Since I’ve opened this page many years
ago, integrity has always been part of it. Only real quality works, no copycat
artists, no stealed artworks, no stuff from people I’m not a 100%
convinced of, even if that mean I have to say no to someone asking
nicely. That’s why this photoshop thing is pissing me off so much. If
you don’t know what I’m talking about, trust me, you will soon, I
just want to set things straight first.
As you probably imagine, most of the
stuff I post is from instagram, as it’s the biggest image suorce at the moment. We all know instagram have filters. Everyone and everything looks better on
instagram. People add filters, set lights, fix imperfections. They do it
for many reasons, from insecurity, to greed, to just being
superficial. It’s kinda sad if you ask me, specially cause it’s something we are used to. We all know we can’t trust
internet stuff.
But when it comes to tattoos, when the
shopped stuff is someone portfolio, and his/her popularity, and
consequently his/her job, and the trust of his clients depends from
it, is it still ethical?
Let’s be clear, there is nothing wrong
in trying to take the better pic of your work, finding a good light,
or add a lens to avoid glare, as explained in this post from Russ
Abbott.
But when you completely shop a pic (or a
video), when you saturate the color to make them look brighter, when
you set the saturation so high it looks like you are taking pics in a
cave, or just when what you post has nothing to share with the actual
tattoo, you are crossing a line.
You want some example?
@tattooedtruthfairy is full of it, and it’s the source of the pics in this post too. I mean, look at the artist’s gloves inthis video… It’s so over the edge it’s almost funny. And yes, some of the
artist called out on there have been featured on here too (luckily just a few), and now I
regret posting their stuff. I knew their pics were shopped, I just didn’t know how
much. I should have pay more attention, and I’m sorry for that.
As you can see, the posts are mostly about realism specialized artists. A good realistic tattoo it’s hard to pull off, and it’s even harder to make it last. Having no black outline, force the artists to work more on contrast, and sometimes to use white ink to recreate lightsources. And there is no way white ink can look as bright as in some of their posts. It’s not hard to tell a real pic from a shopped one. Look at the contest, like the clothes or the fornitures, or at the client’s skin tone (a pale skin it’s still not plain white). And of course I’m not saying all the artists on that page are bad, sometimes the tattoo would still look good, technically and artistically speaking, even with no filters and mods. Like this skull from Ben Kaye, where you can see the healed piece on the right compared with the fresh/oversaturated one:
Still a great piece, right? You just have to know if someone is trying to trick you, specially if you are considering to give him/her a lot of money and your trust. Just
remember, when it looks too good to be true, it’s probably cause it’s
not.
