The Air Force adds it two cents on photo manipulation

PUBLIC AFFAIRS GUIDANCE FOR ALTERATION OF DOD IMAGERY

1. POSTURE: Active. Queries beyond the scope of this guidance should be directed to AFPAA, 703-696-1158 (DSN 426-1158) or appropriate unit. Organizations should respond to questions relating to their mission or the related policy concerning image alteration. Refer calls to AFPAA only if they go beyond the scope of location-specific information or this PAG.

2. BACKGROUND: On Friday, 14 Nov 08, the Associated Press suspended the use of photos provided by the Defense Department after the Army distributed a digitally altered photo of the U.S. Military’s first female four-star general. The image was cropped to lead viewers to believe the subject was wearing four stars when, in fact, there were only three stars.

3. STATEMENTS:

The Department of Defense has policy, DoD Instruction 5040.05, dated June 6, 2006, which prohibits the alteration of all photographic and video images. The purpose of this policy is to ensure the absolute credibility of official DoD imagery.

It is DoD policy that imagery is an essential tool for decision-makers at every DoD level.

Mission success and the protection of lives and property depend on official DoD imagery being complete, timely, and above all, highly accurate.

Anything that weakens or casts doubt on the credibility of official DoD imagery in or outside the Department of Defense shall not be tolerated.

Specific forms of alteration are allowed in the guidance.

§ Photographic techniques common to traditional darkrooms and digital imaging stations such as dodging, burning, color balancing, spotting, and contrast adjustment that are used to achieve the accurate recording of an event or object are not considered alterations

§ Photographic and video image enhancement, exploitation, and simulation techniques used in support of unique cartography; topography; engineering; geodesy; intelligence; criminal investigation; medical; research, development, test & evaluation; scientific; and training requirements are authorized if they do not misrepresent the subject of the original image.

§ The obvious masking of portions of a photographic image in support of specific security, criminal investigation, privacy, or legal requirements is authorized.

§ The use of cropping, editing, or enlargement to selectively isolate, link, or display a portion of a photographic or video image is not considered alteration. Cropping, editing, or image enlargement that has the effect of misrepresenting the facts or circumstances of the event or object as originally recorded is prohibited.

§ The digital conversion and compression of official DoD imagery is authorized. \

§ Photographic and video post-production enhancement, including animation, digital simulation, graphics, and special effects, used for dramatic or narrative effect in education, recruiting, safety and training illustrations, publications, or productions is authorized under either of the conditions below:

o The enhancement does not misrepresent the subject of the original image; or,

o It is clearly and readily apparent from the context or from the content of the image or accompanying text that the enhanced image is not intended to be an accurate representation of any actual event.

The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs office has oversight of the policy and guidance to ensure the absolute credibility of official Imagery.

AFPAA STATEMENT:

The Air Force trains its photographers, photo-journalists, public affairs specialists and public affairs officers the importance of maintaining absolute credibility of official DoD imagery.

The Air Force solidifies DoDI with Air Force Instructions 35-101, Public Affairs Policies and Procedures, and 33-117, Multimedia Management. The information contained in these instructions echo the intent and information contained in the DoDI.

AFI 33-117, paragraph 2.8.1. reads, “The alteration of a photographic or video image by any means for any purpose other than to establish the image as the most accurate reproduction of an event is prohibited.”

4. KEY MESSAGES:

• Credibility of DoD imagery is critical to mission accomplishment and the protection of lives and property.

• The DoD has provided clear and unquestionable guidance concerning the alteration of official imagery.

• The policies and procedures concerning image alteration are taught in various levels of training classes to Air Force photographers, photo-journalists, public affairs specialists, and public affairs officers.

• The U.S. Air Force takes the credibility of imagery very seriously.

• The Air Force will not tolerate the alteration of imagery with the intent to deceive. Official imagery must be used to establish an accurate representation of an actual event.

5. OTHER INFO:

DoDI 5040.05, Alteration of Official DoD Imagery, can be found at:

http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/ins1.html

AFI 35-101, Public Affairs Policies and Procedures can be found at:

http://www.e-publishing.af.mil/shared/media/epubs/AFI35-101.pdf

AFI 33-117, Multimedia Management, can be found at:

http://www.e-publishing.af.mil/shared/media/epubs/AFI35-101.pdf

7. CONTACTS:

AFPAA: Refer all queries relating to the alteration of official DoD imagery to 703-696-1158.

Awards Given

This past weekend I have my reserve weekend and found an envelop on my desk with my awards for the Milgraph (Military Graphics) competition that was judged in Feb 08. Although I only got an honorable mention for animation and illustration, the competition is against full timers/active duty folks in all 5 services which includes the coast guard. Not that to many people could give a crap but yeah! for me!!!

On a second note I went around base and took photos with my new Nikon D90 just looking for those artsy fartsy shoots that are so overlooked. I found beautiful fall colors up on "reserve hill" where the army keeps alot of stuff in metal containers. I came across some rolls of razor wire with fallen leaves and a berry plant growing out of them. Nice shots which I played with in Lightroom and photoshop.

Cool Photo site - check it out

A site I came across of itunes so if you want to learn about photo and listen to podcasts about photo give these guys a listen and check out their site.

http://twipphoto.com/

Perhaps AOL has solved my "other site" problem!!!

