#Filterdrop: Attending to Photographic Alterations

It is well-documented that the alteration of portrait photographs can have a negative impact on a viewer’s self-esteem. One might think that providing written disclaimers warning of alteration might help to mitigate this effect, yet empirical studies have shown that viewers continue to feel like what they are seeing is real, and thus attainable, despite knowing it is not. I propose that this cognitive dissonance occurs because disclaimers fail to show viewers how to look at the contents of a photographic image differently. Consequently, viewers have the same perceptual experience, where the picture appears to faithfully resemble a direct visual experience of the subject, which conflicts with their changing sense of warrant. However, I argue that the degree of perceived similarity, and so contact, may be subject to change depending on what a viewer is attentive to during their viewing of an image, including subtle but unrealistic signs of alteration.


IDEALISED IMAGES
Photographs are frequently altered to idealise the appearance of those who pose for selfies, fashion images, and advertising campaigns. While media photographs have a history of being altered, thanks to the rise of smartphone cameras, apps, and social networks it is now increasingly common for people to edit their own photographs. 1 This may involve the removal or reshaping of the visual features of images, or "airbrushing" these, with the use of apps, such as Facetune, and filters. A well-documented effect of idealised photographic images is the negative impact that they can have on a viewer's self-esteem-particularly in relation to face and body satisfaction. To mitigate this effect and see "more real skin" on Instagram, makeup artist Sasha Louise Pallari started the #filterdrop movement. In doing so, she successfully convinced the Advertising Standards Agency to advise 'that influencers, brands and celebrities should not be using filters on social media when promoting beauty products if the filter is likely to exaggerate the effect that the products are capable of achieving' even if the filter is referenced in the Instagram story. 2 This final detail is important. One might think that written disclaimers warning of alterations should dispel the impression of reality that these images can give, yet empirical studies have shown the opposite.
At best, it has been found that written disclaimers, regardless of the size of the label, tend to have no significant impact on reducing the negative effects of idealised images. 3 A number of studies have actually seen a "boomerang effect". 4 In these cases, some subjects were provided with written disclaimers, warning that the images they viewed were digitally manipulated to enhance the appearance of the models, and reported decreased physical self-esteem and an increased desire to look like the models. This was despite knowing that the images failed to represent a realistic and therefore achievable appearance. To account for this effect, Kristen Harrison and Veronica Hefner suggested that: 'If retouching is generally assumed to have occurred, being told that retouching has occurred would have little or no effect compared to simply viewing the retouched photos without the discounting information.' 5 However, studies that have examined the effects of generic disclaimers (e.g., "Warning: This image has been digitally altered") against specific disclaimers (e.g., "Warning: This image has been digitally altered to trim arms and waist") have in the latter condition observed greater visual attention to specific areas of the body, which was associated with increased body dissatisfaction. 6 Harrison has proposed that the disclosure that celebrity and #Filterdrop: Attending to Photographic Alterations advertising images are retouched can make viewers feel worse about themselves as increased awareness 'of what others edit may heighten our awareness of our own supposed flaws. That may encourage us to spend longer using digital tools to repair them.' 7 Fiona MacCallum and Heather Widdows have likewise proposed that such enhanced attention reinforces conceptions of beauty ideals, such as thinness, which they argue function as ethical ideals. 8 There are then, multiple factors, including norms pertaining to objects of desire and beauty ideals, that feed into the negative effects generated by these idealised images. But it is notable that these discussions always centre around photographic images. As theorists who have produced studies in postfeminist digital sociality have highlighted, photo editing and social media apps tend to help perpetuate youthful, white, slim, and non-disabled beauty ideals that contribute to an intensified, judgemental surveillance of women's appearance. 9 Why is it that photographic, and not other kinds of, images have the strongest effect in promoting these norms to the extent that even when alterations are known about viewers still react to these images as though they represent a realistic and therefore attainable appearance, despite knowing this is patently untrue? I propose that this cognitive dissonance is the result of a divergence between the perceptual and cognitive experiences of viewers. Significantly, photographic images present these ideals with a kind of perceptual immediacy which makes them seem realizable (whether or not this is actually the case).

