Total recall: better memories through image post-processing

A recent BBC article argues that doctored images alter our memories and, consequently, affect our behavior in a very real way. Personally, I don’t find this surprising, but it brings up an interesting question about post-processing photos that is not aimed at creating hoaxes, but simply enhancing the visual impact or expressing the photographer’s impression (after all isn’t that what “Impressionism” is about?)

Here is an example. I took this photo of a warbler running through the undergrowth in a very dark and shady part of a park (a small forest, really). I wanted to practice shooing with a Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM lens, and this shot really pushed both the camera and the lens to the limit. There was very little available light, I had a 1.4X extender attached to the lens, which further decreased its light capacity by one f-stop, the bird was small and fast-moving, and it was quite far (about 20 m) away from me. Most importantly, this guy was dark-colored – his plumage was a near-perfect camouflage on the background of fallen leaves.

When I opened the exceedingly grainy (due to the expanded ISO range) shot on the computer, it looked really underwhelming. So I decided to try pushing the post-processing much farther than I would normally do. After boosting the color saturation of the feathers and selectively decreasing the contrast and the saturation of the background, I was able to see the details in the bird that were not visible in the original scene. I like this (arguably, “overcooked”) image better than the (higher fidelity) original. This is how I’d like to remember this little bird – full of color.

We might actually be on the way to altering reality for the purpose of creating better memories (think “Total Recall”). Although, this altered memories will probably be mostly hazy, color-shifted and full of lens flares from all the Instagram filters…