one wants to deceive viewers.
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841. Why does TTG allow lens/camera anomalies to be “left as is, partially corrected, or fully corrected” instead of requiring just one of those three?
Because there is no consensus on which of the three would be most trustworthy.
Those three options reflect the range of choices made by photographers and trusted image providers since the dawn of photography.
None of the three are inherently problematic (unless the choice produces a result that disqualifies it from the rinairs requirement of P7).
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842. What is meant by “corner/edge darkening”?
This term refers to rendering the corners or edges of a photograph proportionally darker than the central area compared to how those areas appeared in the scene photographed.
(Photographers often call various instances of that darkening “light falloff” or “vignetting,” but those terms aren’t familiar to much of the general public.)
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843. If the edges and corners of the scene that was photographed are not darker than the middle of the scene, shouldn’t any corner/edge darkening disqualify a photo from P7 because it “misrepresents the appearance of the scene”?
Lens-induced corner/edge darkening is allowed in TTG photographs because that darkening is an unavoidable result of how lenses transmit light.
The darkening is regarded as a limitation of the medium, just as most of the other things in the list of lens/camera anomalies are regarded.
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844. But then why not allow post-exposure darkening of edges and corners?
Because unlike with routine mild corner- or edge darkening caused by the lens (see #843 above), adding post-exposure corner/edge darkening is completely avoidable. It is regarded as misrepresentative of the scene in a manner that rinairs would disqualify (see P7).
See also the page on “seen vs. simulated”
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845. What if the post-exposure darkening of edges and corners is done in the darkroom instead of on a computer?
The result is still disqualified from P7.
TTG makes no distinction between disqualifying manipulations that are performed on a smartphone vs. on a computer vs. in a darkroom vs. any other way.
A photograph either meets the Trust Test or it does not.
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851. “Undoing” the most recent action is obvious, but what is meant by the allowance for “Reverting”?
It simply means that a TTG photographer can try to “go back” to an undoctored version of a photograph they took.
TTG photographers can do this if they decide that something that they had done to the photo after it was recorded would disqualify the photo from the Trust Test.
Smartphones make it easy to Revert to an undoctored version of the originally recorded photograph when the photograph was recorded on that particular smartphone.
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852. Why does this website mention so often undoing artificial “bokeh” blur on smartphones?
Because the instant addition of “fokeh” (faux-bokeh) blur is probably the most common way that smartphone photographs are disqualified from TTG.
More on fokeh
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853. Can a smartphone pano photograph be “Undone” or “Reverted” to extract a TTG-qualified photograph?
(A panoramic photograph is made on a smartphone by sweeping the device around while it makes and combines numerous exposures of the different views. See also #1310.)
No, it cannot.
The overall panoramic image is expressly disqualified by P3, and there is no way to have one section of the panorama qualify as TTG because it isn’t possible to separate individual exposures from the overall (combined-exposure) image.
See also #854 below.
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854. Can photographers “undoctor” a photograph that they had doctored on a computer?
That is covered in FAQ #916.
See also the FAQ on convincing the viewer
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871. Why do respected news agencies allow cropping?
Because there’s nothing inherently “deceptive” about cropping, especially when it is not done to an extreme.
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872. Why do rinairs and TTG allow “cropping” but don’t allow “deleting” things?
Because trusted photographs show viewers “nothing that the camera lens did not see”—
—and “cropping” meets that criterion but “deleting” does not.
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873. And TTG treats “deleting” things from photographs the same way it treats “adding” things?
Yes: both are barred by P2 (except for effects of TTG’s Allowable Changes, which include “cropping”).
There is no difference between “adding” and “deleting”
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874. Can a cropped portion of a sweep panorama — like the “Pano” on a smartphone — qualify for the TTG label?
No, because there’s no way of knowing whether the camera was moved between the exposures that make up that section, so it wouldn’t make it past P3.
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875. What about photographers who never crop their photos?
That is a valid artistic choice, but it doesn’t affect the trustworthiness of a photograph any more than does opting for a longer focal-length lens (which provides the same result as cropping).
The “never crop” principle is not a required component of the most-widely trusted photographs in the free world.
Every single-exposure, undoctored photograph necessarily leaves some things out of the picture based on how the photographer positions the camera and frames the scene before the shutter is even clicked.
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881. Why does TTG allow for combining exposures when respected international news agencies have not traditionally allowed it?
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882. And smartphones combine exposures without TTG issues?
Actually, despite the Trust Test being partly based on smartphone defaults (see #800), smartphones do not always combine exposures in ways that meet the Trust Test.
A. When a smartphone combines multiple exposures of a fast-moving subject in low light, the result can include visual artifacts that cannot be removed in TTG-compatible ways.
(With a standalone camera, there are often ways of making TTG-compatible photographs of such scenes using a single exposure.)
B. When the photographer deliberately sets the smartphone to combine exposures that begin more than one second apart, as some astrophotography modes do, the result cannot meet P5 and the photo cannot qualify as TTG.
(A TTG-compatible photo of the same scene is possible by mounting the smartphone or a standalone camera on a star tracker.)
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883. If news organizations increasingly publish ordinary citizens’ smartphone photographs for “spot-news” reportage, how will those news organizations treat smartphone photos that have the artifacts described in “A” of #882?
This is not likely to be a common problem, but when it does happen the treatment will be up to each news organization.
In a situation when the only spot-news photo of a particular incident had been taken on a smartphone, a news organization might publish the photograph even if it had various smartphone-generated artifacts, explaining the artifacts if warranted.
“Not qualifying as TTG” does not mean that an image is unworthy of publication in every “news” setting, especially if a news organization deems the photograph to be significant and the disqualifying factor(s) to be insignificant or easily explained to prevent deception.
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884. So there could be instances where a news organization would publish non-TTG-qualified photographs?
Yes, that is possible in some situations, for example in the scenario described in #883 above (TTG does not speak on behalf of any other entity, including news organizations).
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885. Why does TTG require that when the photographer has control over the combining of exposures, all of the exposures have to be started within the same single second? Why not some other length of time?
That is answered in FAQ #1506.
Corner/edge darkening is discussed in #842-845 (below)
Non-“light”-related changes
Category 1: Changing the format
Category 2: Resizing the entire image
Category 3: “Surface” flaws
Category 4: Lens/camera anomalies
Category 5: Reverting and Undoing
Category 6: Cropping
(There are no questions about Categories 7 and 8)
Category 9: Combining exposures
The gaps in numbering are for adding questions in the future.
The numbering of the FAQ questions will not change — any new questions are added at the bottom and given new numbers — so users can safely make a link to any specific question.