EPISTEMIC CONTACT
To make an image by photographic means entails registering patterns of light reflected from objects on photosensitive surfaces.
Photography, as standardly practiced, is an easy and efficient way to produce images that cast patterns that are similar to those cast by the real subject. 10 Photographs can thus function as valuable sources of "spatially undemanding" visual information. 11 This is reflected in our cognitive responses to photographs. As Dan Cavedon-Taylor notes, we tend to automatically assent to the contents of photographic images, 12 and only withhold this if we 'possess reasons against thinking the photograph creditworthy'. 13 This sense of warrant, in the beliefs formed on the basis of photographic pictorial experience, is not the only response that tends to be triggered. Photographic pictorial experience is also highly likely to prompt a sense of "epistemic contact". 14 This is a feeling of immediacy where the experience of seeing the visual properties of the subject of the image is similar to the visual experience one would have, seeing these face-to-face. This phenomenon is caused by the arrangement of marks on the surface of figurative pictures 'which, when presented to our visual systems, cause those visual systems to operate in more or less the same ways as they have been caused to operate had they been exposed […] to the things of which they are pictures'. 15 Images produced by photographic means are particularly powerful triggers of our visual systems in this respect due to extra surface and texture detail. 16 Although photographic images may exhibit grain or only monochromatic tones we are still familiar with the perceptual experiences that viewing such images generate, Scott Walden has argued, given their resemblance to visual experiences we have in low-light settings. 17 Nonetheless, the amount of brightness seen in many historic black-and-white photographs, for instance, does not resemble our experiences of encountering subjects in low-light settings very well. 18 Indeed, there is evidence that the experience of epistemic con- 1937, one gets the impression of "seeing" a moment in which Hitler and his company are conversing. However, as Paloma Atencia-Linares highlights, this is an instance of 'deceptive photography'. 23 If it is pointed out that a figure, namely Joseph Goebbels, has been removed from the right-hand side of the photograph, the slightly blurred area which is lighter in tone next to the woman on the far right becomes obvious and results in a less visually compelling impression of the event. That is, upon further inspection, the image, or at least this part of the image, no longer appears to have a high degree of similarity to the subject and so, accordingly, the viewer's sense of epistemic contact decreases. Prior to this omission being highlighted however, it is likely that the viewer has suffered from inattentional blindness -the phenomenon where salient stimuli right in front of an observer's eyes pass unnoticed-and failed to spot anything amiss.
The potential for a sense of contact to alter shows that, contra some of the most recent work on this topic, 24 it is not only the viewer's cognitive responses to a photograph that can change, but perceptual aspects of their photographic pictorial experience may also change. Crucially, these cognitive and perceptual experiences may change independently of one another and potentially come into conflict, as we have seen in the case of the digitally altered photographs. In such cases, I propose that a sense of epistemic contact with the subject of the image can persist, as viewers continue to have the same perceptual experience, which conflicts with their changing sense of warrant. As I have just outlined, if told or shown that an analogue photograph has been subject to alteration, such as the removal or reshaping of its visual features, it can be easy to see and for a sense of contact to alter accordingly, but is it possible to attend to altered digital photographs so that they cease to appear as realistic as they initially seem?

ATTENDING TO PHOTOGRAPHIC ALTERATIONS
It no longer takes a huge amount of training and equipment to convincingly alter a photograph. Not all digital alterations are convincing of course and, interestingly, professional retouchers have spoken of finding alterations produced by amateur retouchers as being highly unconvincing. 25 So, it is possible to see less than realistic marks of certain kinds of image alteration if you know where to look and what signs to look out for. As Christine Lavrence and Carolina Cambre's focus groups with participants aged 18-30 demonstrate, some viewers are attuned to looking for evidence of editing, such as warped lines on walls behind thin bodies, which delegitimises selfies. 26 Indeed, as per the proposed account, once such alteration becomes visible the degree of experienced realism (i.e., of the physics of the scene) decreases and so the sense of contact lessens. 27 Spotting these giveaways is not, however something that tends to come naturally. Studies have shown that people frequently neglect information, like whether shadows and reflections in a scene are consistent, that could aid them in detecting whether an image has been altered. 28 This helps to further explain the inefficacy of generic disclaimers: they fail to show viewers how to look at the contents of a photographic image differently. I propose that the same is likely true of specific disclaimers. Being told that an image has been altered to "trim" a waist might direct attention to that area but does not necessarily help viewers to see less than realistic signs of alteration and so reduce their sense of epistemic contact. As with the analogue case earlier, it may be that viewers suffer from inattentional blindness if they miss signs of alteration that it is possible to spot through visual inspection. Thus, teaching viewers how to attend to photographic images to spot signs of alteration on social networks and media outlets could help to align their perceptual and cognitive experiences if written disclaimers become more widely adopted. This approach could prove helpful as a part of a broader visual literacy education which is less concerned with achieving literacy through images, 29 but more with critical forms of literacy 30 that confront beauty ideals. Specifically, through formal and less formal means, as in the #filterdrop movement and social media accounts highlighting the extent of editing in celebrity selfies, a way of looking can be fostered, which is not judgemental and comparative, 31 but that identifies alterations to reduce cognitive dissonance and interrogate the socio-cultural factors contributing to their being made.
Nevertheless, it is possible to forecast limitations to the proposed approach. The alteration that is most difficult for viewers to detect is airbrushing, 32 a form of photographic image alteration that is now pervasive. It could take days to airbrush an image using analogue means. 33 But with digital techniques, any smartphone user can apply filters, which could make alterations that are virtually imperceptible. For example, the Instagram "Paris" filter  visual inspection alone. Indeed, participants in Lavrence and Cambre's study generally believe that selfies are filtered but when looking at less conspicuously edited idealised images reported thinking, in conflict with their scepticism, "she's so pretty". 35 "Before" and "after" images can show the unreality of convincingly altered photographs. One study, for instance, demonstrated that viewing both "natural" and idealised images reduced the negative impact of the idealised images on women's facial appearance satisfaction. 36 Other studies have demonstrated that interventions involving videos demonstrating the alteration process in relation to thin-ideal images may be effective in the short term to successfully prevent reductions in body satisfaction. 37 However, as