Reuters Canon & Adobe to Develop Photo Authentication

Reuters CEO Tom Glocer

News agency Reuters, camera maker Canon and Adobe of Photoshop fame are collaborating on developing a system to authenticate digital images. That means they will try to answer the question: Is your photograph fake? In this age of digitally doctored photos, seeing is just not enough anymore to believing. A pity, really, since more and more cameras are getting into the hands of everybody, and anybody anywhere can snap that newsworthy photo when the situation arises.

Reuters is looking for this authentic photo from the citizen journalist. It recently partnered with Yahoo, parent company of Flickr, to encourage “amateur photographers” to submit photos to the news agency, essentially turning user content into news content.

But Reuters CEO Tom Glocer said this new “amateur photography runs the risk of being doctored and portrayed as actual events… amid all the noise, all the amateur pictures and editorial, the victim could be the truth and fact-based journalism.”

The developing authentication system would thereby create a technical solution for “full transparency,” according to Glocer, and set a standard for all news editors.

[Via: DigitalCameraInfo]

Published by Chris Malinao

Chris teaches Lightroom as workflow software to photography students at the FPPF, Federation of Philippine Photographers Foundation. He also teaches smartphone photography.