Attention AOL Hometown Users -- United States

Posted on Aug 4th 2008 2:34PM by Kelly Wilson

Dear AOL Hometown user,

We're sorry to inform you that on Oct. 31, 2008, AOL® Hometown will be shut down permanently. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Though you will be able to modify your Hometown site until this date, we urge you to save your AOL... blah... blah... blah..

A New Beginning!!! Right!!!

I have linked this to my home page @wcpope.com and I promise to keep it up with witty remarks and interesting stories... okay we'll see about that.

AOL really sucks!

I haven't had a AOL account in oh I dont know 5 years? or more? and when I left them I figured (stupid me) that they would pull down and delete my "hometown" or whatever they called it wcpope website. well if you go in to aol and do a search low and behold my site is still up and chugging along, why is this a bad thing you ask??? well it is attached to my wcpope@aol.com address which no longer is valid because yes I got off aol! and I have had many a customer looking for my work or to get me for a gig write that address and that butt face WCpope doesnt reply!!!! jerk!!! I have called them on numerous occasions and asked them to take it down and the lakey on the other end of the phone usually has to run off and "ask their supervisor" and they always come back with they cant do anything about it but it will be deleted soon.... 5 plus years ago and it is still up. I even tryed rejoining just to get rid of it and I can't even get the wcpope name back to get to it!!!! wow gotta love those big compassionate corporations!!! perhaps I could get ahold of a CEO or someone on the corporate board on their yaht in the mediterrainion with there trophy wives with the silicone boobs and cocaine on their top lips while praying to jesus and supporting the troops.

i always get a kick out of putting bumper stickers and other automobile things on the airplanes.

Pope Puns Air Force Cartoons

got a bunch of new cartoons up in the Air Force section of Military. com, check them out

New stuff on wcpope studio at cafepress

Check it out not only do I have new stuff up on cafepress, but my nine-year-old daughter has some of her fantastic work up there also. She came to me the other day while I was drawing in my studio and said "dad, I want to sell t-shirts with my drawings on 'em." It took me a couple of days to think of how we could do this and it dawned on me as I was uploading art to my cafepress account!!! so here is her first online sales pitch! Buy some stuff!!!

http://www.cafepress.com/wcpope

Stuff

I have been working on a batch of my military cartoons, getting them ready for Airman and Citizen Airman magazine and perhaps create a few Marine Corps ones to send off to Leatherneck, but is seems lately they haven't been taking any.
I have been drawing a few more cartoons on my Wacom tablet directly into the computer by way of Macromedia's Flash and coloring the in either Photoshop or Paintshop Pro. This process seems a little weird since I can't get a good feel of how big or small I am drawing things, its just a bit disorienting for me! I am used to drawing in the "real" world and scanning them in to photoshop to color or I bring them up in paintshop pro 9 and oil paint them, follow these links to see the scanned and painted cartoons:

http://www.af.mil/news/airman/0505/pope.shtml
http://www.af.mil/news/airman/0405/pope.shtml

I am kinda taking the place of gentleman by the name of Jake Schuffert who died a few years a, but he had been doing that magazines cartoons since before the Air Force was the Air Force! (Prior to 1947) Back until a couple of years ago in the advent of the photoshope and digital printing era, cartoons were cheapest to print as "line art" only which would not intail doing halftone screens and color seperations, a long heartbreaking excercise I know because i did that sort of stuff for ten years! So line art was the main stay of the cartoons so Jake's stuff was drawn with pen and ink and then he would add shading with Zipatone adhesive screens, you know the little black dots in cartoons?!? But now the industry has changed and you don't have to do backflips to print color, so I thought it would be a cool idea to start painting a oil painting color into my cartoons! And I think it has a different and interesting look, but you be the judge!

I am actually thinking of gettting Corel's "Painter" program.... hmmmmm

Supergirl for sale

I've been trying to come up with new marketing avenues with my art and I have found that Supergirl is a popular character in the comics universe. I have tryed to make her a bit more sexy and buxom. This was created with the Faber-Castell Pitt artist pen (brush) and colored in with Prismacolor pencils which I have used for over 25 years.
In coming blogs i will try to include some "how I draw stuff" so be watching! ~the pontiff

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Hey, its been awhile

yeah, yeah I know its been months since I last posted but it has been busy around here! Artwork artwork artwork!

reader's digest request

Got a request from reader's digest for some military cartoons so I have been working on them for the last few days. Still working on the airshow tee design. I have to get my butt in gear!

Westover Airshow t-shirts

Today, i spent a lot of time working up some ideas for the great new england air show t-shirts. One of which will be more of a traditional illustration in pen and ink cross hatching and the other more cartoony with my infamous egg shaped C-5a Galaxy. My others sold extrememely well this last summer and fall at the Westover shopette so we thought these two new designs would sell well. I plan on creating a poster advertising that these tees where created by the official cartoonist of the Air Force Reserve for whatever that will be worth.
I am also working on a portrait for a client and other work for some of webstuff.
The last few days I have been working up a lot of ideas for cartoons (Pope's Puns) to send to "Airman", "Citizen Airman" and "leatherneck" some that I can complete on my next reserve weekend at Westover ARB in Mass.