My picture that lies..

Initially, this was just a photograph of an empty attic which I found on Google images and chose to manipulate because it's so simple that there are endless possibilities for altering the scene. I decided to go in the direction of a haunted attic and added an image of a man which I altered to appear as a ghost. I used the magnetic lasso tool to remove the man from the picture's original white background. Then I dramatically reduced the opacity and saturation to create the transparent look of a ghost. This photograph merely gives off the impression that ghosts exist which is not particularly harmful, unless an individual is overly superstitious of paranormal activity like ghosts.

"Editors breach ethics as well." News Photographer 62.5 (2007):54-55. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 10 November 2010.

The above article discusses the ethics surrounding picture manipulation, but specifically for images that actually affect the public's perception on incidents. While I would say altering an image of a natural disaster causing more/less damage than it really did is unethical, my manipulation isn't on such a large scale. It does not harmfully mess with how people view the world. Therefore the alteration of the above image is not unethical, but I do agree that some editors do cross the line.